Saints agree to Delgado exit

Last updated : 12 February 2003 By Christian Kelly

Now regular followers of our dubbed South American soap, "Delgado Days", will be all too familiar with what "according to Delgado's brother" means.

"We have spoken to the president of Southampton and he agrees to ending the contract with Agustin and we are going to try and reach a decision everyone is happy with," said Marcos Delgado.

"We don't want to have problems with this decision."

This, of course, flies in the face of Rupert Lowe's comment that Delgado had only departed until the start of next season. We've seen Marcos try and get his brother away from the club before. But no one from the club has said that the quotes are incorrect. It would appear as though our chairman is saying one thing publicly, to keep fans and lawyers happy, while desperately trying to get some money for Delgado in private.

That Marcos Delgado has no qualms about speaking out on the matter just make Rupert look pretty foolish.

Saints are right to be looking for compensation though. They paid £3.75 million for Delgado, who became our most expensive ever signing. To just throw that away is not really an option. However, keeping Delgado on our books until the end of his contract means paying his wages and lowering the morale of everyone involved. Saints keeping his registration while Delgado is banned just seems pretty pointless.

Delgado's agent Eric Manasse is keen to see a player exchange take place. That way, Saints would have another shot at convincing an Ecuadorian striker to settle at the club and get some value for the money spent. "I would like to see Agustin traded to a team in South America for another young striker. This would make everybody happy at this stage," said Manasse.

Southampton and Strachan don't seem to be too thrilled with this plan. It's pretty clear that they just want as much as they can get from the situation and move on.