According to several stories in the media this morning both Manchester United and City are gearing up to sign Sadio Mane.
Sadio Mane appears to be hot stuff if you believe the media this morning, despite the fact that he cannot sign for either of them for the best part of four months, the rumours are flying in the press.
United made no real obvious move to sign Mane in the January transfer window perhaps backing up claims that back in August Mane had been linked linked with a move to Old Trafford solely to deflect criticism aimed at Ed Woodward for losing Pedro to Chelsea.
The other fly in the ointment is that firstly United's manager next week let alone next season is far from certain, they will not have any firm transfer targets at present due to that uncertainty, likewise City with Pep Guardiola arriving in the summer they will be yet to firm up their strategy and I would be very surprised, given his stats, if Mane was on the list, Guardiola can shop at Harrods, he will not be in Lidl's
The real puzzle to Saints supporters though is just why either club, along with Chelsea if you believe the press would want to sign him.
Mane's popularity at the club isn't great at the moment, that is mainly due to the rumours, but even last season up until his hat trick against Aston Villa it wasn't exactly great last season.
The reason for that was that his performances !
This is why Saints fans are so puzzled, last season Mane was good value for his £12 million transfer fee given his 10 goal Premier League haul, but that figure was exaggerated by that hat trick, prior to that he had scored only twice in over three months and 12 games, without those three goals his record would be no more than average, indeed take out the three straight games he scored in over Xmas of that season and his goals were sporadic at best, the hat trick made it 10 goals in 30 games, without the hat trick 7 in 28 would mean worse than a 1 in 4 ratio.
This season has been no better in 22 starts plus 3 off the bench in the Premier League he has managed a mere 3 goals, that's a 1 in 8 game ratio, the last of these goals being against Liverpool back in October where he tapped home Gaston Ramirez header just as it was crossing the line anyway.
Since then absolutely nothing in 15 League games, although in fairness he has been good in most games to some degree, the fact is as a goal scoring striker he has been poor.
If any of the club's linked had scouts watching their reports would not be glowing, indeed at United he missed a glorious chance to put us ahead in the first half and he seems unable to get in meaningful shots these days, get him one on one with a defender or keeper and its woeful.
Despite all this I am not one of those who screams abuse at him, he is a decent player when he is on form and his confidence is up, but he is not of the standard that United, City or Chelsea would demand.
So this is why I am so puzzled myself as to why his name is continuously linked, I cannot believe that it is the club's themselves spreading the rumour, but when you then see that he is after a £125k a week deal, perhaps it makes it clearer that it is more likely Mane's agent leaking the news, he is probably keen to secure Mane a new deal if not elsewhere at St Mary's and is using the press to try and force Saints hand.
The problem he will have though is that after the last few months if the club were offered the fantastic sums of money that have been claimed to be about to change hands in his transfer fee, Saints would have snatched the buying club's hands off.
Saints strategy these days is simple, it is about knowing exactly what a player is worth, when they are offered far more than that worth, it is time to sell the player and get in a replacement far cheaper but with the potential to be as good as if not better than the departed player withing a short period of time.
Saints fans will not like to hear that, after all like most football fans they want to see players kept for long periods, but that is not how the game works these days, Saints have been one of the first to realise that, they know they can not compete with the big guns in terms of transfer fee's and wages, so they have to use another strategy to be able to do so.
Sadio Mane will be a part of that strategy, but I seriously doubt that he will go to one of the truly big club's.