Saints hopes of getting a fee from Feyenoord for Jordy Clasie nosedived this week with the midfielder clashing with his manager after being substituted.
Jordy Clasie looked set to take the Premier League by storm when he joined Saints in the summer of 2016, highly rated at Feyenoord it was no surprise that his former manager in Rotterdam Ronald Koeman went back and signed him for Saints.
Hid debut though would last barely an hour and he was forced off against Vitesse Arnhem with an injury that would delay his Premier League debut by almost three months.
He would then start to show just why Koeman had signed him becoming an integral part of the team that would storm to sixth place although his season would end as it started when he was injured in the penultimate game away at Spurs and he would miss the final fixture.
The departure of his mentor Koeman in the summer of 2016 would prove problematic to Clasie with new boss Claude Puel not seeming to fancy him as a player, in that second season he would start only 12 games plus another 4 as sub and he although he made the bench for most games he rarely seemed to see any action despite looking good in the rare games he featured notably Arsenal away in the EFL cup and at West Brom, both games where he scored spectacular goals.
Even a change of manager did not help his cause and at the start of last season he was loaned to Club Brugge in Belgium, however his stay would not be successful and he would struggle for game time as much as he had under Puel.
At the start of this season he headed back to Feyenoord and it was hoped that perhaps he could reignite his career and in doing so Saints could get a modest return on the £8 million they spent in 2015.
For much of this season it looked like they might with Clasie being a regular first choice in the side, but then this weekend after being substituted he threw a big temper tantrum, refusing to shake manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst's hand nad throwing kit around the bench.
This has resulted in a meeting with the club and a fine and it has cast doubts that his future will lie with Feyenoord next season.
One ray of hope is that next season Jaap Stam will be replacing Van Bronckhorst as manager and turning 28 in June he is entering the peak of his career, but against that the Dutch club have a raft of youngsters pushing for a place in the starting line up so may want to opt to look to them rather than older players.
This will severely damage Saints hopes of getting some fee for Clasie, at best they with Feyenoord at least they may be able to negotiate a free transfer deal that will get Clasie off the wage bill, but that looks the only real hope now of a permanent deal for the player.
But if Feyenoord are not interested then Clasie is at a real crossroads, if he stays at St Mary's he would be unlikely to get in the first team and therefore his career will stagnate at a crucial stage.
Saints would prefer a permanent transfer for even a small fee and I'm sure Clasie would also want that as for the first time in 3 years he could have some security in where he would be playing as well as how long he would be playing there for.
The likelihood is another loan deal for the player and that is not good for either Saints or Jordy Clasie.
It is a sad ending to what looked like a great signing back in 2015, his early injury meant that he never quite showed us his true talent, but it should be remembered that as we stormed up the League in his first season he was a vital member of that team starting virtually every game after he recovered from that initial injury, for Jordy Clasie and Saints it was a case of what might of and should of been and but for circumstance would have rather than a lack of quality and talent.