Saints have completed the £175,000 signing of Southend striker Lee Barnard, with youngster Matt Paterson moving in the opposite direction as part of the deal.

Barnard began his career at Tottenham, coming through the Academy system there, and had a good scoring record in the reserve team. He had a number of loan moves, including spells at Exeter City, Stevenage Borough, Leyton Orient, Northampton Town and Crewe Alexandra, before Shrimpers manager Steve Tilson signed him on a free transfer in January 2008.

In two years at Roots Hall, he has scored 37 goals in 69 starts, and has already netted 15 times in League One this season - more than half of Southend’s goals in the league to date - so Saints now have two of the top four goalscorers in the division on their books.

Barnard was suspended for Southend’s 3-0 FA Cup third round defeat at Gillingham, so he is not cup-tied for that competition, and could make his debut in tomorrow’s match against Ipswich Town.

The transfer fee is relatively low because he was out of contract at Roots Hall in the summer, so the Shrimpers have cashed in while they can still get some cash for him.

Saints have today confirmed that the loan of winger Michail Antonio from Reading has been extended until January.

The 19-year-old has made just four substitute appearances in League One so far since his temporary move from the Madejski Stadium, but has made a massive impact in the last two games in particular, causing the defences of MK Dons and Leyton Orient significant problems enabling the team to come from behind to take four points from those games.

His contract with Reading expires in the summer, and the club are believed to be interested in signing him on a permanent basis. The prospect of that happening appear to have grown with the news that Reading have allowed him to play in Friday’s FA Cup match at Bristol Rovers.

The not-so-good news regarding loan players is that both Chelsea and Preston North End have refused permission for Jacob Mellis and Neal Trotman respectively to play at the Memorial Ground which, in Trotman’s case at least, would suggest he may be recalled in January.

Saints have signed former Sunderland and Wigan striker David Connolly on a free transfer.

The 32-year-old has struggled with a groin injury in the last 18 months while at the Stadium of Light but appears to have finally got over that to sign a contract until the end of the season at St Mary’s, which includes an automatic renewal if he plays a predetermined number of games.

Connolly started his career at Watford and became one of the first British players to take advantage of the Bosman ruling when, as an 18-year-old, he left Vicarage Road to join Dutch giants Feyenoord, but his career in the Eredivisie never really took off and he spent time on loan back in England with Wolves and moved back to this country with Wimbledon when his contract expired at the De Kuip.

He was transferred in three consecutive summers when, in 2003, 2004 and 2005, he signed for West Ham, Leicester and Wigan in progressively more expensive deals, with Wigan paying £2m for his services.

He has won 41 caps for the Republic of Ireland, scoring 9 goals.

Connolly goes straight into the squad for tonight’s game at Southend United, although he isn’t expected to start the game. Alan Pardew will be hoping he can revert to 10 of the 11 who started last week’s win against Gillingham, with Jacob Mellis away on international duty with the England under-20s. That vacancy will provide a chance for Morgan Schneiderlin to return if fit, or Joseph Mills might be preferred as an option providing additional width.

Saints have signed 19-year-old Reading winger Michail Antonio on a month’s loan.

Antonio impressed in last month’s reserve match between Saints and the Royals, scoring with a close-range header.

He signed from non-league Tooting and Mitcham United last summer and has made two substitute appearances for Brendan Rodgers’ side this season, as well as spending the second half of last season on loan at Cheltenham Town.

He’s been assigned the number 37 shirt, and he will be eligible for tomorrow night’s Johnstones Paint Trophy match against Torquay at St Mary’s.

Saints goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski has gone to Championship side Barnsley for a week in an emergency loan deal.

The Tykes’ regular keeper David Preece picked up an injury in their 5-2 defeat at Queens Park Rangers on Saturday, and with two tough games coming up this week against West Bromwich Albion and Ipswich Town, Mark Robins wanted to bring in a replacement with Championship experience.

He will return to Saints on Monday, which means that Tommy Forecast - who had a disastrous loan spell at Grimsby Town earlier in the season - will act as Kelvin Davis’ understudy for the games against Bristol Rovers and Gillingham.

Saints have finally completed the signing of Tunisian centre-back Rahdi Jaidi on a free transfer, subject to work permit clearance.

The 34-year-old has been a free agent since his contract at Birmingham City expired and it was thought that he was going to sign in time for the start of the season but the deal appeared to have fallen through. The deal has now been completed, although the club now face an anxious wait for a decision on whether Jaidi qualifies for a work permit.

Jaidi is the captain of his national team and has 100 international caps, scoring 8 goals. He first came to England when Sam Allardyce signed him for Bolton Wanderers in 2004, where he made 43 appearances in two seasons at the Reebok Stadium. He then moved to Birmingham City for £2m, making 86 appearances for the Blues.

• In other transfer deadline day news, goalkeeper Michael Poke has rejoined Torquay United on loan. This will be his third loan spell at Plainmoor.

Grzegorz Rasiak has signed for Championship side Reading for an undisclosed fee, ending weeks of speculation about his future.

The Polish striker was signed by George Burley from Tottenham for £2m (after an initial loan spell) more than three years ago and made 87 appearances for the club, scoring 33 goals in the process. As the club’s highest earner, he was sent out on loan twice in order to save money while the club’s financial situation deteriorated, spending five months at Bolton Wanderers and the whole of last season at Watford, scoring ten goals in 25 appearances.

He was linked with a permanent return to the Hornets with Tommy Smith heading out of Vicarage Road, but it would appear his wage demands were too great for them to commit to. It is believed Rasiak also held talks with Swansea City but ultimately opted for a much shorter journey to the Madejski Stadium. With Reading having sold Kevin Doyle and released Leroy Lita this summer, they’ve struggled for goals so far this season, so he’s likely to get plenty of football there.

It was quite clear that he was looking to move on after Saints’ relegation to League One, but to give him credit, it would have been very easy for him to go through the motions, refuse to play in pre-season games, etc, but he played in the majority of the pre-season friendlies, and looked decent in his competitive appearances this season. However, it’s never worth keeping a player against his will these days, and to have got a reported £400,000 for a player on massive wages and in the last year of his contract looks like a pretty good deal for the club.

Hopefully that money will be reinvested in a replacement - while Matt Paterson and Marek Saganowski are good enough, we probably need at least one other striker to cover for the likely injuries and suspensions that will accumulate during the season. Alan Pardew might also be looking at right-back as a key position with Graeme Murty likely to be sidelined for some time with the knee injury he suffered against Birmingham on Tuesday.

Saints have made another move in the transfer market this morning by confirming the signing of Colchester United’s captain Dean Hammond on a three-year deal for an undisclosed fee rumoured to be worth somewhere in the region of £450,000.

The 26-year-old will add some much-needed bite and enthusiasm to a midfield that has been torn to bits in away games at Huddersfield and Swindon in the past week. He is the latest in a mini-exodus from the Essex club - currently top of League One with a 100% record - as fellow midfielder Johnnie Jackson was sold to League Two moneybags Notts County and manager Paul Lambert upped sticks to Norwich City on Monday, taking his entire backroom staff with him.

Talking to the Saints Official Site, Hammond said that he was excited by the move:

“This is a massive club with a Premiership set up and it represented an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down. Southampton has got a massive ambition to get back to the top. We’re in League One at the moment so obviously promotion is the aim, and I want to be a part of that.”

He began his career at Brighton, where he worked with Saints assistant manager Dean Wilkins, making more than 150 appearances over nearly eight years. Colchester paid £250,000 for him in January 2008 and he has been a mainstay of their team ever since, with another 63 appearances chalked up in his time at the U’s.

Those who were at Huddersfield and Swindon this week will be hoping his signing doesn’t signal the end of Alan Pardew’s transfer business this summer.

Saints have made some movements in the loan market at the end of this week with Chelsea midfielder Jacob Mellis joining until January and third-choice goalkeeper Tommy Forecast joining Grimsby Town for a month.

Forecast moves to the north-east as cover for the currently injured first-choice Nick Colgan - he’ll go straight into their squad to face Crewe Alexandra, and assuming he plays, it will be his first senior game at the age of 21.

Mellis is a pacy central midfielder who can also play out wide, and he’ll add an extra dynamic to the side. He has been signed in time to face Huddersfield at the Galpharm Stadium this afternoon.

Saints have completed a deal to sign Bristol Rovers striker Rickie Lambert for a fee in excess of £1m.

Lambert was the joint-leading scorer in the whole of the Football League last season with 29 goals, and has scored 78 league goals in the last four years.

Saints fans will probably remember him from the ill-fated FA Cup fifth round match at the Memorial Ground two years ago, when he scored a late winner with a deflected free-kick to send Rovers into the quarter-finals at our expense.

The official Saints website are reporting that the fee is in excess of £1m, which shows real intent from the club to bounce back at the earliest possible opportunity, and is a real coup considering he’s been linked with moves to the Championship for the last year and a half.

The 27-year-old began his career at Blackpool, although he made little impact for the Seasiders, making only three substitute appearances before a free transfer move to Macclesfield. He scored 8 goals in 44 games before making a record £300,000 move to Stockport County, where he netted a further 18 times.

Having fallen out of favour at Edgeley Park, he made a switch to neighbours Rochdale, where his career really began to take off, scoring 28 times in a year before making a deadline-day £200,000 switch to Bristol Rovers. In three years at the Memorial Ground, he has a goals-to-game ratio just short of 1 in 2, and was an ever-present last season, finding the net 29 times which, along with Swindon’s Simon Cox, saw him win the Football League’s Golden Boot.

He also scored on the opening day of the season in a home defeat to Brentford, which proved to be his last in a Rovers shirt.

If he can continue that sort of goalscoring form for us, he could prove an inspired signing by Alan Pardew.

Lambert is in line to make his Saints debut in the Carling Cup tomorrow night against Northampton Town at St Mary’s - tickets are just a tenner, so get yourself there!