According to the local press in East Anglia, Southampton are the favourites to sign Norwich City defenders Max Aarons, however it will depend on a couple of high profile departures from St Mary's first.

Saints are overloaded with defenders, most of them they would like to see depart, both for footballing reasons and also because of attitude issues, with a week to go before the Championship season starts, the club will want to see some serious offers coming in.

In the right back spot they are well served, they currently have four players who can play in that position, Tino Livramento, Kyle Walker Peters, James Bree & Lewis Payne, the first three proven at or above the level we will play in this coming season and then a promising youngster in Lewis Payne.

So the initial thought is that it is strange that we should be in pole position for Norwich City's right back.

It would also suggest that at least two of the aforementioned four will need to leave the club vefore Aarons could be signed, after all if just one of Livramento & Walker Peters stay, then why do we need two right backs.

The local media in Norwich has a dedicated website to the Canaries, the Pink Un and they claim that it is Southampton that are lining up a move for the right back.

Aarons is entering the last year of his contract and it is reported that both the club and the player are in agreement that it is time for him to move on to further his career.

At 23 he has completed 5 full seasons for the Canaries, three of them in the Championship and also two in the Premier League, in that time out of a potential 214 games he played in 201 of them.

In that time his value has been around the £20 million mark, although Transfermarkt currently has his value at around £14 million, presumably because of the short length of his remaining contract.

Although Norwich are resigned to his departure, they are in no mood to let him go cheaply and the fact that the local paper are leading the cheerleading for him, perhaps suggests that the Canaries are looking to pushing the sale through ASAP, especially as they have already signed his replacement in Jack Stacey from AFC Bournemouth.

So it is natural that the Pink Un should also be claiming that his services are in high demand, they claim that there is plenty of Premier League interest with West Ham, Fulham and Brentford all said to have been linked in the past few months.

Fulham themselves have been linked with Kyle Walker Peters, so if that deal goes ahead that may would end any interest they may have had.

But it is not the Premier League that the Pink Un say will be his destination, it is Southampton, but there is a lot of work to be done on the South Coast if this deal is to go through, two players have to be sold and from a Saints perspective getting that done quickly with Livramento to Newcastle for around £40 million and KWP to Fulham for £20 million and the arrival of Aarons would seem on the face of it to be good business.

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