It looks as if Southampton got a great deal in selling academy graduate Sam Gallagher for around £5 million to Blackburn Rovers in 2019, with the striker having struggled to find the back of the net in his time at Ewood Park.

The forward progressed through the Saints academy, having joined from Plymouth's U'18 side in 2012 and enjoyed loan spells with the likes of MK Dons, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham City during his Saints career (per Transfermarkt).

He would go on to make 26 appearances for the first-team at Southampton, in which he was only able to score two goals, suggesting that he is not the most prolific of forwards.

However, a promising spell on loan at Blackburn in the 2016/17 season saw him grab 12 goals in 47 appearances in all competitions and he clearly did enough to convince those at the Lancashire club that he was worth paying around £5 million for in the summer of 2019.

Unfortunately for the 25-year-old, scoring goals has continued to be a problem, as he has now made a further 53 appearances for Rovers, in which he has managed just nine goals, taking his tally to 21 for the club (per Transfermarkt).

This has seen his market value tumble to just £1.8 million, suggesting that Southampton got a great deal in selling him for as much as they did.

Much of the credit must go to chief executive Martin Semmens therefore, as he has joined the club in June 2019, with Gallagher departing less than a month later, so selling him will have surely been one of his first points of action as CEO of the South Coast club.

However, Gallagher has made a fairly promising start to the 2020/21 campaign, having contributed two goals and an assist in nine Championship appearances (per Transfermarkt).

Still, this is nowhere near the level of Danny Ings or Che Adams, and when you consider the young talent Southampton have available to them up front, with Michael Obafemi and Daniel N'Lundulu both pushing for minutes in the first-team, it could definitely be argued the Saints made the right decision in letting Gallagher go.

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