Best loan signing in our history

[Yorkshire Saint]

Anyone know if there is a way to add a poll and I will add one in response to the names mentioned. Some great choices. 

[Mr Saints]

I remember Christian Dailly being really good for us in a short spell.

[SaintNewForest]

8 hours ago, Paul Chuckle said:

Don't mean to go all MLG on you but didn't we sign Sarmiento?

 

Definitely a loan!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/5124444.stm

Played 4 times for us apparently, which is 4 more than I remember  

[SaintNewForest]

8 hours ago, Paul Chuckle said:

Don't mean to go all MLG on you but didn't we sign Sarmiento?

 

Definitely a loan!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/5124444.stm

Played 4 times for us apparently, which is 4 more than I remember  

[inspectorfrost]

11 hours ago, Appy said:

For a short term loan, Richard Wright was brilliant. 

A good shout as he was a big upgrade on Kelvin Davis at that time. I remember he played in the Sheffield Utd game on the last day of the season, there was a header from a corner I still don't know how he kept out to this day

[Badger]

16 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Got to be KWP surely, then signing permanently and making 200 appearances?

I didn’t think KWP looked anything special during his loan spell, certainly nothing like the player he has become for us. 

[Badger]

13 hours ago, Paul Chuckle said:

Alan Bennett from Reading 07/08 season. 

 

13 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Got better but that debut v Palace….his namesake the famous playwright would have been more solid that day.

Works for the FAI now. 

Club missed a trick in the catering after that performance by Alan Bennett.

Arnold Bennet omelette- with smoke haddock and cheese.

Alan Bennet special omelette- more like something largely scrambled and all over the fucking place/plate 

[Saint_clark]

If we're talking purely contributions during the loan spell then Saganowski is up there. Was pretty meh when we signed him permanently but he looked like Aguero when he was on loan. 

[Saint_clark]

18 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Saganowski got 10 in 13 during his loan spell, but only scored three more times after that.

 

9 more times actually. He went on loan somewhere else then came back and got another 6. 

[leesaint88]

21 hours ago, Appy said:

For a short term loan, Richard Wright was brilliant. 

Good shout that - I think he was one of the main reasons we survived that season. 

[Gloucester Saint]

19 hours ago, Toussaint said:

I recall Peter Reid having a brief run under Branfoot. He transformed the team in that very short run. Obviously not a contender for best loanee ever, nevertheless worth a mention.

Still a very good player even at 37, ran the game in a home win v Spurs. Can see why he had the career he had as a player.

[Miltonaggro]

Like others Ekelund, only player I ever saw completely on Le Tissier's wavelength, if he'd stayed fit would have been an absolute legend, and Alderweireld, looked the complete modern centre back, had the lot.  Also really enjoyed Richard Wright's spell with us as we looked so much better with him in that poor side, always thought he was massively underrated as a keeper and in his prime should have won a shedload of England caps.

[swannymere]

Ronnie Ekelund is the correct answer.

[macca155]

I think it's hard to look past Toby Alderweireld as he was absolutely top class. 

Ronnie Eckland East a good player but permanently injured if I remember correctly.

[andrew7610]

Le TIss named Ekelund as the best player he'd ever seen, didn't he?  

[Turkish]

16 minutes ago, macca155 said:

I think it's hard to look past Toby Alderweireld as he was absolutely top class. 

Ronnie Eckland East a good player but permanently injured if I remember correctly.

probably fair given Alderweireld gave us a whole season and was excellent

Ekeland was a brilliant player but he had problems with his back which effectively ruined any chance he had of player top level football, i believe he only played for us about 15 times but the fact that everyone remembers him so much shows just how good he was.

[Midfield_General]

Takumi Minamino looked like a shrewd bit of loan business at first. Was excellent on his debut, played the full 90 straight off the bat, scored a very decent goal and just generally looked like a threat. 

Then I can't remember any other single thing that he did after that. Wiki says he scored two goals in 10 games for us in total, but I don't remember the second one and just seem to recall that he dropped off fairly spectacularly after that good start. 

[franniesTache]

Came into the thread to say Ekeland and was glad to see so many others already had. I've always wondered what we'd have done had we kept him as him and Matty looked the absolute dogs together.

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, franniesTache said:

Came into the thread to say Ekeland and was glad to see so many others already had. I've always wondered what we'd have done had we kept him as him and Matty looked the absolute dogs together.

Wasnt there an issue with his insurance due to his injury that meant we couldn't sign him permanently? 

[franniesTache]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

Wasnt there an issue with his insurance due to his injury that meant we couldn't sign him permanently? 

yeah i think you're right he had a pre-existing back injury that the insurance wouldn't cover. Also remember something about him refusing an op too but it's so long ago that could be my memory playing tricks.

[Golactico]

The Echo excelled itself after the Ekeland loan ended and we were looking at options for getting him fit and signed permanently. Their back page headline has always stuck in my mind:

Ball Wants His Danish Back, Cured.

[SNSUN]

Honourable mention to Andrew Davies, who got our POTS despite only playing a dozen or so games. Some doing that. 

After his two goals against Newcastle I thought Eljero Elia was going to be better than he was, he did very little else for us. 

I guess the answer is Toby or Ryan, but I have a soft spot for Berkovic. Really wish we'd got him permanently. Great goals in the 6-3.

[Andrew Watson]

Had a chat with Mark Davies then of Durham CCC  [  in 2009 ], Mark was Andrews brother and said that Andrew loved it at Saints and was very sorry to leave.

[Paul Chuckle]

Jos Hooiveld was initially on loan and I think we were all happy when we made that deal permanent. 

[Paul Chuckle]

Peter Madsen and Kamil Kosowski during the 05/06 season. Used to like both of them, think it was based on the fact they wore white boots more than anything else at the time.

[Yorkshire Saint]

Starting to form a loan 11:

 

1. Richard Wright  (Keller) 

2. KWP

3. Bertrand

4. Alderwierald

5. A.Davies (Hoolveld)

6. Reid

7. Ekuland

8. Berkovic

9. Saganowski (Ings)

10. Antonio 

11. H. Camara (Wiago)

 

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Yorkshire Saint

[Paul Chuckle]

Peter Reid had just been sacked by Man City as player manager so he wasn't on loan. MLG mode deactivated.

[S-Clarke]

Euklund was a bit before my footballing memories to be honest, I feel like I missed a lot in the early 90's and prior. Never mind.

In recent years though, in this order of pure impact at the time -

1 - Saganowski. Ridiculous period on loan, that 6 months got us into the playoffs. He carried us there. Shame it never happened after that. Wasn't it true that Leon Crouch actually coughed up the £750k needed to sign him permanently?

2 - Toby. Class act, elite level CB whom we could enjoy for a year. Never kicked up a fuss and was a proper good pro around the place too. Luckily we didn't feel his departure too greatly as we moved onto VVD shortly after, who was even more epic, but we still got our value out of that Toby deal.

3 - Bertrand. He was, in a lot of peoples minds, quite an underwhelming addition to replace the £35m we'd just got for Luke Shaw. But he was excellent on loan, a no brainer permanent addition and one of my favourite players of our PL era.

4 - KWP has to feature. He didn't start like a house on fire during his loan period, but once he got going he was well worth that £11m outlay. We've lost him on a free now, but we (notably during Ralph's time) extracted every ounce of ability from him. I reckon we saw his best years in the PL.

Edited Monday at 17:56 by S-Clarke

[Greenridge]

Henri Camara

[S-Clarke]

4 minutes ago, Greenridge said:

Henri Camara

Yeah that's a good shout, he was fun. Brought some hope into a pretty poor season, although compared to our recent relegated efforts, we were world beaters in 05.

That Norwich game is still one of my favs.

Edited Monday at 18:02 by S-Clarke

[S-Clarke]

This is a bit of a left field one - but Danny Guthrie. 

We had him on loan in the 2nd half of that Play off season, he was pretty classy I thought. Lots of games in that 2nd half of the season went through him, and he actually made a decent-ish PL career for himself at Bolton and Newcastle after that year. A tidy player.

[Yorkshire Saint]

1 hour ago, Greenridge said:

Henri Camara

I raise you Papa Wiago ..

[Greenridge]

30 minutes ago, Yorkshire Saint said:

I raise you Papa Wiago ..

Raise? PW 5 goals in 35. HC 4 in 13. #trumped

[RedArmy]

Toby Alderweireld. Including Les Reed having his pants pulled down because he didn’t read the small print of the deal, then threatening to sue all involved 

 

I’d expect VVD was already in our sights too, imagine them two as a pairing that season. 

[Midfield_General]

How about the bang average loans hall of fame?

Not the Maxwel Cornet/ Mason Holgate-levels of absolute shite, or the invisible men like Gronbaek or Caceres, but the utterly nondescript players who maybe contributed enough to encourage an initial flash of optimism that they might be OK, but otherwise didn't do much and were either quietly dropped or were packed back off to their parent clubs once their loan spell ended and were subsequently missed by absolutely no-one. 

Kevin Danso, Jan-Paul Saeijs, Chris Lucketti, Iago Falqué, Phil Ifil, Jordon Robertson, Maarten Stekelenburg, Ryan Smith, Filip Djuricic, Neal Trotman, Dany N'Guessan, Joe Rothwell, Adam Hamill, Jacob Mellis - this is for you. 

Edited Monday at 20:27 by Midfield_General

[RedArmy]

26 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

Jan-Paul Saeijs

Scored a belter of a free kick at Watford, then when we got another in a decent position in stoppage time Lallana took it (poorly) despite JPS being on a hat-trick. 

[Gloucester Saint]

4 hours ago, Andrew Watson said:

Had a chat with Mark Davies then of Durham CCC  [  in 2009 ], Mark was Andrews brother and said that Andrew loved it at Saints and was very sorry to leave.

My late friend was one of Pulis’s scouts and recommended he sign Davies which Pulis did after watching him further. Unlucky with injuries. 

[Chez]

Henri Camera. My favourite loan signing by far.

[Chez]

4 hours ago, Greenridge said:

Henri Camara

ah. you beat me to it,...he was electric. 

[mikee]

Ronnie

Ronnie, Ronnie

Ronnie, Ronnie

Ronnie Ekelund!

[Turkish]

13 hours ago, RedArmy said:

Toby Alderweireld. Including Les Reed having his pants pulled down because he didn’t read the small print of the deal, then threatening to sue all involved 

 

I’d expect VVD was already in our sights too, imagine them two as a pairing that season. 

Les was comfortable with the situation you know. 😂

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Can't believe no one has mentioned the first on loan player to score a goal for Saints. It was in '82-83 if that helps narrow it down and it came in a very emotionally charged game against Notts County no less.

[johnnyboy]

On 22/06/2025 at 11:05, Kenilworthy59 said:

Maybe we should restrict it to players who were on loan and then didn't sign permanently? One that is often overlooked is Justin Fashanu - scored 3 goals in 9 games. And I believe he was our first loan player to score for us. Real shame he didn't sign permanently. Maybe his life would have worked out better in the more stable environment of Saints.

FF 

Do you mean this chap !

[Kenilworthy59]

40 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

FF 

Do you mean this chap !

And his first goal was at home against Villa, not Notts County

[Appy]

13 hours ago, RedArmy said:

Scored a belter of a free kick at Watford, then when we got another in a decent position in stoppage time Lallana took it (poorly) despite JPS being on a hat-trick. 

It was Surman who took it instead and stuck it straight in the away end. 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

On 22/06/2025 at 11:05, Kenilworthy59 said:

Maybe we should restrict it to players who were on loan and then didn't sign permanently? One that is often overlooked is Justin Fashanu - scored 3 goals in 9 games. And I believe he was our first loan player to score for us. Real shame he didn't sign permanently. Maybe his life would have worked out better in the more stable environment of Saints.

I'd forgotten he'd done so well in the ,on spell. Li'l H&W formed an instant ill-informed opinion of him being a bit lumbering. Based as much on the style I thought we had with Keegan before him, and his spell at Forest having not worked out. And not realising the need for different physical styles to bring success.

Getting BBC goal of the season was one thing. But his goal for Norwich v Liverpool was immortalised in a Football Handbook diagram. A brilliant strike even in drawing.

He also wore some of my favourite kits.

 

[kitch]

Got to be Toby Alderweireld, surely? 

Ings, Bertrand and KWP all started on loan here, too. They were all deemed so good the club wanted to sign them permanently, so you can't get much more successful than that.

[Saint Mikey]

20 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

This is a bit of a left field one - but Danny Guthrie. 

We had him on loan in the 2nd half of that Play off season, he was pretty classy I thought. Lots of games in that 2nd half of the season went through him, and he actually made a decent-ish PL career for himself at Bolton and Newcastle after that year. A tidy player.

Preceded by another Liverpool loanee, Darren Potter who also did OK in that Burley side.

[notnowcato]

Should've been David Brooks but for all the games he fucking missed being cup tied.

[Yorkshire Saint]

23 hours ago, Yorkshire Saint said:

Starting to form a loan 11:

 

1. Richard Wright  (Keller) 

2. KWP

3. Bertrand

4. Alderwierald

5. A.Davies (Hoolveld)

6. Reid

7. Ekuland

8. Berkovic

9. Saganowski (Ings)

10. Antonio 

11. H. Camara (Wiago)

 

 

 

Updated loan 11 👆