Southampton snub Millwall and Derby County transfer advances for £10m forward | OneFootball

The Lions and The Rams were interested in Southampton's Samuel Edozie, but the Saints have turned down their bids for the left-winger.

Southampton have blocked two offers from rival Championship clubs for an exciting young winger, as the January transfer window prepares to close.

The race for Championship play-off places is still tightening, with a host of clubs down to the bottom half of the table still in contention for a place in the division's top six. Southampton are one of these clubs. The Saints are 15th place in the table following a thoroughly underwhelming first half to the 2025-26 season, but even they remain in touch with the top six.

The end of the January transfer window offers an opportunity for clubs to make final tweaks ahead of the final third of the season, and in a division in which marginal gains could make the difference between earning more than £100 million from promotion to the Premier League, the stakes couldn't be much higher.

Derby County and Millwall are occupying two of those play-off places, but they may both have to look elsewhere for a left-winger if that's a position that they wish to fill before the window slams shut at the start of next week.

Southampton block Derby County and Millwall loan interest in winger Samuel Edozie

Posting to the social media platform X on Friday night, Mike McGrath of the Daily Telegraph reported that Southampton have turned down bids from both Derby County and Millwall to take their 23-year-old left-winger on loan for the second half of the 2025-26 season.

McGrath reports that these bids have been rejected by the Saints because they waould rather the attacker ply his trade abroad than in the EFL - much like he did last season when he moved to Anderlecht in the Belgian Pro League, where he played 23 times, scoring three goals.

Both Millwall and Derby are battling for a Championship play-off spot, but it looks like neither club will land Edozie, who signed for Southampton from Man City in 2022 for a fee of £10 million.

Edozie knows about Millwall all too well, having come through their academy system before being snapped up by City as a teenager, whilst Derby may have already moved on from him, having signed Burnley's Jaydon Banel earlier in the week.

Southampton's Samuel Edozie reticence is understandable given their Championship circumstance

Millwall may have been able to steal a march on Derby in the chase for Edozie, had Southampton been entertaining bids from Championship promotion rivals for Samuel Edozie.

The winger started his career in the academy at The Den before leaving to join Manchester City in 2019 for an undisclosed fee.

Following three years at The Etihad, during which he made his debut in the 2021 Community Shield, Edozie moved on to Southampton in 2022, and over three and half years at St Mary's he's made 63 appearances for the Saints, scoring six goals. But he's been unable to get any game-time there this season, and a loan is the next logical step in the player's development.

Given the gap they have to make up between themselves and the top six, though, Southampton's reticence to release the player to a Championship rival is understandable. Should that left-wing position be one that both Derby County and Millwall urgently need to fill before the end of the transfer window, they'll have to look elsewhere.