Kieran McKenna says Flynn Downes is one of several players that Ipswich Town battled Southampton to sign this summer.
The Blues struck a deal with West Ham to bring the 25-year-old midfielder back to his boyhood club. Ultimately, however, he opted to re-join Southampton, for £18m, having helped them to Championship promotion on loan.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow's Premier League clash between the two newly-promoted sides at St Mary's, McKenna said: “Flynn’s a very good player.
"Look, we’re two newly-promoted teams, they signed 16 players, we signed 12, so there’s always a good chance that you’re going to be talking to some of the same players at different stages of the window – and there were quite a few cases of that.
“Southampton have signed some very good players on top of the ones they already had. We know we’ll have to prepare well for all of them on Saturday."
Town were understood to have been interested in England U21 centre-back Taylor Harwood-Bellis, but he also saw his loan switch to Southampton become a permanent £20m move once Russell Martin's men were promoted.
TOWN'S SUMMER SIGNINGS
Aro Muric (Burnley, £8m), Ben Johnson (West Ham, free), Dara O'Shea (Burnley, £12m), Jacob Greaves (Hull, £15m), Conor Townsend (West Brom, £500k), Kalvin Phillips (Man City, loan), Jens Cajuste (Napoli, loan), Chieodozie Ogbene (Luton, £8m), Omari Hutchinson (Chelsea, £18m), Sammie Szmodics (Blackburn, £9m), Jack Clarke (Sunderland, £15m), Liam Delap (Man City, £15m).
SOUTHAMPTON'S SUMMER SIGNINGS
Taylor Harwood-Bellis (Man City, £20m), Adam Lallana (Brighton, free), Charlie Taylor (Burnley, free), Ronnie Edwards (Peterborough, £3m), Nathan Wood (Swansea, £3m), Yukinari Sugawara (AZ Alkmaar, £6m), Flynn Downes (West Ham, £18m), Ben Brereton Díaz (Villarreal, £7m), Cameron Archer (Aston Villa, £15m), Mateus Fernandes (Sporting CP, £15m), Ryan Fraser (Newcastle, free), Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal, £25m), Lesley Ugochukwu (Chelsea, loan), Noel Buck (New England Revolution, loan), Maxwel Cornet (West Ham, loan), Rory MacLeod (Dundee United, loan).
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