£100m on the line: Southampton FC are taking big transfer risk with Everton & West Ham | OneFootball

Southampton are holding out for the most they can for two of their young players, but they may be risking a lot of money in the pursuit of even more.

Southampton are holding out for the most they can for two of their young star players, but there's a risk they could end up missing out a lot of money in the pursuit of even more.

They may have cut things fine with their narrow 2-1 win against Wrexham on the opening weekend of the Championship season, but Southampton are up and running. A quick return to the Premier League will be their target for the season, and the Saints will expect to be there or thereabouts by next May.

But the stewardship of a football club can be a delicate balancing act, especially following relegation from the Premier League. No matter how bad a team's season might be - and Southampton's 2024-25 was almost record-breakingly bad - there will usually be players who will be of interest to top-flight clubs.

And two of Southampton's young players have commanded the attention of Premier League clubs this summer. Tyler Dibling and Mateus Fernandes are 19 and 21-years old respectively, and they have been of considerable interest to Everton and West Ham United this summer.

Premier League interest in Southampton duo Tyler Dibling and Mateus Fernandes

Winger Tyler Dibling and midfielder Mateus Fernandes have been of interest to Everton and West Ham United already this summer, and the Saints are already feeling the effects of this interest.

Dibling sat the Wrexham match out, with head coach Will Still saying after the match that the player was "not in a headspace and not in a place that allowed him to get on the pitch today", while Fernandes started the game on the bench and was only brought on with half an hour to play.

But the start of the League season doesn't end this interest, and the transfer window remains open until the end of the month. But the decision taken by the Southampton senior management over these players is an interesting one; they're holding out for £50 million for each of these excellent young players, an amount of money that would match what they'd have made this season in Premier League television money had they not been relegated at the end of 2024-25.

Holding out for £100 million could affect Southampton in several different ways

Valuing a professional footballer is a completely imprecise science. Ultimately, a player is worth the sweet spot between what the buying club are prepared to pay for them and what a selling club is prepared to sell them for. And in the case of Dibling and Fernandes, the matter is all the more complicated by the fact that these are young players. For now, they're unfinished, and what Everton or West Ham would be paying for would be their potential.

Southampton are, of course, fully entitled to hold out for what they consider these two players to be worth. But it's also possible for them to dig their heels in too hard. It's quite possible that they could miss out on £70-80 million by holding out for £100 million for the pair of them, and this could also cause further potential issues for them if the players themselves end up unhappy over the club's intransigence over these fees.

The potential issues don't end there, either. Just up the coast at Brighton, part of the club's policy regarding their players is that they won't stand in their way should they wish to move on, and this doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Going in the opposite direction could potentially even harm Southampton, if players start getting the idea into their heads that the club will start getting difficult and potentially blocking their career paths should offers to move in come in for them.

Both Everton and West Ham United have options, and it's already been reported by the Liverpool Echo that Everton are "reluctant" to pay £50 million for Tyler Dibling. Southampton face a difficult choice, of whether to hold out for the £100 million that they feel these two players are worth, or whether to risk losing the sales altogether and potentially annoying two of their most highly-prized young players. If they price out two interested clubs when what they're essentially selling is potential that might not even end up being fulfilled, they could in time have cause to look back on their own decisions with regret.