Saints are being reported as having agreed a £12 million pound fee for Hull City Striker Shane Long tonight.

Sky sports and other media outlets are reporting that Saints have had a £12 million pound bid accepted for Hull City's Shane Long, the Republic Of Ireland International only joined Hull in January and scored 4 goals in his 15 league games for the Tigers after arriving from West Brom where he had a similar strike rate of 19 goals in 60(21) appearances for the Baggies.

Long made his name at Reading before West Brom and at 27 is at a stage in his career where his strike rate although not shoddy has not quite propelled him into the higher echelons of strikers, however its good to see Saints getting in a player with Premier League experience as so far in the summer although we have signed players with track records in other countries we are a little short on those who know just what is needed in the Premier.

What is good though is that we are building a squad rather than just a team.

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law101 added 11:29 - Aug 13 I've been impressed with what I've seen of Pelle, but the same could have been said of Jozy Altidore at AZ. Strong, powerful but a COMPLETE flop, it could go either way but now our back up is a player who scores between 4-8 goals a season. Not good enough.
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ExiledSupporter added 11:55 - Aug 13 I'd have much rather given Giudetti the opportunity to prove himself, much less of a gamble at £5m and spent the rest on Zaha, not forgetting the desperate need for 1 or 2 central defenders. I suspect that this is another Reed inspired purchase, don't imagine Koeman would know much about him and as others demonstrate his ratio of goalscoring is very ordinary indeed

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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 13:28 - Aug 13 To put things into perspective. In recent years Swansea signed Bony for £12m and Aston Villa bought Benteke for £8m. Both brilliant players who have averaged a goal every other game and are now worth well over £20m. This is the type of signing Saints should've been looking for. Not £12m on an average Premiership striker who's never hit double figures in the league. Really disappointing. Hull paid £7m which is what he's worth, so no wonder they accepted our offer. They'll go out and spend £10m on a better striker now.

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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 14:00 - Aug 13 Good article written by a Hull season ticket holder about Shane Long: http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/13/why-hull-city-should-sell-shane-long-to-southampto
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law101 added 16:58 - Aug 13 Agree with @REEDY. In line with our greater ambition of previous seasons we have looked to sign players we knew we could develop into top PL performers. Whilst as fans we don’t expect the club to sign players like Hernandez, players like Bony/ Benteke are signings that carry a sell on value and that with any luck can reach a performance similar to signing an establsihed name. The signing of Long carries no economic or sporting potential. Long is not suddenly going to become a prolific PL goal scorer, nor is he likely to be sold for anything more than Hull paid for him in January. Of all the players availible and despite our vast scouting network, this is all we can manage. My faith in the board has all but diminished.

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