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Told us we had backed off ten days ago and we have. There has been no new contact despite that guy Plettenberg getting totally confused by old news midweek. Nothing is ever 100% dead until the window shuts but only Southampton can resurrect this. Reintroducing him to the squad and bringing him on today does not signal that they plan to do that.

More worrying has been the thinning of options (Hutchinson, Doak) and few new names emerging until the manscaped ventriloquist dummy sidekick of the controversial hat mentioned us monitoring Trincao of Sporting today.

He is a 25 year old Portuguese international RW. Sporting just bought out the 50% of Trincao’s contract Barca still held bringing their total investment in him to €21m. They had no football need to do this so the rumour is that this move is to facilitate a sale to a league where part ownership is banned eg PL. €35/40m suggested ballpark.

Of course they might just have had the fiscal room to tidy up the contract and even if they are thinking of selling we are not the only PL team in the market (Spurs, Palace, Wolves etc.) and there are others in Europe with the need. Still it is at least a possible new situation to watch.