Southampton have been given a light at the end of the tunnel in their pursuit of Manchester City striker Liam Delap, with the son of ex Saints player Rory Delap being told he can leave the Etihad.

Earlier this summer Saints reportedly had a bid of £16 million turned down by Manchester City for teenage striker Liam Delap, however the deal could soon be on after Pep Guardiola confirmed that the teenage forward will leave the Etihad on loan.

“We loaned ‘Macca’ [James McAtee, to Sheffield United], Liam is in that process because we have Erling and Julian and he needs minutes. The EDS phase is done. He has to try and go there and play the other ones.”

This could be interesting news for Saints, clearly when they made the bid for Delap he was interested in the move and he obviously knows new Saints head of recruitment Joe Shields well from their time spent together at the City academy.

A loan deal might suit Saints better now than a permanent move, it would reduce expenditure and enable them to also tackle other areas of concern in the team, such as in the centre of defence.

Delap is still only 19, the same age that Armado Broja was when he joined Saints a year ago, although the Chelsea man was within weeks of turning 20 and had a season on loan at Vitesse Arnhem, whereas Delap wont leave his teens until February and although has played for City in the Premier League twice has little experience of first team football at any level.

City are clearly keen to keep Delap and as mentioned that could now suit Saints.

Photo: Action Images

Monksway added 14:54 - Aug 16 I think they'll loan him to Vincent Kompany at Burnley where he is likely to be sure of more game time.
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AmericanSaint added 15:10 - Aug 16 Monk - I think you are right, especially since we purchased a few. One thing we have going is that we showed with Broja that he could get game time here, so many we will get lucky. Cross your fingers as I hear he has a bright future and is a proven scorer.
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1teeminants added 15:11 - Aug 16 Monks way he’ll get loads of game time with saints in a higher league . No brainier. Get it done saints.
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GRIM added 15:16 - Aug 16 Man City would probably put a condition on the loan that LD is guaranteed a minimum number of games in the season. Not sure Saints could commit to that.
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KriSaint added 15:24 - Aug 16 Sign the kid for a season on loan. What is there to lose? He probably has a decent throw-in as well :)
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Colburn added 17:14 - Aug 16 Yep, totally agree. Where better for him to come than here with Lavia, Bazunu and his old coach. Is Adams going to be sold?
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darthvader added 10:44 - Aug 17 Rory's son has gone to Stoke... So he obviously liked them more than us when he played
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TeamCortese added 13:01 - Aug 17 We need someone with more experience and I don't think it makes sense to hand over such a critical position through developing another PL team's player. To be frank I thought this transfer was put to bed once we signed Sekou Mara? Unless he's as talented as Kane was 7-8 years I don't think it's worth the gamble and even then it would have to be at the very least a loan with the obligation to buy. We need to have higher standards and bite the bullet on a proven striker. We also need to get an experienced CB who can lead and marshal the defence. ABK and Salisu are good but need guidance via good leadership from an experience CB. This will more than likely accelerate their development longer-term.

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