Saints are being reported as having sourced their next Director Of Football, the only problem is Manchester United seem to be interested in taking him to Old Trafford.
The man in the spotlight is Erik Stoffelshaus who is currently without a club after leaving Locomotive Moscow last December.
The 48 year old German started his career coaching youth teams at under 11/12 age group at Schalke 04 and then moved from coaching to the managerial side of things behind the scenes rather than on the pitch.and although he gained his UEFA A Qualification and was assistant to the then manager his speciality was in player recruitment , although he seems to have had a spell managing the team as well..
In 2009 he left Schalke and seems to have gone to Canada and became technical director of the West Ottawa Soccer Club. In March 2015 he took over the post of technical director of the Football Association of York Region, Toronto.
On January 22, 2017 Stoffelshaus was introduced as the new sports director at the Russian Premier League club Lokomotive Moscow a position he held until December last year.
Alongside his footballing jobs he seems to have a thirst for knowledge, he earned his diploma as a sports teacher and In 2018 he earned the Master of Business Administration in Sports Management at the Universidad Europea de Madrid.
Now he seems to be being chased by both Saints & Manchester United. He is credited with helping stars such as Mesut Ozil and Manuel Neuer shine, whilst he also helped to bring in Ivan Rakitic.
But this seems a little bit of an undistinguished CV for a club the size of Manchester United and certainly their fans will be looking for some bigger changes at Old Trafford than a virtual unknown from Germany.
But it sounds plausible for Saints, Ralph Hasenhuttl's appointment a year ago was from the same mould, the club know they have to look towards the next big thing in recruitment of managers and players rather than the more established and Stoffelhaus fits the bill here and could also offer Hasenhuttl a valuable ally in the dressing room and coaching ground.
So I think that Erik Stoffelhaus could be a real contender for the vacant role at St Mary's of director of football and has certainly done the groundwork for both sides of the job, I am not too sure that Manchester United are that keen though.