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Saints and Liverpool Linked With Swiss Centre Back
Wednesday, 10th Jan 2018 10:44

Saints are being touted as a destination for FC Basel's central defender Manuel Akanji, the problem is so are Liverpool and several other clubs both in the Premier League and Europe.

Manuel Akanji is a central defender born in Switzerland of Nigerian descent who currently plays for FC Basel in where he has been getting rave reviews in a Basel side that is dominating Swiss football.

He has also been capped by his country and at 23 seems to have that balance of youth and experience that Saints seem to like in a signing.

Basel appear ready to let him got for a fee of around 20 million euros and that figure being around £18 million is affordable to Saints after the sale of Van Dijk.

The problem is that Liverpool and Tottenham are being touted as also being interested as well as Borussia Dortmund, however the key for Saints could be that the player would be far more likely to get substantial game time at St Mary's than at any of the three clubs mentioned who would be buying him as one for the future rather than a first team regular.

That could prove in favour of a move to the South Coast for the 6ft 2 defender who can also play right back as well as in the centre.

Photo: Action Images



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bigrob68 added 10:59 - Jan 10
Surely we can strike a deal with Liverhampton in that we buy him now for 18 mil and sell to the bin dippers next year for 80 mil
4

BaselSaint added 11:43 - Jan 10
I saw this guy score the most unbeleivable goal against Benfica I think it was...he made a 30 yrd header from a goalmouth central defence position, chased it and scored at the other end!
0

BaselSaint added 11:44 - Jan 10
unbelievable spelling :(
0

petedoors1 added 13:39 - Jan 10
Never mind a central defender we need a New Striker before the Watford game.
3

landerwal added 15:46 - Jan 10
Let us hope Liverpool buy him and we can concentrate on buying a striker of the Lambert/Pelle type and maybe a play making midfielder, which is where our real weaknesses are in the squad.
3

dovif added 15:56 - Jan 10
The time to buy an attacking midfielder and a striker was the last transfer window. And if we did not have the funds, we should have done some transfers.

We knew the following from last year
We do not have a midfielder capsble of scoring goals

Our strikers - one get injured every 5 games, one scores once a year and one do not suits the 1 up front style.

Now anyone we sign would want a relegation release clause. And would reed do that deal now, when he did not do it in August

This has been a relegation level stuff up by reed. I would not be surprise if he continue the stuff up by signing noone
1

dovif added 15:56 - Jan 10
The time to buy an attacking midfielder and a striker was the last transfer window. And if we did not have the funds, we should have done some transfers.

We knew the following from last year
We do not have a midfielder capsble of scoring goals

Our strikers - one get injured every 5 games, one scores once a year and one do not suits the 1 up front style.

Now anyone we sign would want a relegation release clause. And would reed do that deal now, when he did not do it in August

This has been a relegation level stuff up by reed. I would not be surprise if he continue the stuff up by signing noone
1

underweststand added 16:27 - Jan 10
If only half of the players named in the media are actual "targets" then we must have a dozen of more people out in different locations trying to get a deal signed.

With £65+ million left to spend (having paid Celtic their %) then there is "the right price"
for each of them and it's not £20 million EACH. If we are going for a Walcott type deal, then it will cost, and I'm the first to scream that we need a couple of extra strikers, but since the departure of Fonte and VvD, our choices for CB have been down to Yoshida plus a choice from a number of "inexperienced others". I also think (sadly) that Bertrand's days at SMS may be numbered so we need to bolster up the full back positions also.

Buying a player for (say) £15 million isn't the end of the deal, merely the start, as even a 4 year contract at say.. £ 60K / week costs us ...another £12 million by summer 2022, and yet we wonder why players want to leave for "big clubs who can offer salaries of more than £100K week?

The Board / Les / Ross (and whoever), haven't made too many "bad buys" in the past, and I hope they find a few more " diamonds in the rough " during the coming weeks. But it's fair certainty that unless we pick up a few more points before the end of January some of the current squad will be on the move by the summer.
2

bstokesaint added 19:08 - Jan 10
What a load of nonsense. Liverpool rarely go head to head with us on players as they don’t have the balls to give unknowns game time. They would rather pay a premium and let clubs like us nurture the talent. The last time I can remember us being interested in the same players is when we signed Ramirez and they signed Coutinho. Imagine if that was the other way around.
0

REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 20:49 - Jan 10
This guy is highly rated, big potential. It makes sense for the player to come to a 'stepping stone' club before going to a big club. Going to a big club now would be a disaster for his development.
The biggest worry would be he's not hugely dominant in the air where Van Dyke won everything. Yoshida and Stephens are not strong in the air so its a weakness we need to address by bringing in a dominant CB. Hoedt is ok but could do with a solid partner.
0


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