It was being reported over the weekend that Southampton had launched a firm offer for Barcelona defender Marlon.
Sky Sports were reporting that their sources had informed them Southampton had made contact with the Nou Camp giants for the 22-year-old Brazilian and although our initial offering was said to be £10million, that could rise to £12million given suggested clauses.
The player has made a couple of first-team appearances for the Spanish side under Luis Enrique but has been a mainstay in their B side setup. He has however been out on loan at Nice for game time but that two-year spell was cut short.
There are few firm details in Sky’s report to be fair and they segway into Mark Hughes having an interest in Atalanta striker Andrea Petagna, but again there is nothing in terms of any concrete news in that rumour so both could be very much standard transfer window nonsense. Neither name rings a bell for me in terms of Southampton having interest previously, so I’m really not sure I’d hang my hat on either of these rumours.
With us supposedly looking to finally replace Virgil van Dijk this summer, previous links with Alfie Mawson and that type of player would certainly be more on the mark than Marlon given his lack of real game time at his age for a start.
