Recent Southampton signing Sofiane Boufal broke the club’s record transfer fee, with the total cost sitting at £16 million with add-ons potentially seeing it to £21 million.
Boufal joins from Lille where he made 29 appearance in Ligue 1 last season, scoring 11 goals. The Moroccan spent the majority of his time deployed as a right-winger, though he also spent time on the left and as an attacking-midfielder.
READ MORE: Southampton announce Sofiane Boufal signing
This begs the question: where does he line up in Claude Puel’s 4-4-2 diamond system? Who he replace were he to start? Not playing with any out and out wingers would make the No.10 role the only real option, which would displace Dusan Tadić.
Pacey and a good dribbler, the 22-year-old offers a different avenue through the midfield and is a real danger on the counter-attack. With Nathan Redmond and Shane Long already on the books, Puel looks to have one of the quickest attacking combinations in the Premier League.
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Despite being born in Paris, Boufal elected to represent Morocco through his parentage and made his debut against Cape Verde in an African Cup of Nations qualifier in March this year. The Lille man was awarded the Marc-Vivien Foé Award for best African player in Ligue 1 at the end of the 2015-16 season.
Previous to Boufal’s signing, Argentine-born Italian international Dani Osvaldo held the title as the Saints’ record signing, joining the club from AS Roma in a £15 million deal. Osvaldo had his contract with the club terminated in July 2015 after a string of disciplinary issues and loan deals, ultimately only making 13 Premier League appearances for the club.
Ronald Koeman brought in plenty of Eredivisie talent in the shape of Tadić, Graziano Pellè, Jordy Clasie and Cuco Martina. Now, it looks as though Puel is looking to source players from Ligue 1, with Boufal his second signing from the French league after Jérémy Pied.
It surprises many that, for such a successful club of late, the Saints have remained fairly frugal in their transfer dealings. The £16 million deal for Boufal seems fairly pedestrian when transfers double or even triple the size are made so frequently in world football. Yet it is important to remember the south coast club, until very recently, barely cracked eight-figure deals.
The Saints continuously bring in players for relatively low fees and then sell them on after they have established themselves, forging an image as one of the most financially stable clubs in the Premier League. Sadio Mané, Pellè and Victor Wanyama all left the club over the summer for combined transfer fees of around £57 million, having been signed for closer to £33 million.
Now with young talent of the likes of Boufal, Redmond and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Southampton look to have another crop of potential stars.
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