With this season now nothing more than trying to avoid the dubious distinction of having the Premier League lowest points total record, this January will be about clearing the decks ready for a summer rebuild and one man most would not be sorry so see leave is Kamaldeen Sulemana.

According to msn.com Southampton are in talks with Genoa in Italy's Seri A for Kamaldeen Sulemana.

Sulemana joined Saints in the January window two years ago for £22 million, he did very little in his first few months to save us, although in the final game of that season he scored twice as we drew with Liverpool in the final match.

If we thought that this would lead to stunning displays in the Championship we were wrong, he would make 25 appearances, but only 10 would be starts, in total he had 948 minutes on the pitch, but his total contribution would be no goals and just 3 assists and he would play little part in the final games of the season.

This season he has fared even worse, it is hard to think of any positive words for his performances and perhaps it is time to try and cut our losses.

His value has dropped to around £12 million, almost halved from the fee we paid just two years ago, but we will find it hard to find a buyer even at that price.

The footballing media in Italy are saying that Patrick Viera is keen to bring in Sulemana to boost his Genoa sides attacking options, but the deal is more likely to be a loan one.

That is due to the wages, Sulemana is highly unlikely to find a club that is willing to pay him the salary he is getting at St Mary's, so it looks like we are stuck with yet another of the class of 2023, who we can't give away because the player will not take a pay cut.

This is going to be a feature of this January, I would be very surprised if Saints made anything other than loan signings, it is going to about trimming the squad and getting what we can for a transfer kitty to be used in the summer.

That might not be news the fans want to hear, but the reality is that we have little chance of staying up, so we need to start planning for next season.

All Photos Via Reuters

landsdownsaint added 09:49 - Jan 12 It goes to show how far saints have fallen , KS has never done anything at our cllub & received little critioscim yet a couple of seasons ago Djenepo was slagged of a treat , I know who’d I’d rather have any day of the week .
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MytchettSaint added 09:55 - Jan 12 How much is he on a week? I can’t believe we bought him in as an untried premier league player on top dollar.
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IanRC added 10:25 - Jan 12 Just watch, he will be a great success under Viera and we will have thrown away a prospective game changer by failing to buy a decent centre forward for him to cross to and by failing to give him consistent game time.
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underweststand added 10:47 - Jan 12 (Mytchett Saints) sadly it's typical of this type of deal. Clubs desperate to get new blood in and with an extra few millions to spend are always desperate and any player can look good if he's playing in a team or formation that suits him - even if it's in another country. It was clear from Day 1 that Russell Martin's set-up was not going to suit Sulemana's abilities, and he's been in the wilderness ever since, and even the odd sub. appearance has done little to enhance his reputation, or his value. He joins the embarrassing list of expensive foreign signings (I call it the Carrillo list).. who clearly just can't cut it at the highest level and end up going cheap, or even on free transfer. RM had no Plan B and anyone who didn't fit his system and was left out in the cold to do training stints every week and seldom ever making the bench. One has to feel for the lad who is still relatively young, but may well blossom in Italy where attacking formations are not shunned in favour of the English defensive dogma.

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JoeEgg added 10:48 - Jan 12 To go into your first season back in the Premier League without a decent centre forward, or perhaps two, was suicidal and unforgiveable. Time perhaps for Sports Republic to offer us another Q and A session and provide the same lame pathetic explanations or excuses for their total incompetence and lack of intelligent planning. IanRC is correct - we shall not know how good or bad Sulemana really is until he is placed in a team selected to make the best of his talents - and clearly somebody at SR must have thought the lad was a football genius to have paid all that money. The same comment could be applied to Bella-K and several others. Bought presumably to do a specific job and then abandoned to be replaced by the Stephens, Frasers, Armstrongs and Smallbones of this world, who our Russell 'loved'! SR decided to go with Russell Martin having bought players unsuited to his style of play and lacking a Danny Ings type of player to put the ball the net. What a stark contrast life has been at Bournemouth. Spending nowhere near as much as us they have worked miracles and are now much further ahead of us than we were of them three years ago. They didn't buy big names but whoever brought the players in was a genius compared to the 'shower' working for us!

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Block8 added 10:59 - Jan 12 Sulemana, undoubtedly has talent, the fact that we have been unable to bring that to the forefront is perhaps a testament of our style of play? However it may take a move away from us to find out if that is the case and for me that is what we should do. Whether it's a loan or sale is down to the market but there are pros and cons to either. If it's a loan and he flourishes we can either sell or re-call, if he doesn't the we are stuck with him or virtually give him away. If we sell him and he flourishes then we can look upon it with a bit of regret but if he fails then it's good business. That is modern day football and is where we are failing at the present time!

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Bowlercow added 13:21 - Jan 12 Sulemana is a flare player and will never fit into anyone's over coached system I wonder if we could swap him for Patrick Viera?
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