Potential Tom Fellows move from West Brom to Southampton questioned | OneFootball

Tom Fellows is surely most likely to go straight to the Premier League, rather than Southampton, should he leave West Bromwich Albion this summer.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

West Bromwich Albion are preparing for another season in the Championship, but it has certainly been a summer of change and evolution at The Hawthorns as they bid for a return to the top six and the play-off places in the second-tier.

Tony Mowbray was relieved of his duties with a couple of games of last season to go, and the former Blackburn Rovers boss has been replaced by Ryan Mason.

Mason will have his work cut out this season to get West Brom moving forwards again, and one further issue he may have to contend with is key man Tom Fellows being sold before the end of the summer transfer window.

Premier League claim made regarding West Brom's Tom Fellows

England U21 international Tom Fellows was excellent in the Championship last season, and is developing into arguably the brightest prospect in the EFL.

No player provided more assists than Fellows in the second-tier last season, and he has been the subject of interest from Everton, as well as Southampton.

However, FLW’s Albion fan pundit, Callum Burgess, believes that despite Saints’ interest, Fellows' next step will be to immediately move into the top-flight.

Callum says: “Although Southampton will have Premier League ambitions to make sure that they aren’t in the second-tier for long, I think that the next step for Fellows is most certainly going to be a move to a Premier League team.

“There was interest from them last season, alongside Ipswich Town, but it didn’t materialise into anything, and there has always been interest from Everton, who of course are in for Tyler Dibling, as well.

“I think that the options might be running out in the Premier League for Fellows this season, but it’ll be interesting to see if other teams take an interest in the latter stages of the window.

“From Fellows’ point of view, he won’t really want a move to another Championship team, although Southampton will be willing to offer a decent fee after the sale of Dibling, I would imagine.

“I definitely think that the next step for Fellows will be someone who is already in the Premier League.”

West Brom building relatively slowly in the window

West Brom are building steadily towards the start of the new campaign, which begins with the visit of Blackburn Rovers, managed by former Baggies boss Valerien Ismael, this weekend.

Albion have been relatively quiet in the transfer window, with Nat Phillips having arrived alongside Aune Heggebo from Brondby and George Campbell from Montreal.

It could well be that a lot is riding on the potential departure of Fellows and the funds raised from that, whilst Northern Ireland international Isaac Price has also previously been linked with a move away.

Other departures are also expected to include Devante Cole, who has struggled in his year at The Hawthorns, whilst Torbjorn Heggem could be moving to Bologna.

It could well end up being quite a busy final few weeks of the campaign for West Brom, as they attempt to sustain a promotion challenge.