Gaston Ramirez has had a miserable couple of years at Southampton Football Club, but that could be about to end, albeit temporarily.
Gaston Ramirez was saints first fabled "marque"signing, a player purchased for a fee far above his actual value and paid wages far and above his worth just so the Club could prove that it could spend money.
The truth is that he was never a player that was going to fit into our playing system and for our then record fee of £12 million we got a player who has started just over a quarter of the Premier League matches he could have done with around the same substitute appearances scoring 6 goals along the way.
There have been glimpses of his talent, but that is all they have been glimpses.
The only real positive thing about this folly has been that the player himself has in the main been nothing but professional and has quietly got on with his job when called upon as he did on Tuesday in his cameo appearance against Millwall in the Carling Cup.
The real truth is he never fitted Saints style of play either under Nigel Adkins or Mauticio Pochettino and now under new boss Ronald Koeman even less of an opportunity remains given the midfielders Koeman has signed.
Now it looks like Saints are trying to offload the player on loan to Sevilla according to the press, this will of course be beneficial to Ramirez himself who can try and kick start his club career, as well as to Saints who can recoup some money.
The problem is though that like Osvaldo our previous Chairman sanctioned wages far in excess of the players worth, he had to dangle a big carrot in order to persuade the player to come to St Mary's and ultimately it is this millstone round our necks, Ramirez is on far too much money for a permanent transfer to be attractive for him, I don't blame him here, he was offered a fortune, why should he throw it away.
But a loan move for him will still cost Saints, Sevilla will be unwilling to pay all of his reputed £65k a week wages, so would probably only pay a proportion of that, so we as a club will possible have to pay around 2/3 of his salary for him to play for another club at the same time as seeing his potential transfer fee decline as his contract goes into its final two years.
As I say I don't blame the player himself, he has been nothing but professional, but it does show that when we arrived in the Premier league, those responsible for transfers did not really do a good job, the occasional success was tempered by overpriced signings as well as some absolute howlers like Mayuka and Forren, both of which have cost us a few bob.
Good luck to Gaston Ramirez if he goes to Spain, a very talented player, but sadly I dont think it will be Saints who truly benefit from his skills.