The £40m wonderkid who could be Southampton’s surprise saviour

The mood isn’t great down by the Solent these days. A 2-0 defeat to fellow strugglers Wolverhampton Wanderers means that Southampton are now rooted to the bottom of the table with just four points from 11 games. League leaders Liverpool are next up. The omens aren’t great.

In short, the Saints are in need of a saviour, or at least a spark – which probably means that quite a few fans will be excited by a seemingly unlikely story from Spain, which suggests that Southampton could be on the brink of signing Real Madrid wonderkid Endrick on loan. Yes, the Endrick who cost £40m and is widely regarded as one of the brightest prospects in world football. It would be quite a coup, and the kind of signing that changes the mood on its own, at least for a little while.

Whether the report, which comes from Spanish newspaper Sport, is truthful or not remains to be seen, and expectations should also be tempered by the fact that a few other teams, such as Real Valladolid and AS Roma, are also mentioned as possible destinations should Endrick be sent out on loan. But should there be a grain of truth in the story, and Southampton really are among the sides entering negotiations, then the question is – could Endrick keep them up?

There is, after all, a reason that Real Madrid might send him out on loan. The 18-year-old may have 13 Brazil caps to his name already, but he has not been able to get regular minutes at the Bernabeu with players like Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo ahead of him in the pecking order. He has just has played just 62 minutes of football in La Liga so far, scoring once.

And while he has played for the Seleção remarkably often given his tender age, he has only played one full game and after scoring in three games in a row in the spring (starting with the winning goal at Wembley) he hasn’t found the back of the net since and was dropped from the squad for the most recent international break.

In other words, while there is no doubt that Endrick has phenomenal talent, he is a long way from being the finished package. Even in Brazil, when he was making his name with Palmeiras, he wasn’t scoring in huge volume – 11 goals in 31 games in his former club’s championship season. It’s reasonable to suspect that he wouldn’t be able to score the goals that Southampton desperately need on his own.

Not that there aren’t positive signs, and there is plenty of room for a player to be ready for Southampton even if they aren’t ready for Real Madrid. Endrick is a superb and instinctive finisher whose goals have come at a rate which comfortably exceeds his expected goals – something which can’t be said of Cameron Archer, Adam Armstrong or Ben Brereton Díaz as it stands. If you can feed him chances, he should score regardless of his relative inexperience at the highest level.

That, of course, is part of the problem. Southampton have not been creating enough opportunities and only Ipswich Town have mustered fewer shots on goal. Signing Endrick would certainly be flashy and might have a psychological impact, but he’s highly unlikely to rattle the net on a regular basis unless Russell Martin can find ways to improve the flow of opportunities. Southampton may not be scoring enough goals, but a centre-forward might, conversely, not be the solution.

That’s also before you factor in the increased physicality of the Premier League. Talking about the adaptation required from foreign players may be a cliché but is no less true for it, and imports still often discuss the challenge of playing a tougher, faster game in England. It’s speculation, of course, but Endrick, who cuts a slight figure, may well be the kind of player who needs some time to figure out how to handle a different, more powerful kind of game. Expecting instant results from him would, in other words, be foolish.

But it would still be an exciting move. Endrick has magic in his feet and he could easily be the man to make the difference in tight games. Signing him for six months and seeing what happens wouldn’t necessarily be the wrong thing to do, but if Southampton don’t also find ways to tighten up at the back and create more opportunities in the final third, then Endrick would almost certainly not be enough. Still… it would be fun, wouldn’t it?