It could be the usual tabloid nonsense but with Kevin Davies having left St Mary’s and Agustin Delgado set for a spell on the sidelines with a knee injury Southampton are short of strikers.
Their first team squad contains only James Beattie (and the world is waiting to see if he can reproduce last season’s form), the promising Brett Ormerod and injury-prone pair Marian Pahars and Delgado as forward options.
However the Saints don’t seem to be in a position to pay £2million for a player with as bad an injury record as Cort, especially as they recently pulled out of a deal for Spain international winger Javier de Pedro when Real Sociedad put a £2.9million price-tag on the player.
During his first season with United Cort looked to be a top quality player when fit, but through no fault of his own has slipped out of the first team reckoning.
If a bid of that size was received it would be interesting to see whether Sir Bobby would turn it down and give Cort the chance to prove himself or just decide that Shola Ameobi, Lomana LuaLua and Michael Chopra are enough cover for Alan Shearer and Craig Bellamy.