Southampton need to pin Shane Long down to an extended deal after chief executive Martin Semmens admitted the Premier League may be played in July.
Semmens says that the final nine Premier League games of the season could end up going into the middle of July, clashing with expiring contracts at the beginning of the month.
Speaking to BBC Solent, Semmens said:
We hope to get the league done by the end of June. As soon as you go past that date, there are legal challenges.
If we ended up playing until 15 July and you had to extend a player’s contract by two weeks, convincing a player to play two more weeks of football and get paid nicely to do it – I don’t believe that will be a substantial challenge.
The challenge is making sure we don’t have a knock-on effect to other seasons and make football compromised for years to come.
Whilst Semmens says that they could extend a player’s contract by two weeks, Long has been in excellent form this season and is deserving of a longer-term extension. He is out of contract at the start of July but has been able to force his way into the starting XI and been an excellent foil for Danny Ings at the top end of the pitch.
Southampton should be looking to tie Long down to a one or two-year extension to secure his future at St. Mary’s. Adding another two or three weeks to his contract seems pointless and simply adds more uncertainty over his future, when they could just end any speculation and complete the deal – assuming Long is happy to stay on the south coast.
Long began the campaign on the periphery of the Southampton squad before fighting hard to win his place back ahead of Michael Obafemi and Che Adams. He has scored three and assisted one in his last 10 appearances for the club, whilst putting in superb work off the ball to allow Ings, Armstrong and Djenepo to thrive.
