Following Southampton’s relegation to the Championship, a mass exodus has started taking place, as tends to be the case when a big club goes down.
The same is happening at Leeds and Leicester these days, and one of the players departing St Mary’s is Duje Caleta-Car.
The Southampton centre-back was bought from Marseille in Ligue 1, and that’s the league he will be returning too, according to Foot Mercato’s Seb Nonda, with Lyon the purchasing club.
He took to Twitter to reveal that ‘everything is closed’ for the player’s transfer, and the centre-back is ‘already in Lyon’.
The player’s medical is still ‘to come’ for a deal set at around €5m, which is seen as a great deal for the French club considering their current financial difficulties.
The 26-year-old was originally bought from Marseille by Southampton for €8m, meaning they are making a loss, but with the player clearly not interested in playing in the Championship, this is a decent enough way of getting him off the wage bill.
During his time at St Mary’s, the Croatia international made only 13 appearances in the Premier League, scoring one goal.
Tout est bouclé pour Duje Caleta Car déjà à Lyon. VM à venir pour deal autour de 5 M€. Vu le contexte économique du club, c’est un joli coup pour l’OL. https://t.co/Ae3ERjIIz4
— Sébastien Denis (@sebnonda) August 2, 2023
