When 34 year-old midfielder, Dan Petrescu, joined Southampton in 2001, he came with a considerable international pedigree – 95 caps for Romania, including appearances in the final tournaments of two World Cups and two Euro Championships. Having reached England from Romania, via Italy, Dan had then played for three Premier League clubs, with short spells at Sheffield Wednesday and Bradford City book-ending five seasons at Stamford Bridge, as Chelsea collected domestic and European silverware.

When he fell out with Chelsea’s manager, GianlucaVialli, in 2000, he turned down a move to Southampton, preferring to join Bradford. He soon had second thoughts and signed for his former Chelsea manager, Glenn Hoddle, midway through the Saints’ final season at The Dell. After a debut coming off the bench, his first five consecutive starts were winning ones, with Dan scoring the game’s only goal in two of them. During this spell, Hoddle left, but Southampton were, for once, free of relegation fears with a quarter of the season still to go. Dan would play little part, however, in the run-in under Stuart Gray and would start the next season still out of favour.

When Gordon Strachan took over in October, Dan would come on as a sub in the new manager’s first two games, but that would be that: he would see out his English career in spasmodic appearances for Southampton’s Reserves. He returned to Romania, where he was soon into full-time coaching or managing. He had a spell in Poland, but moved to Russia in 2009, becoming the manager of Moscow Dynamo in 2012. Since then he has geographically expanded his coaching CV to include China.