Last season Ross Stewart had his best season at St Mary's, it wasn't difficult, but he showed he had a knack for goals at Championship level and the hope for Saints fans was that he would repeat the season again, but when a technicality got him out of another season at Southampton we started to suspect something.

No one begrudges Ross Stewart a chance to show what he can do, but when his agents decided that they would stick the knife into Southampton FC when the club was down and claim that the 1 year extension option the club held was null & void because the final game of the season, when they had to exercise that option within 5 days was now not the Middlesbrough home fixture 2 days earlier, but the Preston game, so the option had expired, a rat was smelled.

Tonda Eckert seemed upbeat about the situation and it was noticeable that the club did not say much about the situation, you felt that they were confident that Stewart would soon find that he would not find anything better elsewhere.

I was told at the time that the issue for Stewart wasn't the new contract, it was the length of it, he preferred a two year deal than just the single year the option was offering.

Saints fans held their breath and waited, some moaned that given his injury record and the fact that he had been paid by the club for doing nothing for most of the first 2 1/2 years of his 3 year contract, that he owed the club some loyalty.

I did not thing that myself, football is a cut throat game and my opinion was that if we had gone up in the play off game, Saints themselves might not have been that keen on handing him another year, they would have preferred to save their money for someone younger and perhaps proven in the Premier League.

I suspect that Stewart himself suspected that.

So this was never about loyalty from either side, so the question was would Stewart prioritise cash over glory so to speak.

We now perhaps have the answer, he has opted to join Swansea City a team that finished 11th last season on 64 points, they were 16 points off the play offs and 17 off the relegation zone, they troubled neither.

So it seems that the answer is Stewart prefers a season of mid table mediocrity with the Swans than a chance of promotion with Saints, with all due respect to the Welsh club, he seems to have opted for cash not glory.

Ironically he may be signing for the club as replacement for Zan Vipotnik, who is being linked heavily with a move to St Mary's

So it could be a happy ending for both Ross Stewart & Southampton FC, the Scotsman has the financial security that he craves and Saints could well have in the 6ft 1 inch 24 year old Slovenian International striker who scored 23 goals in 44 Championship games, a younger, fitter and upgraded model on Ross Stewart.

It hurts that Ross Stewart left in such an underhand way, that he didn't repay the love that Southampton fans showed him by signing a new contract, but things move on and we have to move forward now.

All Photos Via Reuters

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