Ronald Koeman has said that despite the departure of Steven Caulker he will still only be looking to make a move for one player in the transfer window.
Ronald koeman has played down reports linking him with virtually every player on the continent and beyond in this transfer window, speaking ahead of tonight's game against Watford the Saints manager confirmed that firstly he would not be looking to replace Caulker.
"No because everybody is looking for centre backs and we need players at the moment who makes the team better and we need players that are better than the players that we have and not have numbers in the team,” he said. "We need young ones for that."
"We spoke about his situation and Steven came in in the summer, still before we signed Virgil van Dijk.
"We had Florin Gardos with a long term injury and he was a back-up at that moment.
"He didn’t play a lot and normally we have more defenders for that position and I am not the coach to complain his future and to stop his opportunity to play for Liverpool.”
"If we will bring in a player it will be one, not more,”
"We are not a club who will be worried and to bring in much more players than we need. No.”
Koeman also scotched rumours that he was about to make a move for Feyenoord's Tonny Vilhena and likewise a potential loan deal for former Saints star Calum Chambers, who is now at Arsenal, as "impossible.”
"I like enough players but it’s too expensive, It’s impossible for Southampton to bring in.
"It’s difficult in the winter and time to really bring in better players than we have.”
Koeman also denied that Manchester United had been in touch about Jake Hesketh .
"No. I don’t know,”
"I read something in the press about Man United. I don’t know.
"Jake Hesketh is an under-21 player. I don’t know the situation"
So is Koeman really only after one player and if so what one and in what position, he has previously stated that he was only after a striker and this would make sense given that the Jay Rodriguez injury situation is unclear and that Sadio Mane could go if not in this transfer window but in the summer.
But is that still his priority and he could be simply trying to deflect interest away from his true targets, certainly most managers when asked direct questions about possible transfer targets go into a default deny everything mode and Koeman is no different.
But he is right the squad is good enough yes perhaps a couple of the players are not yet to the standard that their predecessors where last season, but sometimes in football you have to build a squad over time rather than wit quick fixes ad Koeman certainly seems to think that he is going in the right direction.
Saints fans have to trust Koeman to get it right, but they have to understand that in football you cannot always keep having a better season than last, Saints have done well over the past two, this season now needs to be about consolidating those gains and then looking to move forward again, a top ten finish remains the aim and if that turns out to be the case then we will truly have foundations to build on to take the next step forward.