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Southampton Agree Personal Terms With Leeds United Target Tuesday, 8th Jun 2021 09:05
Media reports are saying that Saints have agreed personal terms with Stade Brest defender Romain Perraud, now they just need to agree a fee with the French club from whom they also signed Ibrahima Diallo last summer.
Leeds united have long been admirers of Romain Perraud, but if media reports are to be believed then Saints have stolen a march on the Yorkshire club and left back Perraud will be the replacement for the soon to depart Ryan Bertrand.
So who is Perraud ? Here we take a look .
Well he is a 23 year old Frenchman who started his career at Nice but made only a few appearances for the club and spent 2018/19 season on loan in the second tier of French football at Paris FC.
His form impressed Stade Brest who in the summer of 2019 paid just under £2 million to sign him on a permanent basis, his first season was solid if not spectacular with the French season ending in March with the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic.
But in 2020/21 he has been one of Brest's best players barely missing a game and more importantly from a Saints perspective he has been not only good from a defensive perspective, but also in attack, scoring 3 goals plus 7 assists in 36 Ligue 1 games.
So from those stats he would seem like an exciting addition to the Saints squad .
The only real worry would be that he appears to be a late starter, he will turn 24 in September and only has two seasons of experience in top flight football in France with Stad Brest having been no more than a squad player with OSG Nice.
From an International perspective, Perraud played for France at every level up to Under 20, but has failed to make the jump up to the U21 side or the full international squad just yet.
Saints are undoubtedly buying into the potential he has shown in the past year and from this perspective he is valued at around £7 million according to transfermarkt, but Saints still have to negotiate a fee with Brest and with Leeds United and also Newcastle still sniffing around that could push the fee higher, but is seems Saints have the advantage in that they have agreed terms with the player and he wants to come to St Mary's.
Perraud only signed a new 4 year deal with Stad Brest in January so the French Club can call the shots on price, but even with other clubs interested it will perhaps not rise too much.
Certainly Romain Perraud seems to be the type of player that Saints target and target well, some experience but not yet quite there in terms of potential and with a hunger to succeed.
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Can he be our first signing? Agreeing terms with the player (and his agent) is one thing, but finding the right amount for the fee with the club is something else. Clearly Saints aren't going to pay big money for anyone in the present climate, but where there's a will .. both sides will benefit from a sensible agreement on the deal.
Typically for Saints - who often get a deal done under the media's radar, he is not a name that has been bandied every day about in the media for our LB spot. IF it happens, let's hope he's a good investment.
Worth also noting that Brest finished 17th out of 20 teams in Ligue 1 last season, finishing ahead of relegated Nantes by one point conceding 66 goals.
It's somewhat ironic that we are buying a defender from Brest, a team that finished 17th with one of the worst defensive records in the French league while our former defender, Jose Fonte, captained Lille to the French league title with the best defensive record in Europe.
Yeah well we conceded 60 last year then sold a left back, who wasn't even first choice, to Villa, and then he became their player of the season this year... So those stats really mean nothing. Unless you believe we would have conceded less with Targett instead of Bertrand.. What I am interested in is how quick and hungry he is. If Leeds have been keen, I'd imagine he has, the qualities to play their energetic style so maybe this is a good move by us.
On the flip, it only appears that Ings and JWP are really coveted by others in the league so I don't hold out much hope of refreshing all the areas we need to in order to avoid the drop. I'm concerned by the idea of spending large sums on Walcott and Minamino when we have Tella, Watts and Chauke coming through in the next year and we need to sort full back cover more importantly.
I agree with Coburn that Ings and JWP are the obvious candidates to attract attention, but Walcott and Minamino have a lot of experience and the younger players will be doing a lot of running for them. Both those players should be up front more as they get " picked off " far too easily in midfield, but do have very good goalscoring records at a high level. Although they will cost us a bit more than most in salary, the up-and-coming youngsters you mentioned won't be earning such huge amounts in the early stages of their careers.
I'm still looking for another proven striker - in any event Ings will go next summer anyway, so we ought to get someone else in to provide back-up / competition for Ings / Adams.
The other point is the policy of " buying 'em " in pairs, as Diallo is already in place. This began back to the 1970's when at various times we bought in two Yugoslavs, two Russians, ditto Latvians, Colombians , Norwegians, Swedes, Poles, Danes etc, etc. One should never neglect the cultural factor in a move and merely sharing a language with someone else is never enough to help players "settle in " successfully.
No sure about Minamino but he has been scoring for Japan. I think this signing looks sensible so let's give the guy a chance (if he does join). We need to be supportive of our new signings.
On the basis of our previous reputation for winning the lowest net spend trophy year after year, I’m surprised that we are in the frame to buy anybody so early in the close season. Suggests to me that we must have some pretty solid bids in already for the likes of Ings, Vestergard and possibly JWP.
Unfortunately he fits right into the Saints principle of not signing anyone over 5ft 9 inches (he is 5ft 8 inches). Sad to see Saints being out jumped and bullied by teams that are head and shoulders taller than us. We are far too lightweight.
With rumours of Saints finances being in a mess, and a real need to generate spending money, I can see a whole new bargain line-up being at St Mary's next season. I reckon Ralph could have one hell've job on his hands.
He looks like the sort of player who’ll take a year or so to settle in, but after that will ether emerge as a gem or turn out as yet another flop! As I can’t see him being a regular sort of player from what I’ve seen/read about him, so it’ll simply be down to whether he can keep performing in the PL as it’s certainly a very different league to the French Legaue.
But honestly I don’t get why everyone’s going on about Prowse as unless any of the 4 champions league teams of next season come knocking (in which so far I’ve heard absolutely nothing about) then he won’t be going as we need him too much, and even with financial issues it’ll be the likes of Ings or Vestergaard who go
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