Matt Le Tissier Column - Saints Must Offload Osvaldo !
Wednesday, 29th Jan 2014 12:37

Read Matt's views on the Saints striker and how he thinks this incident was a little more serious than the spats he witnessed in his day.

Southampton must try and offload their £15 million record signing Dani Osvaldo before Friday’s deadline.

The club will probably lose some money on the deal but for the sake of team spirit they are going to have to take a hit.

If I was a player there I wouldn’t want that kind of influence back in the changing room.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if the current Southampton players felt the same way.

What Osvaldo did to Jose Fonte cannot be tolerated and, for me, it is very difficult to welcome a player back into the fold when he has just battered a team-mate.

It was great, I’m sure, for Jose and his team-mates when he opened the scoring with a header in the 2-2 draw with Arsenal.

Saints teams have, very much, been based on solidarity and good unity amongst the players.

Yes, of course, I’ve seen a few punch-ups down the years but I don’t think they were on the scale of what happened last week.

Very early in my career I saw “Chicken George” Lawrence and Joe Jordan have a little go at each other.

I was quite young at the time and it opened my eyes a little to what can happen between team-mates in training.

There was also the time Chris Nicholl and Mark Dennis clashed but I missed that one because I was outside the dressing room.

Throwing as couple of punches in the heat of the moment is part and parcel of competitive training.

It happens, players step in to calm things down and the two culprits are fined.

But what Osvaldo allegedly did to Jose went past the line that’s anywhere near acceptable.

After he has served his suspension it’s going to be difficult for him to go back and hang around until the summer.

That’s quite a long time to be at a club where you have beaten up one of your team-mates quite badly.

It’s not the first time he’s been in this situation either-he’s got previous at Roma where he was suspended for thumping Erik Lamela, who is now at Spurs.

It was obviously a gamble for Saints to buy him because with previous like that there was always a chance he might flip again.

Now it’s happened again and, with the severity of the alleged offence, I don’t think he can carry on at the club.

I personally would probably try and sell him before the end of the week if they can find someone to take him on.

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Zambucco added 13:18 - Jan 29 If he was banging them in for Saints, maybe there would be a case to keep him, possibly after a public apology and gestures of remorse. But with his situation, this attack must be punished by offloading him, and good luck to his new bosses.
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ItchenNorth added 13:18 - Jan 29 I think you can see what team spirit is from last nights reaction to Fonte scoring; every out field player jumped in the huddle to celebrate within him. That says a lot about how this all sits with the team / squad !
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