OPINION
Southampton reportedly missed out on signing Lille forward Nicolas Pepe in the summer transfer window when the Ligue 1 club rejected a bid for the Ivory Coast international.
According to France Football, the Saints offered £12.5million for the 23-year-old goalscorer, but it wasn’t enough to tempt Lille into cash in on him.
Mark Hughes was certainly on the right tracks to sign Pepe and if he managed to succeed in his bid to sign the former Angers star as he would have without doubt upgraded the Saints attack at St Mary’s.
Last season, Pepe scored 14 goals and supplied five assists in 38 appearances across all competitions.
Lille played him as both a right-winger and up front, so his record in front of goal is quite impressive when considering that he was forced to play out wide on a number of occasions.
Southampton have not had a top-class striker in years and Pepe could have been the next best thing to hit the south coast if they were able to pry him away from Lille.
The deadline day arrival of Danny Ings is a decent one, but the Liverpool loanee’s injury record is a concern and the fact that he has played such a limited amount of football in the last three years is a major concern.
It’s not that Ings is a bad signing, it’s just that the permanent arrival of Pepe would have been a much better long-term option for the Saints.
They may now have to wait until January to be able to sign Ivorian, however France Football reports that Sevilla and Roma are both after his signature, and that could prove problematic to the south coast club.