Journalist Dan Sheldon has revealed Southampton’s stance on the future of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg at St. Mary’s amid interest from Tottenham Hotspur and Everton.
Sheldon appeared as a guest on the latest episode of the Total Saints podcast and was asked about the situation of the Dane. While the journalist talked about Tottenham and their stance on the midfielder, he also gave some insight into about how Southampton view the current situation.
TalkSPORT recently reported that the Saints have now rejected a second bid from Everton for Hojbjerg, understood to be worth £20 million and potentially rising to £25 million. The same report claims that Spurs are also interested, but their valuation of Hojbjerg is nowhere near the Saints’ asking price.
When asked about Southampton’s stance on Hojbjerg, Sheldon said:
“From people I’ve spoken to behind the scenes at the club, one thing they don’t want is to play silly bugs with Daniel Levy and for this to go down to the wire in the transfer window. They’re not interested in doing that. They’re probably resigned to the fact they’re going to lose Pierre.
Are Southampton right to let Hojbjerg leave?
Yes, he has to leave
No, he should be kept
“So okay, we know it’s going to happen, let’s get it done sooner rather than later, then everyone knows where they stand. We don’t want to be going into October with Daniel Levy faffing about over £5 million, like they did with Jack Grealish when they went in for him last summer. Saints have no interest in that. These things tend to rumble on anyway, but Saints would prefer to get a deal done sooner rather than later, for sure.”
Going by what Sheldon says, Southampton want to get rid of Hojbjerg as early as possible and are apparently accepting that that they will lose the midfielder anyway. The journalist specifically talks about Daniel Levy and how Saints don’t want to be hassling too much over transfer fees with the Spurs CEO.
TIF Thoughts…
Hojbjerg arrived at Southampton from Bayern Munich in the summer of 2016 for a fee of £13.5 million. His current deal at the club runs out in the summer of 2021, so Southampton would not want to lose the player for free next year and would prefer to receive a fee by selling him in the coming weeks and months.
His current value does stand at only £10.80 million, but according to WhoScored, Hojbjerg has been Southampton’s joint-fifth-best player in the 2019/20 campaign, which shows that he carries a lot of importance within the team. So they can’t afford to let him leave for cheap and might also want to get a decent profit on what they signed him for. They could then use that money to replace him in an effective manner.