England goalkeeper Fraser Forster has left Celtic for £10million as Southampton continue to strengthen after a summer of departures.
This has been a tough few months for those connected with the south-coast club, with a host of players exiting St Mary’s in the wake of manager Mauricio Pochettino’s departure to Tottenham.
England internationals Luke Shaw, Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana were among those to leave for pastures new, leading to the term ‘meltdown’ being bandied around.
However, those exits have swelled the coffers and Saints made Three Lions goalkeeper Forster their fifth summer signing on Saturday, with the Celtic goalkeeper moving for a fee understood to be in the region of £10million.
The 26-year-old has penned a four-year deal at St Mary’s, where he will compete with Artur Boruc - another former Bhoys goalkeeper - for the number one spot.
“Fraser is a very talented player and we are delighted to be able to bring him to Southampton,” manager Ronald Koeman told the club’s official website, www.saintsfc.co.uk.
“This is another important part of our rebuilding process ahead of the start of the season.”
Forster links up with former Celtic team-mates Victor Wanyama and Jos Hooiveld at Southampton, where he work with England goalkeeping coach Dave Watson.
“The fact that he has worked with Dave Watson before means we already know all about his strengths and weaknesses, and I am confident that we will be able to help him improve even further,” Koeman added.
“Fraser is the perfect fit to help complement the players we already have and he will add a lot of quality to the squad.
“He is an exciting English player with a very good reputation within the game and, at 26, he will enjoy the best years of his career at Southampton.”
Forster is unlikely to be the last acquisition made by Saints before the end of a transfer window which has seen the core of last season’s successful side decimated.
Lambert, Lallana and Dejan Lovren have moved onto Liverpool, while Calum Chambers exited for Arsenal and teenager Shaw moved to Manchester United.
Talk remains over the futures of Morgan Schneiderlin and Jay Rodriguez with Tottenham interested, but the club have made it clear to both players that they will be staying.
Saints chairman Ralph Krueger told Press Association Sport this week that the club was now “building and not in a reducing phase”, with Saphir Taider joining from Inter Milan the following day in a season-long loan which saw disruptive club-record signing Dani Osvaldo go the other way.
Taider’s move is with a view to a permanent deal, like the recent deal that brought Ryan Bertrand from Chelsea, while Koeman has signed Graziano Pelle from former club Feyenoord and FC Twente’s Dusan Tadic.
Saints are now trying to complete deals for Sporting Lisbon’s Marcos Rojo and Florin Gardos of Steaua Bucharest, while Koeman confirmed on Saturday that Leeds had rejected their bid in the region of £4.5million right-back Sam Byram.
“We lost Chambers to Arsenal - it (Byram) was a player we had on the list and it’s true that we had a bid for him, yes,’’ the Dutchman said after the 1-0 friendly loss to Bayer Leverkusen.
“What I heard was that Leeds didn’t accept it.”
Olympiakos
Dutch midfielder Ibrahim Afellay has joined Olympiakos from Barcelona on a season-long loan, the Greek champions announced Sunday.
Afellay, 28, was sidelined for much of last season with a thigh injury having spent the 2012-13 campaign on loan at Schalke in Germany before a series of injuries curtailed his time in the Bundesliga.
The injury-prone Dutchman joined Barcelona from PSV Eindhoven in January 2011 but has made just 35 appearances for the Spanish giants since his arrival at the Nou Camp.
Afellay won the last of his 44 Netherlands caps in November 2012.
Stuttgart
Stuttgart has signed Serbian forward Filip Kostic from Dutch club Groningen.
The Bundesliga club said late Saturday that the 21-year-old Kostic joined on a five-year contract. It gave no details of the transfer deal.
Serbia under-21 international Kostic was signed to replace Guinea winger Ibrahima Traore, who moved to Bundesliga rival Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Stuttgart narrowly escaped relegation last season and is hoping for a better performance this time under new coach Armin Veh, who led the club to the Bundesliga title in 2007, and returned to the team in the offseason.
Monaco
Monaco have signed Dutch international goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg from Fulham on a season-long loan, the Principality club said on their website Saturday.
The 31-year-old, who was first choice for the Netherlands at the 2010 World Cup, will provide competition for Croatia’s Danijel Subasic.
The former Ajax and Roma shot-stopper, who has 54 international caps, will wear the number 16 shirt.
He played just 11 league games for Fulham last season as they were relegated from the Premier League to the Championship.
Monaco had been expected to sign former Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes after the Spaniard became a free agent at the end of last season, but they pulled out of the deal after he tore his cruciate knee ligament in March.
Bordeaux
Diego Contento is set to leave Bayern Munich and join Bordeaux, ending a 19-year association with the Bundesliga club.
The 24-year-old left-back’s association with Bayern began when he was just five and he has since made 49 league appearances, winning three league titles and the Champions League in 2013.
A statement published on Bayern’s official website said Contento’s move to France depends on him passing a medical at Bordeaux but, should the transfer go through, he will work under Willy Sagnol.
The retired France defender is the new head coach at the Stade Chaban-Delmas and played for Bayern for nine years. He won five German championships and the European Cup while in Munich.
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