Sometimes a throwaway line at a fans' forum tells you more than a month of rumours. When a supporter teased that Swansea might sell their main striker, the sporting director grinned and gave the game away.
A promise, not a maybe
"You want me to announce something?" Spors said, before doing pretty much that. "We will do something on the striker position. This is for sure."
That's about as concrete as a director gets in August. With Ross Stewart gone to Swansea and Cyle Larin still building match fitness, the logic behind it writes itself.
Larin is the one nailed-on senior number nine right now. He signed permanently from Mallorca on a two-year deal after eight goals in nine starts, yet leaning on a single striker across a forty-six-game slog is asking for trouble.
Names are already swirling around St Mary's. Southampton have opened talks over Como's Iván Azón at around £8m, the forward Saints Marching reckons is not the one fans want, while Karlsruhe's Louey Ben Farhat sits further down a busy list.
Ben Farhat brings his own complications. The 2. Bundesliga forward has admirers at Bournemouth, Salzburg and Lille, so any Saints move would mean winning a scrap.
The bit that should worry you
Here's the issue. Azón managed just five Championship goals in twenty starts on loan at Ipswich last term, from chances worth more than double that return.
Those are unsettling figures for a first-choice signing. Saints Marching has already warned that the club's striker hunt looks shaky if it settles for a name over a finisher.
Don't forget the option already inside the building. Damion Downs endured a rough first year after his £7m move, yet Tonda Eckert clearly rates him as another body next to Larin. There's a decent case for trusting the youngster rather than splashing out elsewhere.
Spors hinted the search might not follow the obvious script. He talked about staying "in the market for opportunities," the kind of deal that lands when "something comes on the table that you did not see coming a week earlier."
The squad is being trimmed at the same time, too. The club wants a leaner group, so this striker signing has to sit alongside outgoings rather than simply pile another name onto the wage bill.
So the position is set and the targets are on the board. Whether Southampton land a gamble or a goalscorer is the one call that could shape their whole season.
A promotion push with a clinical number nine looks like proper ambition. Lean on a punt who can't find the net, though, and watch the summer's optimistic mood sour the moment those chances start going begging.
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