So far Saints only signings have been those who have been on loan last season at St Mary's, so it we good to see that we have now made our first brand new to Southampton summer signing.

The news that Saints have signed Aston Villa forward Lewis Dobbin is hardly a surprise to most Saints fans, he has been heavily linked to the club over the last week and we reported on this site that he was having a medical on Monday.

But these things have a habit of falling through sometimes so it was good to see that he has put pen to page in what The Daily Echo describe as a 4 year deal worth up to £9 million, suggesting that we are paying a lot less up front and a chunk is based on appearances etc.

Dobbin is familiar to Saints supporters as he scored 2 of his 10 goals last season for Preston against us, one at St Mary's and the second at Deepdale on the final day of the regular season when Daniel Peretz provided an assist by slipping over at a convenient time to enable Dobbin to fire into an empty net.

Despite being only 23 Dobbin has a fair bit of experience although none of it at the club he has just left Aston Villa.

Dobbin started at Everton making 15 Premier League appearances for the Toffee's although only one of them was in the starting line up.

2022/23 season saw him on loan at Derby County in which he played in 43 of their League games, although around half were off the bench.

Two years ago Aston Villa rated him highly enough to sign him in a deal said to be worth £10 million in total.

But they immediately loaned him out to West Brom for the first half of 2024/25 season followed by Norwich for the second half of the season.

Neither seemed to be a big success, but at this time he was more of a winger than a central striker it seems.

When he joined Preston last summer, they seemed to see his role as being more central and he soon became a success at Deepdale ending the Championship season with 10 goals and 8 assists in 33(6) appearances, some as an out and out striker and others in a deeper lying role.

This has brought him into Saints radar, although it seems to be a little difficult to see how we will use him.

Out wide we currently have plenty of options and as we know centrally up front Tonda Eckert does not usually use a front two, preferring a central striker flanked by two wide men and a deeper lying number 10 as they say in the modern game.

In that position they have Finn Azaz who in my opinion made the team tick, yes Dobbin is a different type of player, but I would say not as good as Finn Azaz, both in terms of experience and quality.

However he should not be written off as he will offer options To Tonda Eckert that he previously lacked or at least quality options.

Dobbin had this to say on his unveiling:

“It’s an amazing feeling, I’m very grateful to be able to represent this club and to be given the opportunity to play for Southampton is something that I can’t ever take for granted. I’m just really thankful to be here and I can’t wait to get started.

“It’s been a busy few weeks, but Tonda was the first manager I spoke to and the way he spoke about the football club, the way he spoke about the players, it sold it to me straightaway. My mind was already made up as soon as I knew Southampton were interested.”

Technical director Johannes Spors added:

“We are really pleased that Lewis has chosen to join us ahead of other clubs, underlining his desire to be a Southampton player from the first moment we declared our interest in him.

“He is already, at a young age, a proven player in the Championship who is always a threat to defences with his speed and ability to stretch teams.

“His versatility gives us greater flexibility in our forward line. We look forward to seeing him thrive with us not only next season, but in the years ahead.”

Personally I would not bet against Dobbin being a big success at St Mary's, in the past 12 months we have seen Johannes Sporrs make some very astute signings, but as we also saw it needed the right man in place to get them playing and Tonda Eckert turned several players who had looked decidedly average under Will Still into world beaters at Championship level.

All Photos Via Reuters or Southampton FC