Southampton manager Russell Martin has admitted that Kamaldeen Sulemana expected to be joining a top flight club, either in England or the Continent this summer, but it didn't quite work out like that with no one matching his release clause price.

Russell Martin has been talking about Kamaldeen Sulemana this week, last season the Ghanian International was not the flop that Tall Paul Onauchu turned out to be, but never really hit top form until the final game of the season when he scored twice against Liverpool.

That perhaps led him to believe that he had done enough to earn himself a move out of St Mary's to a top flight club somewhere, but that did not prove to be the case as footballleagueworld.co.uk have been looking at after comments from Saints manager Russell Martin.

Kamaldeen Sulemana has been conspicuous by his absence in the last couple of months since Saints returned to pre season training, there were vague whispers of a mysterious injury suffered in training by the Ghanian, but no real concrete statement made of what is was or how long it would take for him to recover, so far he has not made an appearance of any sort for the club this season.

Russell Martin has had this to say about the situation.

"I think Kamaldeen was one of the players who probably thought he was going to be in the Premier League or in a top league somewhere because of the amount of interest that was in him.

"But then no club ever came up with the money they needed to to release Kamaldeen from here. So with that and an injury to contend with to get fit, it brings difficulty for a young man.

"There's probably still a few [Southampton players] who are frustrated about the transfer window and the information that they were given by certain people outside of the club and then what actually goes on and they end up staying, but if he [Sulemana] if he is frustrated, he's been amazing."

footballleagueworld.co.uk go on to say that although there was interest in Sulemana, Everton in England and Nice, Lille & Marseille in France being interested, but all shied away from invoking the £30 million release clause in his contract and Southampton stood firm in demanding this.

Russell martin comments are interesting in that they seem to hint that Sulemana and others were demanding moves and were not committed to the club, but then blames 3rd parties presumably agents for turning their heads.

He seems to be not only offering Sulemana an olive branch, but smoothing his passage back to the first team and also with the fans by suggesting that the players has "been amazing"

This highlights the problem that Saints had in the summer, a lot of the squad seem to have thought that they would be in big demand in the summer, but it turned out that the big money moves that their agents told them were going to be on the table, weren't there, at least not unless Saints were willing to virtually give the players away, which we now can see is clear that they refused to do.

Hopefully though Sulemana will now get his head down and work hard as there is undoubtably a player who can play in the Premier League in there, but if he wants to get back to that level either with Southampton or elsewhere then he has to prove to other clubs he is good enough and the way to do that is on the pitch.

Photo: Action Images

Bazza added 13:15 - Sep 15 If he’s being paid he needs to play as soon as possible. We all have career set backs but the club is not a charity.
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