Florin Gardos came to Southampton fresh from playing Champions League football with Steaua Bucharest having been with them four years. The owner of 12 Romanian caps, he cost £6m and was Ronald Koeman’s seventh signing since he had arrived earlier that summer. Toby Alderweireld and José Fonte’s presence meant games in the central defence were not easy to come by but when the former moved onto Spurs in the summer of 2015 Gardos was poised to be more involved.

That was until a bad knee ligament injury, sustained in a pre-season friendly, intervened and, early estimates that it would sideline him for seven months, proved wildly optimistic. In fact he was only ever to play one further game for Saints, 18 months after the injury. He eventually went on loan back to his home country with just six months left on his contract and then made the move permanent that summer. But the following years were not to be kind to him and injuries meant when he finally announced his retirement in April 2022 he had only played 55 games in nearly 5 years.