Saints In Talks With Lille Attacker

Saints are being reported as holding advanced talks with French club Lille with a deal being close after Saints upped their offer.

The Guardian are reporting that Saints are on the verge of signing Lille's Sofiane Boufal, they claim that the Paris born Moroccan International will join the club imminently after Saints increased their offer from 15 million euros to 20 million plus a potential 5 million in add ons.

Boufal who can play in a variety of positions including as an attacking central midfielder, left wing or even up front has also been linked with Arsenal, Spurs, Watford and Chelsea but Saints are in the driving seat.

After joining Lille in January 2015, Boufal exploded into life last season with 12 goals in 29 league appearances leading to interest from quite few clubs around the continent.

The player who will turn 23 in September is yet to play this season due to injury, but Claude Puel has obviously seen a lot of him in the French league last season.

The downside is that Boufal is not scheduled to resume playing till mid September, however with an International break due, if he signed by the weekend he would only miss the Sunderland game on Saturday followed by probably Arsenal away on 10th of September possibly being ready for action for the visit of Swansea on the 17th.

Although born in Paris, Boufal elected to play for Morocco and won the first of his two caps so far last season.

The Guardian seem pretty sure that this deal will be done, so their sources must be quite good, Saints fans desperate to see at least a couple of new faces in certainly hops so.

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