Southamp­ton remain firm­ly in the hunt for auto­mat­ic pro­mo­tion this sea­son and could find them­selves back in the Pre­mier League next sea­son.

Rus­sell Martin‘s side have been writ­ten off by many but with their two games in hand on pro­mo­tion rivals Ipswich Town and Leeds Unit­ed, they have every chance of a top-two fin­ish.

Notwith­stand­ing that, if they fail to go up this term and remain a Cham­pi­onship out­fit, there could be a few sur­prise exits in the trans­fer win­dow.

As seen with Leices­ter City in recent weeks, the leagues are crack­ing down on Prof­it and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty breach­es, so for the good of the club, Saints may have to sanc­tion some big-mon­ey sales, any­how.

Here are three play­ers that could poten­tial­ly move on in the sum­mer.

Kyle Walker-Peters

Kyle Walk­er-Peters is wide­ly con­sid­ered one of the best play­ers in the Cham­pi­onship and Mar­tin has been full of praise for the for­mer Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur defend­er ever since he arrived.

The ‘tal­ent­ed’ Walk­er-Peters attract­ed inter­est last sum­mer and there were many who won­dered if he’d stick around in the Cham­pi­onship.

If Southamp­ton fail to go up, he’ll like­ly be the first play­er to be sold giv­en he could demand a sub­stan­tial trans­fer fee, like­ly in excess of £20m.

Adam Armstrong

Hav­ing joined in 2021 from Black­burn Rovers, Adam Armstrong‘s Southamp­ton career got off to a slow start, but he’s been rip­ping it up in his third sea­son.

The New­cas­tle-born strik­er has reg­is­tered dou­ble fig­ures in goals and assists in the Cham­pi­onship, only Kier­nan Dews­bury-Hall and Gabriel Sara can match that feat.

Nat­u­ral­ly, as one of the most pro­lif­ic for­wards in the divi­sion, his next step will be try­ing to cut it back in the top-flight, so it’s imper­a­tive Southamp­ton gain pro­mo­tion, or else he could be off.

Samuel Edozie

Samuel Edozie is a supreme­ly tal­ent­ed young winger hav­ing been nur­tured and devel­oped in Man­ches­ter City’s pres­ti­gious acad­e­my.

The 21-year-old has impressed this term, net­ting six goals whilst lay­ing three assists across 25 appear­ances in the Cham­pi­onship.

Yet, he’s only start­ed 15 league games and has often appeared on the sub­sti­tutes bench.

So per­haps he may feel in order to fur­ther his career, a loan move could be the best option in the sum­mer.

He won’t want anoth­er year play­ing a bit part role and many clubs in the upper end of the Cham­pi­onship would like­ly be des­per­ate to add his qual­i­ty to their attack­ing ranks.

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