Ipswich Town's Ben Thatcher is on Southampton's radar (From Essex County Standard)

Ipswich Town's Ben Thatcher is on Southampton's radar

10:34am Thursday 19th November 2009

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Ben Thatcher is rumoured to be a target for League One side Southampton.

According to reports, Saints wants to sign the defender on loan before the deadline expires next Thursday.

Then, if everything goes well, they plan to make the deal permanent in January.

Veteran Thatcher was signed by former Town boss Jim Magilton but is yet to play a game under Roy Keane.

For much of the time he has been sidelined with a knee ligament injury, suffered at the end of last season, but even now he is fit he is still out of favour.

In September, Keane said Thatcher was not in his plans at that time and there was speculation the pair might have fallen out due to the defender being unwilling to relocate from London to Suffolk.

He has also failed to feature in any reserve league games.

Thatcher joined the Blues on a free transfer from Charlton in the summer of 2008.

If there is any truth in the Saints rumour, he could be linking up with another former Ipswich left-back in Dan Harding.

Meanwhile, Sheffield Wednesday defender Richard Wood, repeatedly linked with Town, is thought to have held talks with Coventry regarding a move to the Ricoh Arena.

Ipswich full-back or midfielder Jaime Peters was due to add to his collection of international caps last night, when his Canada side played a friendly in Poland.

Ronan Murray’s Irish Under-19s were set to complete their European Championship qualifying group games with a match against Italy in San Marino.

Wins in their previous two matches have already seen his side into the next stage of the qualifying process.

Goalkeeper Asmir Begovic was expected to be on the substitutes’ bench for Bosnia’s World Cup play-off against Portugal in Zenica.

Portugal have a 1-0 lead from the first leg on Saturday.

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