Saints have allegedly monitoring the situation at Sporting Lisbon alongside Everton, now it seems that the target has handed in a transfer request.
The player in question is Sporting Lisbon striker Islam Slimani who has scored 57 goals in 107 appearances for the Portugese club and was of course a team mate of Cedric Soares.
For Algeria his strike rate is just as impressive with 23 goals in 43 appearances for his country.
The only thing against him is his age, he turned 28 in June, however Saints showed with the signing of Graziano Pelle two years ago that they are not afraid o sign older players when the price is right.
Everton are also reported to be interested which suggests that Slimani was a player that Saints had in their radar when Ronald Koeman was at the club and he would have been perhpas consulted about the player.
If Saints interest is real then perhaps the fact that Cedric Soares was a team mate may sway the Algerian towards the South Coast, although the problem may be that Everton have a wad of cash in their pocket that they can't seem to spend, that means they could be willing to pay through the nose.