Callum Chambers is the latest of the young Saints to be surrounded by speculation that he is about to be lured to the big clubs.
Barely a day goes by without a rumour in the press than one club or another is about to launch a multi million pound bid to sign up one of our youngsters, now Callum Chambers is about to be lured to Arsenal and around £10 million will change hands in the process.
Arsene Wenger and his Gooners have reportably offered Sagna a two year £75k a week deal to stay at the Emirates, Sagna wants three years but at 31 Arsenal believe he is a little old to be on that long a deal.
Therefore they are rumoured to be turning their attentions to St Mary's and Callum Chambers.
At the start of this season Chambers was virtually unknown even to Saints supporters, his total first team experience had been 6 minutes in the League cup win at Stevenage, but with an injury to Nathan Clyne, he was thrust into the opening game of the season at West Brom and put in a strong performance, however after putting in three straight starts plus a cameo as sub, he found himself sitting out every game from the bench with the returning Nathan Clyne preferred.
It would be December before Chambers got his chance again, with Clyne injured he came in against Manchester City and put in a sterling performance, he would stay in the side and even when Clyne was fit to return at Everton it would still be Chambers that would start and in the main since that has been the case.
Now it seems there is little to choose between them, Clyne seems to get the nod when perhaps a more attacking option is needed, hence his selection for the last two games ahead of Chambers, but where strength and pace is needed the nod goes Chambers way, at this stage Chambers gets forward well but his final run and delivery in the final third is still not as good as Clyne's hence the ex Palace man being preferred when we want to punish the opposition going forward.
However if Chambers continues to develop then it wont be long before he is first choice ahead of Clyne, in recent weeks when he has played there are many who feel that he is now ahead of Luke Shaw in that development and that as a full back he is a better player, of course that is only opinion and opinions vary, but it is good that we have a player who can be considered to be at that level.
So what will Saints do in the summer, will they cash in on Chambers or even Clyne for that matter, they are in the luxurious position of having choice in the right back position .
One option could be to use both in the team, certainly there is a case for employing Clyne as a wide man in midfield with Chambers anchoring the side behind, there is even talk that Chambers could play in the centre of defence or in midfield himself, he is one of those players who is a natural athlete so can adapt.
But Mauricio Pochettino as a manager has not shown much of an appetite for trying moves like this, his dropping of Rickie Lambert on Saturday and varying the formation a little was very out of character and perhaps forced due to the fact that he had an injury to both Cork & Wanyama, usually the manager relies on players tried and trusted in a position and sticks to that, however that doesnt bely the fact that we should try something differentonce in a while and our problem in the near future will be we have two Premier league quality right backs and won't keep both happy for too long.This is one of the drawbacks of having so many youth players coming through, you get good players in the same positions.
So Arsenal are hovering for Chambers and Manchester United too, of course this is just paper talk fueled by agents, Chambers signed a four year deal last summer so Saints have time on their side and dont have to sell, i would hope to see that four year deal improved in this summer so we can keep Callum here for a few years yet.