The story is told that in the January transfer window of 2018 the Southampton transfer committee were considering moving for one of four strikers to help lift them out of the Premier League relegation zone. Raul Jimenez, Quincy Promes, Theo Walcott and manager’s Mauricio Pellegrino’s fellow countryman, Guido Carrillo were the names in consideration and the decision was finally taken to go for the latter, then on Monaco’s books having joined them from Estudiantes for £7m. Monaco made a profit of some £12m as Saints backed their manager in making Guido their record signing. Les Reed, Director of Football, made the appropriate noises as the South American signed on the dotted line.

“Guido represents a very exciting addition to our attacking options…..we are confident he will benefit us not only in the remainder of this campaign but in the years to come”.

Never has a Director of Football got it so wrong as, by the time April Fools Day came around Guido had indeed made his debut but also, as it turned out, his final appearance in a Saints shirt. Meanwhile his Argentinian manager, who the Board had backed so emphatically, had forever patrolled his last Premier League technical area. Just seven starts and three outings from the bench were to be the sum total of Guido Carrillo’s football odyssey in this country.

Incoming manager, Mark Hughes had no interest in seeing what more Carrillo could offer, the club were in a desperate fight to avoid the drop and there was no time to further acclimatise any finding-it-hard-to-settle newcomers to the battlefield. That summer, as the club mopped fevered brows after a narrow escape and then brought in Danny Ings, it made sense to loan Carrillo out to Leganes, now managed by Pellegrino, the man for whom he had produced some of the best football of his career back in their homeland.

Raised on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Carrillo told the Daily Telegraph’s Jeremy Wilson soon after arriving at Southampton, how he had been “born with a ball under his arm” and that his family “breathed football”. Signing for Estudiantes de La Plata at the age of 12, when he later made the Estudiantes first team in 2010 found himself playing alongside the experienced Juan Veron who was winding down his career before becoming club president.

The ex-Manchester United player recommended he move to Europe and he duly won a French League title with Monaco and figured in a Champions League run which included wins over Spurs and Manchester City before ending in a semi-final defeat against Juventus. This pedigree ultimately must have had some part in Saints decision to make him their costliest outlay, but the fact that in his subsequent two seasons on loan with Legranes he hardly ripped up any trees – they were relegated in 2019-20 – his signing will be looked back on as one of the most expensive mistakes ever made.

He finally left Saints permanently in September 2020, on a free transfer and in an ironic twist of fate on the day he departed, Theo Walcott one of the original gang of four under the microscope, made his entrance through the Staplewood door, having spent the intervening two and a half years at Everton.