Saints are targeting Kevin Wimmer from Tottenham Hotspur to replace Virgil Van Dijk, but surely we need to get him to play alongside the Dutchman .
The Daily Mail are reporting that Saints will bid for Kevin Wimmer of Spurs, but they also claim that this will only happen if Virgil Van Dijk leaves and not if he stays.
I hope that this is not the case and that Saints do not think that Virgil Van Dijk or Kevin Wimmer for that matter will be sufficient to play in the centre of defence alongside the central defenders we currently have.
We have not replaced Jose Fonte yet, we need to make a statement of intent and sign a quality replacement for Fonte before we talk of replacing anyone else.
Much as Yoshida and Jack Stephens put in a shift last season, Yoshida's place in the squad is at best a reasonable back up and Jack Stephens is a raw talent who at the moment is at a crossroads at to whether he genuinely has enough in his locker to be a defender of Premier League quality or will be Championship at best, in fairness at the end of last season he showed that he has talent in some areas but lacked in others, turning 24 in January he should have shown that promise by now, he is roughy the same age that Dejan Lovren, Toby Alderweireld and Van Dijk himself where when they arrived at St Mary's all where the finished article at that age, can anyone honestly say that Stephens is up to that standard ?
Jan Bednarek is an unknown quanity and Florin Gardos been out for a long time, the stark reality is that we need to start the season with two players of the quality of Lovren, Van Dijk and Alderweireld, we are one short even if VVW stays, we need to plug that gap now.
Back in January we didn't and paid a high price for not doing so, we do not want to make the same mistake twice.
Wimmer has been linked before, he looks to be a good bet the only difference Saints and Spurs seem to have is the price, Spurs think that he has played 15 Premier League games in two years and rarely last season that is called developing a player and thus he is now worth £20 million nearly 5 times what they paid two years ago, where Saints have a more realistic valuation which says that his price is nearer that £4.3 million paid by Spurs than the £20 million they want.
The problem is that transfer fees have gone mad, Everton seem likely to pay £50 million for Gylfi Sigurðsson more than double what he is actually worth, there are a lot of clubs paying way over the odds at present, I can see why Les Reed does not want us to be one of them, but we have one weak area at present and it needs to be sorted fast.