Saints fans will be pleased to hear that Yan Valery has put pen to paper on a new deal with the club tying himself to St Mary's till 2023.

Southampton Football Club is delighted to announce that young full-back Yan Valery has signed a new, long-term contract with the club and that is music to the ears of Saints fans.

The 20-year-old today put pen to paper on a deal that runs until 2023, capping a period of incredible progression over the past few months in which he has become an integral member of Ralph Hasenhüttl’s squad and established himself as a regular in the first-team line-up.

Valery’s performances were highlighted by a stunning first senior goal at Manchester United this month, as well as a crucial equaliser in last weekend’s 2-1 home victory over Tottenham Hotspur.

His change from U23 player to first team regular under Ralph Hasenhuttl represents another success story from the club’s Academy, just as some where starting to question whether the youth system was lacking in talent good enough to jump to first team contention. Valery has developed rapidly under the guidance of the academy coaches since the club’s scouting team identified and recruited him from French side Rennes in 2015, at the age of 16.

Valery, who has represented France at Under-17s level and was quickly promoted from the Under-18 squad to the Under-23s at Saints following his arrival, made his senior debut in the League Cup tie at Leicester last November, before his first Premier League appearance followed in the 2-2 home draw with Manchester United a few days later.

He has not only remained involved ever since, but has gone on to become Hasenhüttl’s first choice at right-back, with 16 top-flight appearances now under his belt.

This is another good piece of news and another sign that although there has been a gap, there are still good youngsters coming through some a little more ready than others at this stage.

It has been a difficult couple of years at the club, but Valery signing a new deal shows that the club has come through a difficult period and has had to make changes, but so far those changes have all been for the better.

The biggest step though will be securing our place in next season's Premier League and then we can continue the progress made and show that although the club have been a little lax in not promoting itself recently that doesn't mean that the plan isn't there.

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 21:30 - Mar 14 A 4 year contract upgrade for another Academy graduate, and maybe a £20 m. saving. I recall watching him as a 17 year old in the U18's and sensing that he had a good footballing brain and time on the ball. Moving upto the U23s and now the first team has shown that he is going forward very quickly under Ralph's encouragement. He might not score too many more goals this season, and in time his form may "wobble" a bit, but surely he is the latest example of what " The Southampton Way is about. Rather than being a " stop-gap" for Cedric, he looks to be improving with every game and making the RB spot his own.

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dirk_doone added 21:41 - Mar 14 He's a great player. Let's hope our owners don't sell him as fast as we did Luke Shaw, who is still only 23. Since the departure of Les Reed, there are signs of recovery in the Saints squad, in spite of all the sales: the emergence of Valery and Sims, and Hasenhüttl finally coaching Ward-Prowse into being a very good player certainly give cause for optimism. Not selling our best players at the earliest opportunity, like we did with Mané, for example, would be another big step in the right direction.

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SaintBrock added 21:42 - Mar 14 The sting win the tail with this is that if he continues his development at the current pace as expected, he will be a full international by the age of 24 when this contract runs out. At the moment it is hard to judge his long term loyalty despite effusive protestations of his gratitude to Saints for his development so far. It is not difficult to predict how he club will react to having an asset that may be worth £40/50m in 2023. He will be sold in 2022 probably to Arsenal so while it is all good news today it is probably best to enjoy watching the lad whilst he is here.

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dirk_doone added 21:48 - Mar 14 SaintBrock, it's not his loyalty we need to worry about; it's the owners' greed for more and more cash which, as always, is more of a concern.
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petedoors1 added 22:16 - Mar 14 Big deal these long-term player contracts are not worth the paper they are written on!!! A lot of the players that have left us had long contracts.
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SaintNick added 22:23 - Mar 14 Dirk, you keep on about the owners greed for more cash, but as the latest accounts have shown, the owners have taken little out of the club, its all been put back in, in transfer fee's wages and running the club. It might have been a concern but so far the concerns have not been justified
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dirk_doone added 23:34 - Mar 14 So far, Kat has made quarter of a billion pounds from our football club. Charging a football club which she owned high interest for loans and demanding that interest be paid into her persona;l bank account before she got her 210 million from Gao was pure greed.
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beynali73 added 07:38 - Mar 15 Saints are in a no win situation. The strategy of putting players on long term deals is an insurance policy ensuring the maximum transfer fee when they leave. It clearly is not about keeping players. The only way this situation will change is if we get a man City type sugar daddy. If saints under the current regime tried to keep hold of players by paying 100,000 a week per player we'd be in financial trouble very quickly. It's frustrating but we are an average income family in a world billionaires.

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SaintBrock added 09:59 - Mar 15 It'll be interesting to see for how long RH will tolerate his well nurtured talent which he plans to develop into a team of world beaters à la RB Leipzig is sold off piecemeal as it emerges....
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SaintBrock added 10:00 - Mar 15 is X = being sold off
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wessexman added 10:53 - Mar 15 The only thing this guarantees is a pot of gold for the club, the player and his agent once he is sold for big bucks to one of the vulture top 6 clubs. Now, we cannot stop a player leaving once he knows he can double/treble his wages somewhere else. As a fan, I find it frustrating and galling but have to accept it. What I find hard to accept is our alarming regression since Koeman left. Our recruitment has been solely based on the financial director's viewpoint and nowhere near enough the manager's needs for the team. A good beginning would be recognizing a winning team generates income and not the other way round. A good start would also be by trying to hang on to RH as long as we can and not treating good managers as expendable when clearly they do not grow on trees.

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Bridders2 added 16:52 - Mar 15 When is a new contract for RH coming, is more to the point.
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DellHero added 21:49 - Mar 15 Which of the ‘big clubs’ will he go to in the summer?
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