Southampton’s struggles in the Premier League this season are little surprise when you look at the club’s poor recruitment in recent years. Of their 15 most expensive transfers — all of whom have arrived at St Mary’s since 2012 — only Sadio Mané and Virgil van Dijk can be considered to be brilliant successes. Those two ventured down the well-trodden path to Anfield, leaving for £34 million and £75 million in 2016 and 2018 respectively, but elsewhere in that list are some catastrophic failures. Guido Carrillo joined in January from Monaco for a fee of £19.8 million and, after nine games and zero goals between January and May, is spending this season on loan at Leganes. Sofiane Boufal scored one of the goals of last…

Source: The Times December 03, 2018 12:00 UTC