According to some areas of the media Saints are looking to spend big on a right back, but why would they do that whilst Cedric Soares is at the club.
The Daily Mirror have run with a story that they have taken from a European media outlet claiming that Saints are about to hijack Napoli's move to sign Lille's right back Kevin Malcuit at the final hour.
According to the Mirror Saints have made the top bid for Malcuit who only joined Lille from Saint Etienne last summer for £8 million , the paper is also suggesting that Saints are willing to double that to land the player.
Malcuit at 27 has been a relative late starter in the big time, although his first appearances were with Monaco in Ligue 1 in France he left early in his career for lower league French clubs and as late as 2014/15 season was still in the third tier of their system.
He joined Saint Etienne in the summer of 2015 but played little in his first season before breaking through in 2016/17 prompting a big money move to Lille.
In many respects he is the blueprint of players Saints like to sign, but with Cedric Soares at the club, why would they want to pay the sort of money for a back up to Cedric.
Although it would be nice, Saints cannot afford to have two expensive players for a specialised position, full back is not like midfield or central defence, there is no room for two right backs in a game, you are either playing or not.
This leaves only two possible scenarios, this is either just the players agent trying to stir up interest and Saints will pay more in terms of wages than Napoli, or it is part of a strategy that will see Cedric leave.
If Malcuit does arrive then as stated it could signify the departure of Soares, although English clubs only have a week to go before the transfer window shuts, they could still sell players up until the official window closure date at the end of the month, so they have a little more time to sell and Cedric is a player who would be in demand.
So this rumour is difficult to call especially since Matt Targett slotted so easily into the right back position on Wednesday evening leading many Saints fans to think that keeping Targett would be a good option in that we would then have two quality left backs and one quality right back, but with both Targett and Bertrand able to play on the right, it would give us good cover, not to mention the emerging Jan Valery.