Although Duje Caleta-Car was supposed to bolster the Saints’ defense, he performed anything but that in the previous campaign.
Gao Jisheng decided after four and a half years at the club that he would sell his 80 percent of the Saints for the right price. Solak and his Sport Republic group agreed to a £100 million deal, which represented a loss of £110 million over what the Chinese businessman had paid in 2017.
Sport Republic’s first opportunity to turn things around and move the south coast club up the Premier League table came in the summer of 2022, but their on-field plans turned out to be a complete bust.
Gavin Bazunu, Romeo Lavia, Armel Bella-Kotchap, Sekou Mara, Samuel Edozie, Juan Larios, and other young talent were all heavily invested in by new director of football Rasmus Ankersen. However, following a mediocre start to the season, things quickly fell apart.
After Ralph Hasenhuttl was fired as head coach, Nathan Jones was appointed in his place. However, this was a poor decision, and even with additional spending by Solak in the January transfer window, Jones’ interim replacement, Ruben Selles, was unable to keep Southampton in the Premier League for the 2023–2024 season.
The big-money sale of Lavia to Chelsea has showed that from a business perspective, some of Southampton’s moves last summer to enhance their squad weren’t all so bad, and it wasn’t just youngsters they signed.
A duo in their mid-20’s in Joe Aribo and Duje Caleta-Car were snapped up from Rangers and Marseille respectively, with the fee for Caleta-Car supposedly believed to be in the region of £10 million.
Caleta-Car had spent four years with Marseille in the lead up to Southampton’s transfer deal, and having played plenty of times for Croatia as well he was beginning to become an experienced international.
He struggled last season though at Southampton, starting plenty of matches in the first few months under Hasenhuttl and Jones but ultimately was part of a defence and a team that was sleepwalking its way to relegation to the Championship.
Caleta-Car found himself benched plenty by Selles towards the end of the season, and it was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to be in Russell Martin’s plans going into 2023-24, with plenty of European interest in the 27-year-old over the summer.
It was Lyon of France however who decided to loan the Croatian in, and they have the option to turn it into a €5 million (£4.36 million) permanent deal should they wish, which would be a big financial loss for the Saints.
How is Duje Caleta-Car getting on at Lyon?
However, Caleta-Car is really struggling over in Ligue 1 in an even further sign that Southampton made a huge mistake in signing him in the first place.
Starting in Lyon’s first four league matches of the season, Caleta-Car was on the losing end of results three times, conceding 10 goals in the process, and since Laurent Blanc’s final game in charge in early September, the defender has not been in new head coach Fabio Grosso’s plans.
Caleta-Car remains rooted to the bench at the Groupama Stadium, and he has been overtaken in the pecking order by 22-year-old Irishman Jake O’Brien, who was playing on loan in League Two for Swindon Town two years ago.
The last 12 months have showed what a disaster it was for Southampton to splash out so much money on Caleta-Car, and at this rate they will struggle to get a few million pounds for his services next summer when he returns to the club at the end of his loan stint in France.
