Southampton are going to face another of Sport Republic's club's in pre season with Valenciennes travelling to Southampton in mid July for the inaugural Rishi Sunak Trophy, Ok I was joking about that bit.

The Daily Echo have announced that Valenciennes will be at Staplewood in July for a week long training camp and as part of that will also play sister club Southampton.

The game will be held on Friday July 18th with a noon kick off and indications are that it will be a behind closed doors friendly at the Staplewood Campus.

This for at the moment at least will be the second of the pre season programme for Saints as they are due to take on Eastleigh at the Silverlake Stadium the previous Saturday at 3pm.

Valenciennes are in the 3rd tier of French football at present and last season finished 9th in the division.

Joachim Kayi Sanda was signed from Valenciennes in January and made his debut in the trip to Everton, looking impressive in the last 10 minutes and that was followed up by his late cameo against Arsenal in the final game of the season.

All Photos Via Reuters

underweststand added 16:41 - Jun 11 Given the fact that there is a obvious difference in the standard that the clubs play in, such a match " behind closed doors " would be a good solution. Valenciennes are a part of the SR group and shouldn't be ostracised because of their "lower status" and would surely be impressed by the Staplewood set-up and the possibility of a better career in England. There are often good talents in every club (as we have seen in the young Kayi Sanda in the past few months). There may be others who would benefit from spending a loan season with Saints, and perhaps even one or two of our Academy prospects who would benefit from regular game time in another league. A good idea all round.

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Bowlercow added 10:29 - Jun 12 I understand how players can be developed at partner clubs but I still think the biggest reason for it is to out manoeuvre ffp and probably the tax man
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