Southampton’s recruitment team have boasted some incredible finds over the years, including the likes of Dusan Tadic, Sadio Mane and Virgil Van Dijk, but there have also been some less than memorable signings made by the Saints/
One player who did not have it all his own way at St. Mary’s was Juanmi, who was signed from Malaga for £5m in the summer of 2015. After a difficult season at the club, in which he struggled to earn minutes, he was sold to Real Sociedad for £2m – a £3m loss for the club in just 12 months.
Upon joining Southampton in 2015, Juanmi’s value – according to Transfermarkt – was £6.3m. So, how has he progressed since leaving the club to go back to Spain?
Life started out well for Juanmi at Sociedad and his market value did peak at £9m in 2017
Since then, however, he has been unable to replicate his form and joined Real Betis on a permanent deal last summer. He has only played two league games for the club this season and is currently valued at just £4.5m, despite being 26 and supposedly in the prime years of his career.
Despite four more years of experience, Juanmi’s transfer value has dropped by £1.8m since leaving Southampton. Whilst this may not sound like a lot, one way to look at it could be that he was on an upwards trajectory – joining Southampton at the age of 22 – and that he could have had the potential to grow hugely in value as a Premier League player.
Instead, he appears to be regressing and failing to live up to his potential. However, he is still only 26 and does have time ahead of him to get his career back on track and prove people wrong. At this point, though, Southampton seem to have made the right decision in letting him go when they did.
