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Transfers
Southampton risk £10m Ross Stewart repeat as target’s injury wrecks January transfer hopes
Premier League strugglers Southampton know all too well the risks that can come with signing a player in the midst of an injury.
Ross Stewart had missed the final three months of Sunderland’s 2022/23 season, after all, before making that £10 million switch from Wearside to the Solent.
And while Southampton obviously felt that Stewart was capable of bouncing back stronger than ever, a tally of three Championship appearances – totalling 24 minutes – in his debut season with The Saints highlights the potential pitfalls such a risky move can bring.
After seemingly putting that nightmare campaign behind him while featuring in four successive Premier League matches at the start of 2024/25, Stewart then suffered a setback in the defeat to Arsenal back in October.
The Scotland international has not been seen since.
And while Kwame Poku’s own injury does not appear to be as serious as the one which kept Stewart out for a season-and-a-half – TBR understands that Southampton are keen on the Peterborough United winger – The Saints could be forgiven for dropping their interest until Poku proves his powers of recovery.
Kwame Poku injury may wreck Southampton or Ipswich Town transfer
Poku’s contract at the London Road is due to expire next summer.
With Ipswich Town, Burnley and Millwall also watching him closely – and Southampton offering a shot at the Premier League – Poku could have done without picking up a hamstring problem on the eve of the January transfer window.
One that, according to Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson, could keep him on the sidelines until the season’s final stretch.
“He’s been the best player in the league in many people’s opinion and we have to get on with [losing him]. He’ll be back around March time,” Ferguson sighs, speaking to .
“He had a scan and needed an operation.
“It gives someone else an opportunity, that’s how I’m looking at it. I never get too down on injuries because I know it’s part of the game. I don’t make excuses with it, I never have done.
“But it is a blow for the boy because he’s in such good form.”
Darragh Mac Anthony tips Peterborough’s Poku to shine in the Premier League
He certainly has.
Poku, formerly of Cambridge United, is averaging a ‘goal contribution’ almost every time he takes to the field these days.
In 20 appearances, Poku has 10 goals and a further eight assists across league and cup action.
Peterborough owner Darragh MacAnthony believes Poku could fetch £6 million ‘minimum’, via a tribunal. Such a fee would be a bargain, he says, given that the London-born Ghana international has the potential to be worth five times that in the near future.
“A fair price for someone like Kwame is in the millions and millions and millions,” MacAnthony tells his Hard Truth podcast. “He’s going to be one of those players who probably, in three years’ time, will go for £30m-plus, if I was a guessing man.
“He’ll be one of them who’ll go Championship, Premier League, and then he’ll go ‘bang’ again, because he’s got physicality, he’s got pace, he’s got technique that’s top drawer. He’s got an appetite, he’s ever-present, all those things…
“He will kill it in the Premier League.”
With Poku unlikely to be showcasing his pace, that ‘top-drawer technique’ or his eye for goal again until the spring, the Premier League will have to wait.