It is being reported that Aston Villa have spent £30 million on taking Danny Ings from St Mary's to Villa Park in what has been the shock transfer deal so far in this window, but Saints are about to get a big boost to their transfer kitty.
Many had assumed that if the fee was £30 million then if Liverpool have a 20% sell on clause then the Merseyside club would net £6 million and Saints would be left with £24 million.
But according to the Liverpool Echo a media source that is closer to the club than most, the 20% sell on clause is on any profit that Saints make over and above the £20 million they paid for Ings 3 years ago.
That would man that Liverpool would get 20% of £10 million, so they will trouser £2 million with Saints getting the other £28 million.
Good news for Southampton fans and now it is about what the club does next.
The whisper is that the club is closing in on Adam Armstrong from Blackburn Rovers for a fee said to be between £15-20 million, that would still leave Saints with £8 million in the kitty to further strengthen the squad.
Many Saints fans are up in arms about the sale of Ings, but the first thing to remember is that it seems to have been outside of their control, they would rather have kept him or sold him to the highest bidder, but clearly the player himself was calling the shots and wanted to go to Villa rather than wait to see if someone bigger was coming in.
It seems that there were no takers in the top third of the League, perhaps they felt that about to turn 29 and with injury issues Ings was just not good business.
Perhaps in the cold light of day it might prove good business for Saints, Ings scored 12 goals last season, and although he was on fire in the first half of the season, his form was not so consistent in the second half, 7 goals in his first 8 Premier League games of the season was good going, but only 6 in his final 21 was not brilliant.
Whilst Ings had become a talisman in the second half of the season he had not become irreplaceable and perhaps like Rickie Lambert before him in 2014 it was time to take the money and run.
So now Saints fans have to give the board a chance to show they can spend the money well, too many have already started to condemn Gao and the board without giving him a chance, I am not standing up for him, not just yet but I will give him that chance first.