Wanyama is not yet the real deal

Scotland will have to produce a Gareth Bale before one of our clubs sells a player to an elite English side.

Celtic did a great bit of business when they sold Victor Wanyama to Southampton for a record £12.5-million. But it wasn’t the size of club some people were linking the Kenyan midfielder with at the start of the year.

There was talk of Arsenal, maybe even Manchester United, as the next port of call for him. Instead, he’s now down on the south coast at a team who are highly unlikely to be experiencing European football in the near future.

However, I do think there’s a lot to be said for the Saints. They’ve a nice, modern stadium and a very loyal fan-base. I’ve also been impressed with the work done by manager Mauricio Pochettino.

And the important thing for Wanyama is that he’s likely to get regular football.

I believe his advisors will probably be hoping that he spends around 18 months at St Mary’s and then moves on to one of football’s giants. He’s still only 22, so he has plenty of time to develop.

So why didn’t an Arsenal, Chelsea or one of the Manchester clubs make an offer?

What we have to understand is that Southampton will believe they’ve taken quite a gamble paying so much for a player from the SPL. I don’t think there should be a question mark about his ability because he proved his worth in Europe against teams like Barcelona and Benfica. And the Celtic scouting team take a huge amount of credit for spotting Wanyama playing in Belgium for Beerschot AC.

I’m certain that he can play at a higher level. But the Scottish game has been at a pretty low ebb in recent years, and people outside the country just don’t rate the standard of play.

Even full internationalists will have to use smaller English top-flight clubs as a stepping stone to an outfit that competes regularly in the Champions League.

I think it would take a truly spectacular player to make the leap to one of England’s top four clubs at this time. But who’s to say it won’t happen.

After Ryan Giggs, we didn’t think Wales would produce another world class player for a long time. But then Gareth Bale came through the ranks.

It would be fabulous if a similar talent emerged in Scotland but he’d not be playing at home for too long!