It has been the best kept secret for the past week or so, but now finally Newcastle United have stumped up the money to sign Tino Livramento from Saints, it is disappointing to see the former Chelsea player leave, but a good profit.
Reports vary on the fee that Newcastle United have paid for Tino Livramento, but one thing is for sure it is far more than the derisory £12 million they started their opening bid with a month or so ago.
Southampton describe it as a significant offer, whilst up in the North East, Newcastle only comment it that it is undisclosed.
There rest of the media are just speculating with the bottom line being £32 million down plus another £5 million in add ons, whilst others claim that the initial fee is £35 million plus the add ons.
Whatever the real figure it still represents a significant profit on a player signed for just £5 million two years ago, even after the 20% sell on fee to Chelsea of somewhere in the region of £6 million.
So this puts around the £27-32 million mark in Saints transfer coffers and should now enable them to start revamping the squad as we head towards the transfer window, the big issue being whether Kyle Walker Peters will follow Livramento out of the door, leaving Saints to have to buy in a new right back.
All Saints fans will be sorry to see Tino leave, he was a popular player amongst the St Mary;s faithful despite managing just 25 starts in the Premier League plus another 5 as sub during his spell, it would have been a lot more had he not been injured at Brighton in April 2022.
No one can really blame him for leaving, he is truly a top talent and his signing from Chelsea, likewise that of Romeo Lavia from Manchester City illustrated how football has changed, and how the Big clubs hoover up young talent, knowing that they are not really interested in them as first team players, neither could get near the first team of their respective clubs, but here they are a short time later leaving Saints for a joint sum that will be between £90-100 million.
Some will point to this as Saints being a selling club, but I have always maintained that if we are to prosper then we have to compete on our own terms, we do not have unlimited resources as Manchester City and Newcastle do, we don't have Worldwide fan bases such as those that Liverpool & Manchester United have that rake in massive revenue from merchandising etc.
So we have to do something different and that is around developing and selling players, even this route has changed over the past decade, now the big clubs hoover up the talent and we struggle to get truly great talents at an early age, so we have to adapt and look to sign the promising youngsters from the big clubs, those that suddenly find that their route is blocked to the first team and they have to leave to get first team football.
We are not a selling club, we could be said to be a developing club, as i said back in 2016, buying in players cheaply and selling them is the only way forward for a club such as ourselves, the problem isn't selling them, it is about how we reinvest the money.
Our issues stemmed not from the sale of talent, but that their replacements did not match the standards of their predecessors and therefore had no real great sell on value.
So good luck to Tino Livramento, who can blame him for significantly increasing his salary and also now with a club that can buy it's way to League titles and cups.