Saints have signed Belgian winger Steven De Ridder

The signing of the wide man from Dutch club De Graafschap could mean Saints are about to get Ridder Alex Oxlade Chamberlain.

De Ridder at 24 is experienced in the Dutch leagues and is described as having lightening pace and able to play on both wings, given that Saints are not short of widemen with Lallana, Guly, Forte, Chamberlain augmented by Dickson, Butterfield or Richardson, plus the errant Puncheon, it tends to suggest that at least two of these need to go, probably Puncheon and Chamberlain.

Information on De Ridder is scant, certainly he appears to have played a decent number of game for De Graafschap in the 3 years he has been there, enough to suggest that he was something more than just a squad player.

The big question though is whether he will turn out to be a little gem or another in a long line of foreign signings to arrive at St Mary's in recent years who have never quite lived up to their billings and have spend most of their time here not getting a game.

On the face of it De Ridder could have the potential to be better than what we already have if Chamberlain leaves, if he were to stay, its hard to see where he would get a game.

Saints fans should approach this signing with an open mind, it will tell us a lot about how our scouting system is starting to work at the moment. 

Photo: Action Images

Saintpaul120 added 16:12 - Jul 22 That's pretty much the way I read it - AOC is orf unfortunately ('cos I like him!)
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StrasbourgSaint added 16:44 - Jul 22 ".... or another in a long line of foreign signings .... in recent years who have never quite lived up to their billings ...." Why are you always so fast to make 'foreign' equal 'failure'? Fonte? Schneiderlin? Guly? Or, Forcast? Puncheon? Dean?
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SaintNick added 17:10 - Jul 22 Im not so fast to make it, but for ever y Fonte or Schneiderlin or even guly there is (and im not taking into account the likes of Van Damme & Jakobsson in the prem) Hajto, Ostlund, Madsen, Belmadi, Kosowski, Balmadi (thats 05/06 out of the way) Idiakez, Licka, Pele, Sarmiento, Skacel, Baseya, Pericard, Safri, Vignal, Gasmi, Liptak, Pekhart, Saeijs, Thats nearly 19 players from abroad who made little impact here, since we got relegated from the prem, I havent included Rasiak , Saganowski or Viafara who some might consider failures to some degree

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StrasbourgSaint added 18:01 - Jul 22 Nearly 19? Let's call it 18 and a half :-) You remember our past players better than I do, but it's easy to select a bunch of names. Try doing the same with English (or maybe British) players and I'm sure you could make a decent arguement against ever signing another from these shores. Of those above, there was only one Balmadi (you've listed him twice), whilst Ostlund, Pele, Vignal and Saejs all did okay and Skacel was frequently played out of position. Idiakez would have done better had he not been injured and Licka was constantly over-looked despite a couple of decent performances. All were here when the club was in free fall. Given your criterian for failure, I would say that Kevin Davies's second spell was a disaster. Can't we just agree that, over the years, there have been many foreign players who have served us well and many UK players who have not. Here's a pretty decent 11: Niemi, Golac, Claus and Michael, Van Gobbel, Ekelund, Berkovic, Kachloul, Fernandes, Marian, Egil (Ali Dia as a half time replacement, of course).

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SaintNick added 22:10 - Jul 24 My mistake on listing Balmadi twice. Pele was a disaster as a central defender especially when you consider we bought him in preferrence to keeping Danny Higginbotham who wanted to play centre half, Vignal played about 20 times so again not exactly prolific. You need to check up on a few things Idiakez was signed to spearhead our promotion push under burley but was so poor we loaned him to QPR although he returned for the play offs, likewise licka, both made a few appearances in 07/08 when we started to slide, but had gone for the real disaster of the following season. As for kevin Davies etc your probably right his second spell was a disaster he ceertainly didnt produce the goods on a regular basis

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