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Forget Brandon Williams It's A Central Defender We Need !

Manchester United's Brandon Williams is again being linked with a loan move to Southampton, but the truth is we don't need a left back, we need more cover in the centre of defence.

Brandon Williams is third choice left back at Old Trafford, he is highly rated and perhaps out of Saints price range on a permanent deal, but it is hard to see what anyone would gain from a loan deal move.

Ryan Bertrand was suspended for the visit of Arsenal in the Premier League on Tuesday but will return on Saturday for Aston Villa's arrival at St Mary's.

Jake Vokins was exposed a few times against Arsenal, but at 20 years old and making only his second Premier League appearance he perhaps had the right to ask for his goalkeeper and fellow defenders to talk and organise him through the game and for large chunks he appeared to have little of that in a back four that consisted of only Jan Bednarek from the solid back line that saw us top the league at one stage and in and around the top 5.

Between now and the end of the season Bertrand is a more than competent left back and I would suggest from Vokins appearances in his Premier League debut and cup games he is an able deputy and potentially the man to take over from Bertrand in the next few years.

He reminds me a little of Matt Targett who was unable to get past Bertrand for the left back spot, but despite some solid performances was vilified by some supporters and when he left for Villa made comments like "Ill drive him there myself" on social media, at Villa Park Targett has finally realised his potential, showing just what a manager who believes in you and a positive atmosphere can do,

So why are we supposedly so interested in Brandon Williams, no disrespect to the player himself who is highly rated, but would we drop Bertrand on his arrival ? probably not and in that case if Bertrand continues his good form all we will do is pay a significant amount of wages for a loan player in a position that he might rarely play.

Add to the fact that we do have others that can be utilised in an emergency full back role, it just doesn't make sense.

Not a good move for Saints and not a good one for Wiliams himself or for that matter the Saints bank account which like other clubs is losing money on a monthly basis whilst the current situation continues.

If we are going to try and strengthen the squad in the next few days then surely what we need is an experienced central defender, someone who can organise the back four and read the game.

I'm not going to harp on about our weaknesses, I have been doing that for far too long now and it seems that many are now seeing what I have done for a while now, the goals against Arsenal were preventable, as was both Leicester goals and to be blunt would have been a month or so ago.

Hopefully Jannik Vestergaard will be back soon and that will make the last couple of games a temporary blip, but as injuries and suspensions might occur again in the second half of the season, I think a good loan signing in the centre of defence might pay dividends, it certainly would have in the past two league games and the worrying aspect is that Bednarek & Stephens were the only two men capable of playing in the centre of defence on Tuesday night, with Salisu the invisible man and Vestergaard injured, perhaps the only other men at the club who could step into a centre of defence would be Oriol Romeu & Ryan Bertrand and both were unavailable.

This highlights how short we are in this position, Salisu is touted as one for the future, but he is not one for now, we have to plug a gap, albeit temporarily.

As always what we are going through at the moment is a crisis, it will hopefully be short lived, we do not need to make it a drama.

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