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Southampton want to use the first chunk of their Virgil van Dijk cash on taking Theo Walcott back to St Mary’s.

They have asked Arsenal whether he is available in January and want to do a deal either on loan or a permanent transfer and hope that Walcott wants to move.

Southampton , flush with £75m after selling van Dijk to Liverpool, are ready to meet Walcott’s £140,000-a-week wages but face competition with Everton and West Ham also keen.

Walcott had become Southampton’s youngest ever player when he left to join Arsenal for £12m in January 2006 and has gone on to enjoy a long career with club and country.

But the 28-year-old now finds himself struggling for game time, he wants to play, although Arsenal may wait with a growing fixture list and also Olivier Giroud out injured for up to six weeks.

(Image: Getty) (Image: Arsenal FC)

Southampton boss Mauricio Pellegrino said: “Obviously, we don’t have this money to go to the market to bring the best players in the world, but we have got our targets that we want to bring in with this money.

“We were (the board) talking about the couple of targets that we got. I would like to bring a couple of players minimum and we have to work for this.”

Southampton are also among a queue of Premier League clubs tracking Celtic hot shot Moussa Dembele.

(Image: PA) (Image: Getty)

Celtic may allow Dembele, 21, to leave in January for more than £20m but the French starlet is likely to wait to see what clubs come in as Arsenal, Chelsea and Paris Saint Germain have looked in the past.

Saints vice chairman Les Reed is also scouring Europe for a proven centre-back to fill the void left by van Dijk. Swansea’s in-demand Alfie Mawson is also on their radar.