Aston Villa have been rumoured to be after James Ward Prowse for a while now and have finally revealed their hand with a £25 million bid which has been immediately rejected by Southampton, but the key to the deal could be Jack Grealish.
Villa have already broken their transfer record this season and indeed this is the 3rd summer in a row that has been the case as they strive to re-establish themselves as a force in the Premier League.
But it is not all one way traffic into Villa Park as just as it came out they have bid for Ward Prowse it was also revealed that Manchester City are mounting a £100 million bid for Jack Grealish.
But if Grealish leaves Villa then it may give them a lot of money to spend, but it makes them a lot less attractive proposition to getting truly great players.
If he stays then they will be more attractive, but do they have the money to turn themselves in to a top 10 team on a regular basis.
In short it is catch 22 for Villa.
As bad as Saints were in the second half of last season, there was not a lot of difference between Villa and Saints, we destroyed them at Villa Park and lost by a single goal at St Mary's , although the truth is we were robbed by a couple of appalling VAR decisions.
Villa are now trying to spend big in order to kick on, but so are Everton and several other clubs who have not managed to sustain a top 10 place, not to mention Spurs and Arsenal who are realising the Big Six is now history and it is a Big Four and in Cycling terms they have been dragged bac into the peloton.
For James Ward Prowse Aston Villa will be an attractive proposition, both financially and from a footballing perspective if Villa can maintain their progress.
Interestingly, while Manchester City and Aston Villa remain negotiate the transfer of Jack Grealish, his agent, Jonathan Barnett also has Ward-Prowse listed amongst his portfolio of players that his agency ICM Stellar Sports manages.
This is perhaps not good for Southampton FC or for that matter Aston Villa initially, Barnett will be keen to move his client up to true superstar status with Manchester City, but having pocketed his end of the deal, he will be keen to then increase his earnings by engineering the transfer of James Ward Prowse to newly minted Villa.
But the truth is spending money does not guarantee success, Villa like Leeds or indeed Wolves of the past few seasons and Saints 5 years ago could find out that sustaining success is not easy, you make a breakthrough and the big guns come a calling for your top players and you are back to square one as someone overtakes you.
Next season is the World Cup, James Ward Prowse will be looking to get back into the England squad, at St Mary's he perhaps has the best chance to do that, doing a job he knows well, at Villa Park it may be a little more uncertain in how he fits into their side.
The problem for Saints is that this is nothing about ambition, it is about footballing reality, unless you are Manchester City there is someone always richer than you in the Premier League and this in itself is a catch 22 situation, ultimately Man City aside it is about having a large fan base and milking it, Villa will always be bigger than Saints whilst they have a bigger ground and bigger support and the ability to utilise that commercially.
A player will always leave a club, the only question is when, for Saints it is not about selling a player it is about replacing him.