S-Clarke

I think you may have just made that up, first I've heard of that.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2807639,00.html Jay Rodriguez has become Saints' first signing since the club's return to the Premier League for a substantial undisclosed fee. 22 year-old striker Rodriguez is widely regarded as one of the hottest properties outside of the Barclays Premier League, with his prolific goal scoring record moving him on to the radar of several top-flight teams. The deal to sign the promising young forward was formally agreed whilst Rodriguez was on holiday in Mexico, and today he put pen to paper on a four year contract alongside Saints Executive Chairman Nicola Cortese. Burnley-born frontman Rodriguez has been The Clarets' top goalscorer for the previous two seasons, during which time he also gained international recognition with England Under-21s. He made his professional debut in the Championship aged just 18 and went on to finish his opening season on loan at Scottish side Stirling Albion where he grabbed his first senior goals in an 11 game spell. Jay went on to play a bigger role the following year as Burnley earned promotion to the Premier League. He landed the Club's Young Player of the Season award, whilst he also added League Cup goals against Fulham and Tottenham to his name. Despite not featuring in his hometown side's sole top-flight campaign due to an injury setback, Rodriguez maintained his match sharpness with a loan spell back in the Championship with Barnsley. It paid off as the youngster went on to strike 15 times in Burnley's return to the second tier, although a Clarets side which also featured current Saints duo, Danny Fox and Jack Cork, narrowly missed out on a place in the play-offs. He elected to stay on at Turf Moor when Cork and Fox departed for St Mary's last summer, but the youngster continued to enhance his glowing reputation, finishing as Burnley's outright leading scorer with 21 goals, a feat which also won him the Club's Players' Player of the Year award. Rodriguez ended the campaign just four strikes short of 50 career goals, and was also named in the PFA Championship Team of the Year alongside Saints stars, Kelvin Davis, Adam Lallana, and Rickie Lambert. His move to Saints provides Rodriguez with an opportunity to realise his aspirations at both club and international level. Jay Rodriguez said: "I'm really relieved that we've got it sorted now, and it's done. I really can't wait for the start of the season, and the start of pre-season. "This is a great club, a massive club, and they're where they belong. It's a squad I want to be a part of, and it's really exciting. "As an outsider, you look at the club from where it started, and the drive they have to move up the leagues in quick succession is amazing. "The sky is the limit. You see how good the players are at the club. They want to push on even higher, and carry on the way they're going." Nigel Adkins commented: "Jay is an exciting young English prospect, so I am really happy he is our first signing of the summer. There has been a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes on several fronts and we are delighted Jay has signed us as we get ready for our pre-season schedule. "He is an exciting forward thinking player who has already scored a lot of goals at a young age over the past couple of years. His characteristics are what we have been looking for. "He has demonstrated a superb attitude and when we have met him it has only confirmed what our research has told us. He has a hungry and enthusiastic attitude with a desire to work hard in the positive environment that we have at Southampton where will be able to develop his talent."

4mins to go

it works fine for me, and long gone are the days when you had to bring down a website to update an article...

Alan Nixon apparently has an ''update'' on the situation tonight . Credit to him for being right about our interest, but he's been lost on this story for the last week. We've broken it before him!

it won't be bad news.

Yakubu doesn't fit anything we do though. We don't sign players like that, and I'm pleased we don't. We sign players who have huge potential and potentially a large sell-on value, that's our transfer strategy and we won't change from that. Lambert will have no problem in the premier league. If Danny Graham, Mamdy Sidibe, Grant Holt, Steve Morrison can all score 10 goals, then so can he - easily.

''The Jay Rodriguez deal has fallen through because it was leaked incorrectly, we'll now move onto new targets''

Someone on not606 reckons it's Clyne in the picture

The one guy that stands out straight away is Tom, the camera guy. you can also see he's wearing the saints traksuit, with the red-under arm's bit

I bet Cortese has already had him escorted, expect him to be locked in the St Mary's cells for the next 6 weeks.

We will not sign another striker. Jay Rodriguez, Rickie Lambert, Billy Sharp, Tanadari Lee, Guly Do Prado, Lee Barnard Ok, none have played in the premier league but I can promise you that if we were still in the Champ alot of premiership clubs would be after Lambert, because they believe he can do a job at that level - and so do i. And more so for Jay, premier league clubs have been after him because they believe he can do a job in the premier league - which we have to believe to. Having a group of players that are hungry and driven to prove themselves is much more rewarding than having a bunch of players who have already been there and done it. Not all will succeed, but I can promise you that we'll get lots of goals from a few of them next year.

Doubt it seeing as pretty much most people saying Jay signed today, if THEVMAN says it - it's done. A tall, slim tanned guy witha saints scarf around his neck - Jordan Sibley present, on the day that we were rumoured to have signed Rodriguez....

Don't think so. From what everyone has said they wanted Chaplow, but Chaplow wanted to give it a shot here so it's a straight cash deal. I imagine we'd have paid less of Chaplow was included etc.

Do we get that woman too? (i get a pic of a woman half naked on the forum thread..!)

He's young and he's english, unfortunate that's the rate that someone will have to pay if they want him. Madness when you think that Ronaldo cost man utd £14m

I'm just pleased that Rory Delap is no longer our record fee. We've come close to breaking that in the last 18months, but at last...!

Sounds like we've wined and dinned him a bit!

Would be surprised to see any announcement today....would expect it in the morning. Great singing though, it's who I've wanted since day 1. and at last....Rory Flaming delap isn't our record transfer fee.

twitter probably, just saw it on there

He's an absolute nutcase who shouldn't be playing football, but he does come out with some common sense from time to time. No idea why he thinks he could play for England. QPR fans can't stand him as he was so bad for them all last year.

Brilliant, love it. Thsoe were the days...winding away an entire close season debating where the ice rink would go!

Thanks for that. I this means it's pretty much a done deal.....I knew we'd get him in the end.

Nineteen Canteen is ranting on twitter, we're just reminding ourselves of some of his aliases from the past. ....oh, but on the Jay Rod front - will probably be announced on Monday morning I'd imagine. That's what everyone's saying.

lifelongsaint ? and also HelpMeRhonda was another classic. Shame we don't have those fairground plans anymore.