Sure enough, this morning even the local paper was saying that a deal was imminent.
Phillips had apparently arrived last night to complete a medical. A press conference was announced for three o'clock this afternoon, while the two parties hammered out a few minor details to the contract.
Although all sides seemed quite happy about the impending signing, Phillips' agent couldn't resist one last attempt to make a complete arse of himself to the public.
"Watch this space. It's progressing and may or may not happen today," said Phil Smith, insisting on all the change in Rupert Lowe's pocket before the deal would go through. Alas, everyone else had already completed the deal and gone ahead to the conference, leaving Smith to try and extort money from the cleaning staff.
At the conference, Phillips it was announced that Phillips would be inheriting the hallowed number seven shirt, which presumably was the real reason behind the deal taking so long to complete.
Hopefully fans won't put too much pressure on Phillips to fill the shirt of Le Tissier. He's only a small lad and he'd have to eat a hell of a lot of cheeseburgers to get even close.
Phillips will instead have to rely on thumping in loads of goals to win us over. Considering his very impressive scoring record, he shouldn't have too many problems.
"I've done it in the Premiership, the First Division and at international level," he said. "But I wasn't enjoying my football at Sunderland and probably wasn't playing from the heart.
"Now it's a new start for me and time for me to show people what I can do again. I needed a fresh start and now it's time to repay the manager and chairman here."
Looking at the forwards we now have, the Saints are looking to be quite a potent Premiership force for next season.
Chairman Rupert Lowe was equally impressed with his new purchase. "We are delighted to confirm that Kevin Phillips will be joining us," he said.
"It has taken a lot of careful negotiation but we have stuck to our guns and ended up with a quality player who will make a big difference to us. His arrival will give the fans a lift, Gordon Strachan a lift and the other players a lift.
Phillips let the black cat out of the bag, when he admitted that Saints were the only club to have put in an offer for his services.
"The papers said every club in the country were interested in me but Southampton were the only club to make an offer," said the diminutive striker as his agent insisted that both Rangers and 'Boro were really, really interested. No, honest they were.
"It feels great to be here and I'm delighted to have sorted my future out at last," continued Kev.
"I spoke to Gordon on Friday and was pleased with what I heard," he said. "There were no doubts in my mind once I'd spoken to Gordon.
As the Saints staff picked out the best place to hide our European scrapbook, Kev said, "European football was one of the reasons but Southampton are a very ambitious club and are going places."
Phillips is justifiably delighted to be part of the Saints steady progress. The club are continuing to flourish under Lowe and Strachan and are better placed than most clubs in the division.
A Beattie and Phillips partnerships should see Saints get the goals they need to climb even higher in the table for 2003/04.
The final cost of the deal varies between three and three and a quarter million pounds, depending on which source you're lazily copying from.
What has been definitely decided is that Mr. Phillips will be pocketing a fair chunk of that sum and has signed for the Saints in a three year deal. That makes him one of the club's top earners.