Reports: Could midfielder be heading out of Southampton for Premier League rival?

Watford have reportedly made a bid of £10m to prise James Ward-Prowse away from the South Coast.

According to the Sun (sorry), Watford manager Javi Gracia has made the late move for capped England international Ward-Prowse with the close of the summer transfer window looming. The window is set to close on 9th August.

Ward-Prowse, who has been at Southampton since he was eight, started over half of Saints’ Premier League games last season and captained the England Under-21 team, making over 30 appearances at that level.

Ward-Prowse arguably had his best season in a Southampton shirt during the 2017/18 Premier League campaign; a season where few players shone and it would be a shame to see him leave for a relatively measly fee.

But Saints manager Mark Hughes has said on more than one occasion that the club needs to offload a couple of players before any further signings are made - if any at all.

Southampton have already signed Stuart Armstrong, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Angus Gunn and Jannik Vestergaard in this summer’s transfer window.

The outlay for those four players is worth a reported £51m, and Saints have only shipped out Dusan Tadic to Ajax for a fee so far.