Well, that saves Southampton a job. Daniel Jebbison looks like he's staying at Bournemouth, so Saints can stop wasting time, and Birmingham and Blackburn are left in the same boat.
Why the fuss over a squad forward, you ask? He was tidy on loan at Preston last season, tidy enough that half the Championship fancied a punt. Genoa and Hamburg had a look too, and Wrexham hovered.
Blackburn had even agreed a loan-to-buy at one stage, only for it to collapse. Word now is that Jebbison wants to fight for a place at the Vitality, which sends the rest hunting elsewhere.
Does that leave Southampton short? Not really.
Why this miss barely registers
Losing a target usually smarts. This one shouldn't.
Southampton went shopping for a forward once Ross Stewart left for Swansea City on a free, and Jebbison was one name jotted down. Saints Marching had already argued Southampton would be better placed elsewhere than getting involved in a scrap for the Bournemouth man. That call ages well.
Look closer and the fuss cools. Six goals in 40 games at Preston is fine, hardly the sort of return that swings a promotion race. He's 22, a Canada international with seven caps, and something of a nomad since Sheffield United sold him to Bournemouth in 2024. Three loans since, at Burton, Watford and Preston. Still no home to call his own.
There is a player in there. Would he have walked into this attack, though? You would struggle to argue it.
Larin and Mubama already have it covered
Look at what Southampton did instead. Divin Mubama landed on loan from Manchester City on Tuesday, a 21-year-old who scored five in 28 for Stoke last term, a hat-trick against Bristol City among them, and who added two goals on City's pre-season tour of Asia.
Then there is Cyle Larin, made permanent in June, who led the line (admittedly from off the bench) in the Carabao Cup win at Colchester. Damion Downs is still about as well, £7m of him, backed to answer the critics after a bruising first year in England.
Cameron Archer is the striker who might head the other way, with Wrexham and West Brom keen on him. Even so, four senior forwards in the building is hardly a crisis.
Saints Marching mapped out where the Charles cash should land, and a fourth-choice centre-forward was nowhere near the top. That reads like the right order of business.
Jebbison stays put, three clubs miss out, and nobody on the south coast is losing sleep. Birmingham and Blackburn will feel this one far more than Tonda Eckert's lot will.
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