Mikael Nilsson was due to join Saints on a “Bosman” free-transfer, come the end of the Swedish season in the autumn of 2004. But once Southampton had coughed up a compensation fee – thought to be around £500,000 – Halmstads allowed him to leave in July, soon after the Euro 2004 finals.

First capped in 2002, Mikael had played in midfield during Sweden’s Euro-qualifiers but had finished those 2004 finals as a defender. Rupert Lowe paid tribute to that “versatility”, when offering him a four-year contract. But while buying two-for-the-price-of-one may seem like a tasty bargain to a chairman, and perhaps be welcomed by many a manager, chopping and changing position as much as Mikael did in 2004-05 can hardly be conducive to settling into a foreign League, especially when it means adjusting to the thinking of three managers in a team sliding out of that prestigious League.

However you explain his under-performance, Mikael would have been an expensive asset in the Championship and he was duly sold to Panathinaikos in a deal that included the promise of a friendly at St Mary’s, the following summer.

That pre-season friendly in July 2006 gave Mikael the opportunity to reflect, in the match-day programme, on why “Southampton fans never saw the best of me,” in that relegation season of 2004-05,

and to explain that the heat had been his “biggest problem” in Greece. Whatever the reason – climatic or otherwise – Mikael would never establish himself during four seasons in Mediterranean Europe, but he continued to play for Sweden, for whom he eventually won 64 caps.

He wound down in Denmark, following three seasons at Brøndby with just a couple of weeks at FremadAmager in the Danish Second Division.