According to several media sources this morning Ronald Koeman is bidding for an alternative to Celtic's Virgil Van Dijk.
With the Virgil Van Dijk saga looking set to run for another fortnight unless Celtic relent and release him before their Champions League fate is known, it seems that Saints manager Ronald Koeman is looking at his other options and one of those alternatives could be Napoli's Kalidou Koulibaly if the Italian press is to be beleived.
Saints are being reported as lodging a £8.5 million bid for Koulibaly and they think that they can get him for less than Van Dijk.
Now how serious this bid is, is another matter and it could be somebody, either Saints or perhaps the players agent putting this rumour out to try and force Celtic into a corner and bring the move forward.
Koulibaly who is 6ft 5 inches and 24 years old joined Napoli from Genk last summer and made 27 SerieA appearances for Napoli last term, prior to that he played 64 league games in Belgium for Genk and 41 for Metz in his native France.
He has not won full International honours for France although he has played for the U20 side, like Van Dijk he fits the bill of what Saints look for in a player, young enough to be able to mould into the Saints way of things, but old enough to have enough experience that he can be plunged straight into the first team.
Kalidou Koulibaly has been linked with Saints earlier in the summer, the question is if this is a serious bid, merely a journalist trying to make up a story or two or an attempt to force Celtic to release Van Dijk earlier thn they seem keen to.