Celta Vigon are said to be keen to sign Sofiane Boufal on a permanent basis, however they are not so keen to do it at the fee agreed in the terms of the loan deal.
Sofiane Boufal came to Southampton with high hopes from the supporter base and they soon found out that although he had talent and could score some spectacular goals, that his style of play did not suit the way that all three of the managers he played under wanted to put out their sides .
Boufal's two seasons were not great but he did contribute to the cause, his spectacular goal to win the EFL cup game against Sunderland helped us to a Wembley final, his stunning strike against Middlesbrough come the final reckoning was worth around £6 million in prize money being the difference between where we finished and where we would have without those extra two points.
His solo goal against West Brom last term although not technically being the difference between staying up and going down was ultimately two points that kept our heads just above water and gave us vital breathing space at the end of that awful season.
So although some would say Boufal was an expensive waste of time, sometimes you have to look at a bigger picture and what his individual contributions actually meant and from this perspective if we get a decent fee back for him, he wont have been the expensive flop that many would claim.
For the Spanish club he has been a regular and that has led them to want to make the move permanent, it is said that there is a clause in the loan agreement to allow him to move for 15 million euros a fee around 3 million Euros less than what we paid for him.
If that fee was met then i would say that we would have had a good return for our money given his individual contributions and that we would recoup most of the fee.
But it seems that Celta Vigo are not keen on him at that price and are looking to negotiate, so the big question will be what are they willing to pay ?
We are not in a strong position in that they know he does not feature in our plans at least not at present, so they will play on the fact that we will be looking to get rid of him and try to get him cheaply.
For Saints the first job this summer is to build up a reasonable transfer kitty from those players who are deemed surplus to requirements, I think that if Celta Vigo would be willing to pay around 12 million euros then this would be a good compromise, although we would still be down on our original purchase price, we would be recouping around 2/3 of that sum and all things being equal that would not be a disaster.
It would also mean that our transfer kitty assuming the Gabbiadini money is sitting there would be well over £20 million and with the possibility of more than doubling that if we can get reasonable fees for Cedric, Wesley Hoedt & Guido Carrillo.
Then it will be about raking a few more million here and there from players in the squad who are either fringe players or out on loan, Harrison Reed, Jake Hesketh and Jodie Clasie for instance and then the likes of Jack Stephens, Sam Gallagher, Charlie Austin, even Alex McCarthy could also be moved on , perhaps adding another £20 million to the kitty f we are lucky.