Stuart Armstrong was a key player for Southampton over a number of seasons after his move from Celtic in the summer of 2018, but now it seems that his time at the club is nearing an end.

There has been a lot of speculation about several Saints players over the last few weeks, but mostly it has been about those who have fairly high transfer fees on their heads such as Romeo Lavia, James Ward Prowse, Kyle Walker Peters, Mohammed Salisu and Armel Bella Kotchap, however other members of thew squad are also the subject of speculation.

An article on FootballLeagueWorld has suggested that one of those players is Stuart Armstrong and they also suggest that the Scottish midfielder would prefer a move to a club on the Continent.

Initially the Scot struggled to adapt in his first season with Saints in 2018/19, but he came of age in the second half of the season after the arrival of Ralph Hasenhuttl at St Mary's.

For several seasons he was pretty much a regular, but in the last two seasons his influence has waned, although several injuries seem to have affected his performance.

In 2022/23 he featured in 32 of the 38 Premier League games and was an unused sub on another 3 occasions, but he was far from first choice managing just 1,403 minutes on the field, it was a similar number of minutes in 2021/22, although in that season he played in just 25 games.

That contrasts with 2020/21 when he played almost double the number of minutes, 2,774 to be exact, scoring 5 goals plus 3 assists and at this point in his career he was a vital member of the Saints squad.

But as mentioned in the last two seasons his influence has waned and although at times he has shown the levels of performance that we had grown used to, the truth is that there was something wrong that no one could quite pinpoint, was it injury issues or something else, either way he was not the player he was, in 2022/23 he started only 16 of the 32 games he was involved in, in the Premier League.

Now FootballLeagueWorld are running the story that the 31 year old who has started 96 Premier League games plus another 53 as sub scoring 16 goals in the process would like a move to a European club.

Undoubtably Stuart Armstrong even at 31 could still cut it in the Championship in the coming season, but taking into account his age and the fact that his contract is due up next summer, Saints might well prefer the option to move him on and get a fee for him.

Transfermarkt have his current value at around £5 million and that could well tip the balance in Saints thinking if they receive an offer in that region from a club.

The reality may well be that it would be slightly less, but with a squad top heavy at the moment a clear out is needed and I would think that we will soon be thanking Stuart Armstrong for what in the main has been a great 5 years service and I would suggest that there was something other than visible injury that was preventing him hit the heights in his last two seasons that he reached in his first two.

Photo: Action Images

HythePeer added 09:29 - Jun 12 He was one of the best players at the club, the fact that successive managers couldn't see that is one of the reasons Saints are where they are.
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Flamingbankers added 09:38 - Jun 12 A very inconsistent player both in a match and throughout his time at Saints. A luxury player and a frustrating one. Odd glimpses of excellence but the rest of the time went AWOL. Managers chopping and changing players and positions definitely didn't help getting the best out of Armstrong.
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A1079 added 11:13 - Jun 12 None of these things will get remotely sorted without a manager in place that the players can believe in. At the moment we are a rudderless ship. All the excuses about not appointing until after 14th June will have gone in 2 days. The Board have had long enough to get the right person ready to get in place by the end of this week and then whoever it is has alot to do in a very few short number of weeks before the new season commences (but then the board had the whole world cup to get the right person in to replace Ralph - longer if you count the fact that they claim they knew Ralph would only have to the world cup in post - and they messed that up).

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SaintNick added 12:19 - Jun 12 2 years ago Stuart Armstrong was one of the bet players at the club,, but at the start of 21/22 he had a mysterious illness/injury that seemed to affect him and he has struggled for fitness ever since I don't think you can blame any of the managers for not picking him,
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KilkennySaint added 14:21 - Jun 12 SA was a great player for us, my favourite player since he has been at the club, yes people will say he was inconsistent and only showed glimpses, Sadly I would put his time with us as disappointment, but I totally put that down to the mangers and coaching staff which he had to work under, but in fairness you could add another 20 players to that list. Still think he has a few more seasons in the premier league, Brighton would be a great team for him.

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SanMarco added 14:47 - Jun 12 Did he not have Covid? Certainly he never reached the same heights afterwards - but nor did anyone once the terminal malaise set in.
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Block8 added 16:31 - Jun 12 I wonder if his form was down to not getting a run in the side or not getting a run down to his form? Dropping in & out of a team is no good for anybody's confidence, or form and unfortunately we have had too many players dropping in & out of the side. We've also had a few that remained in the side despite form. Both factor in how our season failed to flourish. Lets get rid of whoever wants to go & a few that probably don't and start afresh' utilise some of our youth and introduce a bit of experience to guide them through! COYR

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underweststand added 17:23 - Jun 12 Everyone was " better " when they were younger , but Stuart still has a lot of quality to his game and is still a regular in the Scotland squad (as is Ché Adams). Yes he would do well /even better in the Championship, but that standard of football won't help his international aims, or what's left of his top class career. There will come another /younger MF to take his place and so - good luck to him - say I.

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