On the last two days of the January transfer window, Southampton were ruthless.

Two players in Cedric Soares and Maya Yoshida, both of whom had spent a combined 12 years at St Mary's having joined in the summers of 2015 and 2012 respectively, departed the club.

In Yoshida's case, he was somewhat of a cult hero at St Mary's, getting involved with charity work at the club by donating 1% of his wages to the Saints Foundation on a monthly basis, while always representing himself with class and professionalism since arriving from VVV-Venlo.

Both the 100-cap Japan international and the 33-cap Portugal international were to be out of contract come the summer, leaving Southampton in a tough negotiating position should they have wanted to make any money on the pair.

However, make money is just what the Saints did.

Ralph Hasenhuttl's side obtained a £3m loan fee when shipping Yoshida off to Serie A side Sampdoria, where he would see out the rest of the season and the remainder of his Southampton contract with no chance of return - Southampton's official Twitter account even put together a goodbye montage for the 31-year-old.

With Cedric, the former Sporting Lisbon man ended up joining Arsenal on loan in a package worth £5m to Southampton - the deal also didn't harm the club personnel-wise, as Kyle Walker-Peters had arrived just a day before on a temporary basis.

While it may have been more romantic to keep the pair and give them a nice send-off at the end of the campaign, Southampton simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to gain a welcome £8m from waving goodbye to the duo - especially seeing as Yoshida had only played five Premier League minutes since that 9-0 defeat, while Cedric had come under fire from Southampton supporters for his display against Norwich and once again before a game against Newcastle.

Who is that?! Nobody has been able to name the teams all of these obscure managers were once in charge of...

It was far from a poetic ending on the south coast for the pair of them, but Southampton simply couldn't pass up such an opportunity.

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