Southampton: Mohammed Salisu linked with Newcastle United transfer | OneFootball

With no new players brought in during the winter aside from Willy Caballero who joined the club as a free agent in early December, Southampton have had a rather uneventful few weeks regarding any potential transfer business.

While the club did welcome a takeover from Sport Republic led by Serbian media mogul Dragan Solak, Ralph Hasenhuttl has not been given any new players to add to his squad.

Although, with only a few days left until the transfer window closes, it seems as though the south coast club could have a challenge on their hands to keep hold of one of their key players.

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What’s the news?

According to journalist Jose Manuel Oliva (via Saints Extra) Newcastle United are negotiating with Southampton over a potential transfer for Mohammed Salisu and have apparently offered a similar to what they have tried to sign Sevilla defender Diego Carlos for, which is said to be in in the region of over £30m.

Southampton signed the defender back in the 2020 summer transfer window from Spanish club Real Valladolid in a deal worth a reported fee of £10.9m.

Since then, the 22-year-old, who is currently picking up a weekly wage of £39k-per-week according to Salary Sport, has gone on to make 38 appearances for the Saints across all competitions.

Ralph would be furious

This season has seen the Ghanian play more minutes in the Premier League than any other Southampton player, as well as managing to rack up an overall performance rating of 7/10 from WhoScored, making him their second-highest rated outfield player behind club captain James Ward-Prowse.

Labelled as a “nasty” player in the past in terms of his defensive action on the pitch by Hasenhuttl, Salisu’s latest appearance for Southampton saw the centre-back put in a colossal performance in their recent 1-1 draw against Manchester City where he made a total of 14 clearances, seven tackles and four interceptions.

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This not only highlights how important Salisu has been for the team this season but also how unhappy Hasenhuttl would be to see him potentially leave the club halfway through the season to join another Premier League side, which would undoubtedly be a disaster for Solak, especially this late in the window.

Moving forward, with Newcastle journalist Luke Edwards recently claiming that the Magpies had made an approach to Southampton to sign Salisu but were told that “it’s not going to be possible” for them to sign him, this should put to bed any concerns there may have been from the fans or Hasenhuttl about the defender’s immediate future.