Saints are once again looking towards Scotland for an astute signing to follow in the footsteps of Stuart Armstrong and Virgil Van Dijk amongst others, so who is the latest on the radar to make the trip to the South Coast.
Saints have made some very good signings from Celtic in recent years, Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama & Virgil Van Dijk all came South from Glasgow and were big successes and Stuart Armstrong has joined them in becoming the latest ex Celt to succeed at St Mary's.
The Celtic player that is now said to be on Saints radar is Ryan Christie.
The media are reporting that Saints will watch the 26 year old midfielder playing for Scotland and assess the situation, Christie's contract is due to end in January so it is likely that Celtic will look to cash in now.
Transfermarkt rate him as a £6 million player but Saints would get him for far less than that given the contract situation.
But the big question is whether Saints need him or not, he is predominantly an attacking central midfielder and the central midfield are is perhaps Saints strongest area with James Ward Prowse, Oriol Romeu, Ibranhima Diallo and even former Celt Stuart Armstrong able to play in that position.
But Christie can also play out wide as well as in the centre so in that respect is very similar to fellow countryman Armstrong.
Christie's career at Celtic was a slow starter, he broke into the Caledonian Thistle team at at the age of 17, prompting Celtic to sign him in January 2016 and loan him back for the rest of the season.
But his career at the club didn't start well and he was loaned to Aberdeen in both 201617 & 2017/18 seasons.
He returned to Celtic for 2018/19 season and then aged 23 his career was at a crossroads, although he had played in 118 Scottish premier League games, only 17 of them had been for Celtic, this was a make or break season for him and luckily it became the season he finally made a first team spot his own at Celtic.
Since then he has not looked back, but as he approaches 27 he will be considering his future, hence the fact his contract is fast approaching it's end date.
Saints will be interested especially at the price, but as it stands they will be top heavy with midfielders both centrally and out wide, if Saints can land Christie then they will be looking to offload a fair few options in these departments.