This Southampton striker was worth keeping, and his replacement just keeps proving it

Divin Mubama got just five touches of the ball after coming on at Birmingham City on Tuesday. While ranking the summer arrivals, Kelan Sarson still gave him seven out of ten.

Southampton spent the following day putting Damion Downs on a plane to Missouri, where St Louis City have taken him on loan through their 2027 season and, more to the point, negotiated an option to buy him at the end of it.

The striker Southampton stopped waiting for

Rewind a year. Köln had just watched Downs score eleven times in a promotion season and Southampton stumped up £7m and offered the USMNT striker a four-year contract.

He played fourteen times for the Saints last season and never scored. There is no dressing that up, of course, but Downs was denied minutes under Will Still, amassing just 395 minutes (roughly 4 matches).

So why does this one still nag? Because sixteen months ago Downs was scoring for fun in Germany, because he is 6ft 4in, and because Southampton paid £7m for both of those things before deciding that one year was plenty.

The sporting director who signed him for St Louis spent his announcement talking about pace, athleticism and running in behind, which is a fair description of a forward Southampton paid for and hardly used.

He arrived into a season that finished with the club being thrown out of a play-off final, went to Hamburg in January, and never got a proper run under Tonda Eckert at all.

Twelve minutes against Stoke, five touches at Birmingham

Mubama needed about twelve minutes of his home debut to drill the winner past Victor Johansson, and Southampton had their first league win of the season. Lovely night. Nobody is taking that away from the lad.

Since then he has come on for Cyle Larin twice and contributed 100% of naff-all! A booking at Birmingham, five touches, and before that a quiet twenty minutes of the 5-1 drubbing of Millwall.

Saints Marching, rating the summer window, called him a promising loan with a similar profile to Larin. Promising is fine. Promising is also exactly what Southampton had in Downs before they lost patience.

Mubama belongs to Manchester City until May, so every goal he scores prices him further out of the Saints' reach. Downs was already under contract to Southampton for another three years. Releasing Downs should never have been allowed to happen.

Larin has four league goals and is carrying the attack on his own. Should he tweak a hamstring in October, Eckert reaches for a loanee with one Saints goal to his name, while the forward with a promotion in his legs plays in Missouri.

Pretty dumb move and nothing 'divine' about it.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow