Former Southampton defender Maya Yoshida has admitted that nobody expected him to leave the club in January.
Yoshida completed a loan move to Serie A side Sampdoria, but his contract at Southampton expires in the summer. This means that he is set to become a free agent at the end of the season.
Speaking to Il Secolo XIX, via Sport Witness, Yoshida said:
Nobody expected me to leave Southampton, the media, teammates, fans staff… I felt good there, but I played little. It was a dilemma. In the end I had the courage to try, and the desire to improve further to go further. Instead of being content to sit on the bench and witness the generational change from there. I would like to play again and be the protagonist of the matches and my career.
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Yoshida served the club well for over seven years, but it seemed like the best time for him to leave. He was struggling for game time and not producing good enough displays when he did get a chance. The defender currently holds the lowest average WhoScored rating in the entire Saints squad this season, narrowly behind Kevin Danso.
This suggests that it was the right time for Yoshida to part ways with the Saints, due to his performances and the lack of game time. He can now look to play regularly in Italy and find his best form again ahead of a potential permanent move in the summer.
As Yoshida says, he did not want to sit on the bench and watch others play. Who can blame him? It could have been easy for Yoshida to take his wage, train, and watch from the sidelines until the rest of the season. Instead, he took it upon himself to secure a transfer and get back on the pitch.
