This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Former Tottenham and Aston Villa right-back Alan Hutton has been speaking to Football Insider about Southampton’s lofty valuation of Fraser Forster.
The Saints reportedly believe that they have a £25m-plus asset on their hands following the England international’s heroics in the Betfred Cup final win over Rangers, as well as his solid form in general since moving back to Celtic Park on a season-long loan deal in the summer.
Forster has made 20 appearances in total, impressively keeping nine clean sheets and conceding just 13 goals.
However, Hutton believes that the Premier League side are being unfair.
What did he say?
Hutton told Football Insider: “There’s no way Celtic will be able to pay that for a goalkeeper. And the thing that annoys me the most about this situation, it even happened with Aston Villa and Tyrone Mings as well, is that his club let him go because they deemed him surplus to requirements.
“The player then flourishes with the team that they went to, and the team that didn’t want them then pumps up their value, so you’re only affecting the player.
“You’re stopping him from moving on with his career just because he went off and done well off his own back. So I don’t really like it, I think the best thing is for a price tag to be agreed beforehand, so you go out on loan for a year with a view to a permanent for say like £8m.”
Hutton has a point
Before Forster’s departure from St Mary’s, he was third-choice glovesman on the south coast behind Angus Gunn and Alex McCarthy and didn’t make a single appearance for a whole 54 matches for the club across the 2017/18 and 2018/19 campaigns.
The 31-year-old’s career had severely stagnated, and now that he is back to his old self and enjoying his football again, the Saints look like they’re going to price Celtic – and presumably many other potential suitors – out of a move for the 6 foot 7 shot-stopper, which is slightly unfair.
Of course, Forster is Southampton’s asset and they can do as they please, although unless someone stumps up a sum in the region of £25m for the goalkeeper, it feels as if the in-form man will merely go back to St Mary’s and be just another option in between the sticks.
Hutton is right – the situation definitely feels unfair on Forster.
In other news, this summer deal is turning out to be a waste of money for Southampton due to the form of one player…
