Southampton FC had the last laugh after Tottenham transfer heartbreak | OneFootball

Southampton missed out on Toby Alderweireld in 2015, but the upshot of this was the arrival of another defender who suited them even better.

Sometimes, missing out on a coveted player can open doors which wouldn't otherwise have been available, as Southampton found out in the summer of 2014.

Their return to the Premier League in 2012 ended a nightmare which had been ongoing at the club for a few years. The Saints had fallen as low as League One as a result of financial difficulties, even having a spell in administration in 2009, but two successive promotions took the club back to the Premier League and gave the club an opportunity to put this past behind them.

The Saints' first two seasons back were highly successful, with the club finishing in 14th and 8th place in their first two seasons back, and by the summer of 2014 they were looking for reinforcements, with the intention of pushing even higher up the Premier League table, and perhaps even into Europe.

One player that arrived that summer was a highly-rated defender who'd already attracted the attention of other clubs. Toby Alderweireld was a product of the Ajax youth system, who'd made almost 200 appearances for the Dutch giants before transferring to Atletico Madrid in 2013 for just over £6 million.

The 2013-14 season ended up a huge success for Atleti. They won La Liga for the first time since 1996 and reached the Champions League final before losing to their city rivals Real. But Alderweireld was a relatively peripheral figure in all of this, making just 22 appearances for them in all competitions that season.

At the start of the 2014-15 season, they decided to send the defender out on loan, and Southampton were first in line - with the added advantage of having an Ajax connection in the form of head coach Ronald Koeman - to take him to St Mary's and the Premier League.

Alderweireld became part of an outstanding season in the Premier League for Southampton

The signature of Toby Alderweireld was confirmed on transfer deadline at the start of September 2014 on a season-long loan, and the player made his debut for them a couple of weeks later at home against Newcastle United.

And Southampton really did fly that season. By the middle of October, they were in second place in the Premier League having run up an extraordinary 8-0 home win against Sunderland. This wasn't a pace that the Saints could maintain. Four straight defeats dropped them to fifth position by the middle of December.

But the wins did keep coming, and it was only a tail-off towards the end of the season, in which they won just one of their last six games, that saw them eventually finish in seventh place in the table and qualifying for a shot at Europe in the Europa League.

That summer, Southampton very much wanted to make Alderweireld's transfer a permanent one. The defender had excelled in their defence throughout the season, with 26 appearances and one goal. But the Premier League is the highest-profile domestic league in the world and his assured performances had drawn the attention of others and in July 2015 he transferred to Tottenham Hotspur for an undisclosed fee.

The Saints were furious. They believed that they had an option to buy the defender which Atletico Madrid had reneged upon and threatened legal action over the player moving to Spurs instead. But the transfer went ahead, and Southampton were left with little option but to scout around for a replacement.

Southampton did even better with Toby Alderweireld's replacement - they had the last laugh over Spurs

If anything, Southampton did even better with Alderweireld's replacement. Virgil Van Dijk was another Dutch defender, but he'd come into the game through rather more modest means, transferring from Groningen to Celtic in 2013.

Two years in Scotland brought two SPFL titles, but the best players want to play at the highest level, and when Celtic were knocked out of the Champions League by Malmo in a play-off at the end of August the player was reported to be "pondering his future" with the club.

It didn't take him long to make a decision. Less than a week after the Malmo defeat, on transfer deadline day, Southampton swooped and took the defender to St Mary's for a reported fee of £13 million.

The transfer was a triumph for Southampton, who finished the 2015-16 season in 6th place in the Premier League and qualifying for the Europa League for the second successive season. And Van Dijk made a clear impression, ending the season as both their Fans’ Player of the Season and Players’ Player of the Season.

Van Dijk was appointed the Southampton team captain in January 2017, but Southampton were unable to maintain their upward ascent in the Premier League and the departure of stars such as this player was inevitable. In December 2017 it was confirmed that, upon the opening of the transfer window the following month, Van Dijk would be leaving St Mary's to sign for Liverpool.

This was obviously a huge disappointment for the Saints, but at least in terms of financial compensation they benefited hugely, with the transfer fee agreed at an enormous £75 million. To this extent, the entire sequence of events marked a huge financial win for the Saints. They may have missed out on Toby Alderweireld in the summer of 2015, but the replacement they brought in was arguably even an upgrade him, and they got two and a half seasons out of him and then sold him on for a huge profit.

Southampton have yet to replicate the excellent team they put together in the 2010s, but they withstood the picking apart of that team for several seasons, only being relegated from the Premier League in 2023. Had they signed Toby Alderweireld in 2015, they may well have ended up having to sell him on after a couple of years, and it's unlikely that they would have received as much money as they ended up receiving from Liverpool for Virgil Van Dijk.