Michail Antonio was on Reading’s books for four seasons but just didn’t seem able to break into their first eleven on a regular basis and as a consequence spent much of his early career on loan, including several months at post-administration Southampton.

Alan Pardew had been tasked to rebuild a club under the new ownership of Marcus Liebherr and Michail had caught his eye while scoring the winner for Reading Reserves v Saints Reserves in September 2009.

He settled quickly with a sequence of 29 consecutive appearances, albeit mainly as a sub and played his part in the JPT Cup run that took the club to Wembley. There, facing Carlisle on his 20^th birthday he scored the fourth in a 4-1 victory (see image below) and was involved in the other three goals.

Saints wanted to keep the pacey wide man on a permanent basis and he was inclined to stay, but Reading recalled him only to then perversely loan him out again to League One Colchester. Eventually he made a permanent move away from the Madejski and his career rose to new heights when after joining West Ham for £7m from Nottingham Forest he was called up to Sam Allardyce’s first England squad in August 2016 and then Gareth Southgate’s by which time he was being used as an overlapping full-back by the Hammers.

More than a decade later in December 2019 he reminded Southampton fans what he was all about when, now much bulkier he terrorised Saints defence when West Ham won 1-0 and then repeated the act in the return fixture in the February.