Southampton's first team nowadays doesn't include the club's biggest star and Transfermarkt has confirmed this.
Leicester City are among the most resolute Championship performers so far, Southampton fans need to nod heads with this fact. Still, they aren't leading the Championship and I get it that the ones sitting undisputed at the top deserve the giant share of praise.
In the same conversation though, Saints need to recall Leicester were getting shouted out for point deductions and tough times by pundits. That is a bottleneck one wishes to escape while shelving cases for promotion.
The other that can come to mind is offloading elite stars like Saints did. Excusable, but Southampton have now went off the rails in committing an even stupid mistake which is benching the club's best rated player.
In a Transfermarkt report, Taylor Harwood-Bellis has been adjudged as the top-rated Championship player against a €22m price tag, thus, it's confirmed he is Southampton's most in-demand gem out there.
Harwood-Bellis confirmation shows Saints puzzled transfer stance
The irony stems from Will Still's fixation on Harwood-Bellis' centre-back counterparts over him to command the defensive box. The 23-year-old has thereby marked a hat-trick of spending time on the touchlines when a team's best name should be putting in the hard yards on the pitch.
Even in his off form, Harwood-Bellis is expected to shrug off Joshua Quarshie or Ronnie Edwards from the back but when will he displace the latter duo is unknown.
An uncomfortable argument is also boiling as a side thought - was it wise to turn back on the hefty Harwood-Bellis pay packages West Ham and others were apparently in the mix to pay?
It's not about the fees lost, €22m is a subtle price point does not matter if the January window is often passive to lofty bidding transfers. What Southampton didn't fetch was a budget defender on Still's orders, who could pull the rest of the backline in sync.