Southampton are amongst the increasing number of Premier League clubs understood to be eyeing Blues left-back Aaron Cresswell. Aston Villa were recently reported to be ready to revive last summer’s interest in the 23-year-old, while Fulham and Crystal Palace have also been mentioned in connection with the ex-Tranmere man.

The Saints regularly sent scouts to Portman Road last season, both during Nigel Adkins’s time in charge and after Mauricio Pochettino took over as boss.

Whether they firm up their interest may depend on them holding on to £10 million-rated 17-year-old Luke Shaw, who has been linked with the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham.

While the Blues will be looking for rather more for Cresswell, perhaps as much as £5 million, an offer in excess of £3 million may well be enough to tempt Town to sell with Mick McCarthy using the cash to strengthen his squad for the season ahead.

Interest in Cresswell will come as no surprise to the Town boss, who said that he was expecting it towards the end of the season. The Blues manager said he views the defender as “a Premier League footballer in the making”.

The left-back, who is contracted to the Blues until June 2015, joined Town from Tranmere at the end of his terms at Prenton Park in the summer of 2011.

Rovers are entitled to 20% of the profit Town would make on the £420,000 they paid for Cresswell if he is sold. A Football League tribunal set a compensation figure of an initial £240,000 plus milestone clauses with only a £100,000 payment on promotion to the Premier League not triggered.

Photo: Action Images

irishtim added 01:37 - Jun 11 Could be we will be minus cressy next season. Suppose the more clubs interested the better price we will get. Hope we can hang onto him though.
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Len_Brennan added 01:48 - Jun 11 Villa doesn't make much sense & is probably just a poor journalist digging up last season's story, but this would appear to have more foundation with Shaw's likely departure & previous transfer policy. Crystal Palace will also be interested & will know him better than Premiership clubs. I'm sure Delaney will have recommended him too. Increasingly likely that Cressy will be in the Premiership next season. An asking price of £6m with something around £4m, including add ons, probably good enough to see it go through.

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walberswick added 04:12 - Jun 11 Sell him and with the money , pay off Chops.
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 05:17 - Jun 11 Not good, but you can'´t deny a young lad his chance if the mighty PL comes calling. I hope he stays, but either way Cressy has been a good bit of business for Town. Time for Tyrone Mings to step up? Sometimes we forget that Paul Jewell made some decent signings and was maybe a little unlucky things didn't work out. (That's not to say I'm not very happy with our present manager, however!)

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andys_legg added 06:03 - Jun 11 Well their not gonna do much 'eyeing' of him as the season is finished. Unless they are staring at him on the beach somewhere of course.
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floridaboy added 06:52 - Jun 11 Sorry but an average defender, not bad going forward but his defending leaves a lot to be desired. Around £3m for him would be fantastic business and £2m more than he is worth!
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dommyboyblue added 07:04 - Jun 11 He is a good player, but not good enough to turn down a decent offer and in our position would mean we could really put a decent squad together. Anything the £3 to £4m mark would be really handy and as someones stated before, Tyrone Mings looked pretty handy and think it would actually aid his development.
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NorthstaNder added 07:34 - Jun 11 If the price is right then we should sell (for the greater good and all that). It's a shame as I really like Cresswell. Sure, his defending is a little suspect sometimes (who's isn't!?) but he was part of a very solid back four in the second half of last season and it'd be a shame to break that up (assuming we can sign Stearman that is).
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MitchtheITFCman added 07:37 - Jun 11 Southampton will go for him if shaw leaves. CP will go for him with the money they got from the playoffs, and zaha. I don't think villa will go for him unless they can swap someone like bent or gabby. I would sell him for no less than £6 million. The more clubs that are interested the more money we get.
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TimmyH added 08:12 - Jun 11 More 'eyeing' going on - I wonder how much is true? If Southampton did bid anything over 3 million is very good business in my opinion, not sure he's that good.
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Stato added 08:21 - Jun 11 If it gave us the money to fund the purchase of stearman plus £3 million left over in cash then it would take me about 2 seconds to do that deal.
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IpswichLewis added 08:22 - Jun 11 Don't get me wrong, I understand every young, energetic footballer wants to play in the premier league, but it worry's me when our young boys are following the money instead of game time. Take a look at Connor Wickham...Definitely should have stayed with us. I would hate to see Cressy do the same. I understand that a mouth watering offer in excess of 2million is too good to turn down, but I think cressy has been one of our stand out players this season and I believe we must do everything possible to keep him.

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itfcjoe added 08:23 - Jun 11 I really like Cresswell and think he's been a very good player for us, but if we are able to get a few million for him then I'd trust Mick to give us a large overall improvement in the team, even without Cressy in it. The reality of football and ITFC is that we've always been a selling club, and as long as we can maximise the price received and invest it wisely, we will move forwards

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Stato added 08:23 - Jun 11 2 years left on his contract so offer him new terms now and sell him if he won't sign.
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NorthstaNder added 08:24 - Jun 11 Agreed itfcjoe...look what the Dyer money allowed us to do :-)
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gareth1982 added 08:25 - Jun 11 Be shame if we did lose him as he is one of r better players be good is someone came in for players we dnt want but that int gonna happen anytime soon so if we do end up sellin lets hope we get enough to find a replacement and able get another player in like stearman with the money
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gypo added 08:45 - Jun 11 There's only one place he'll go and that's Everton and only if moyes gets Baines to united .
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Keaneish added 09:21 - Jun 11 It's as simple as this... Dressy, you're not ready for the premier league yet so moving will only hinder your career. If he had another decent season in a top 6 championship side then maybe the time to talk about a move would be then. History has proven that if you move on when you're not ready from town, your career will flounder. We need to keep our back 4 together for next season so I'm in favour of him staying rather than taking any sum of cash. I'd be happier if we can get some cash in for chops and JET than sell cressy.

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Wickets added 09:22 - Jun 11 Although i agree Ipswichlewis in Wickhams case i feel the club got such a good deal we where happy for him to move on, would it be the same with Cressy? not sure! big sell on clause makes quite a differance.
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LankHenners added 09:38 - Jun 11 IpswichLewis - totally agree. We cannot just sell our players when they become really good and gather interest. How are we supposed to move forward if we get rid of the ones that will help us achieve this! Wickham (or whoever it was that said "sell him") made a horrible career choice: just think how good he would be now for us if we had kept him and let him play regular football. I know football has now become more of a business than a sport and a source of entertainment, but if we want to move forward why sell Cresswell?! Good point Keaneish - surely we could get money from JET at least to make a profit on him, but not sure how much (or which) teams will be willing to splash out on Chopra. That back four was, in my opinion, the fundamental reason (on the pitch) why we stopped losing games and turned our season around - if you don't concede goals, you won't lose games. Must have the same back four next season for me - hopefully Stearman will come back to us.

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ldnj added 09:40 - Jun 11 Let's hope with new senior management they've learnt about sell-ons after the pittance that was in the Jordan Rhodes sale (I still struggle to believe it was such a low percentage)
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Michael11 added 10:13 - Jun 11 When teams were first showing interest in Cressy i thought it was like the end of the world, but the more i think about it, if we can get £4m+ for a left back then thats brilliant business. A left back wouldn't be as hard to replace as a 20 goal striker for example. £4m would buy us 3 or 4 very good players for next season.
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theresonlyonekeano added 10:15 - Jun 11 Anyone saying he isn't a top class player in this league is clueless. Chipped in with a few goals last season too. However every player has a price but I don't think we should sell for anything less than 5 million. We could get even more if you look at the crazy fees paid for players like Zaha. Also I am sure Mick would get some of the money to re invest in the team but it wouldn't just go to his transfer budget.

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wkj added 10:18 - Jun 11 Iknow the idea of getting some money in the coffers sounds good but realistically what%of the transfer fee would be vested into Mick's control? I have an unfortunate feeling it won't be that much of any sadly.
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BillBlue added 10:21 - Jun 11 Sorry blokes but IF there is any ambition left at Portman Road then you cannot afford to sell your best players, just look at our own history for confirmation of this. I see people have put varying values on Cressy but even if the very highest value quoted was received I doubt it would aid the team in any way. Look at what has happened to the cash received from the only people we have actually sold. Ever since Mr. Evans took the club over we have been saddled with an ever increasing volume of debt, all of it down to Mr. Evans personal miscalculations in appointing the wrong type of people to run this club and their lack of understanding of football matters, meanwhile the debt has increased exponentially in spite of any sales. In addition the joint M.D.'s said, only two weeks ago, it is time to start paying off the debt so where is that coming from? All Town fans should be up in arms demanding that under no circumstances should we sell any of our valued players because that is the only way we will ever scrape out of this division and get back where we rightly belong and where we want to be and if we carry on just 'accepting' it will be the end of our great club one way or another. I demand we do not sell ANY of our players who are an asset to the club.

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