KEVIN DAVIES, who joined Southampton 12 months ago for £700,000, is joining Blackburn for more than ten times that figure. Roy Hodgson is smashing the existing club record by paying £7.5m to land the highly rated 21-year-old striker. The player will receive £20,000 a week as part of a seven-year deal. His arrival at Ewood Park is likely to signal the end of Sweden striker Martin Dahlin's Blackburn career after Hodgson claimed he had had a disastrous first season in the Premiership. Davies moved to The Dell from Chesterfield just 12 months ago, after featuring prominently in the Spireites' march to the FA Cup Semi-Finals. Although he only scored three league goals in 34 games in 1996/97, mainly from midfield, he found the net four times in the cup run. Crucially, he bagged a hat-trick in the third round match against Bolton that set the Division Two club on their way to their famous match against Middlesbrough. Graeme Souness signed him at the end of the season, before resigning to take over at Benfica. Dave Jones arrived as new Saints manager, and Davies thrived in the Premiership. He made his Southampton debut as a substitute against Bolton on the opening day of the season and scored his first goal against Crystal Palace at the end of August. He struck four goals in five games in November to win the Carling player of the month award jointly with Andy Cole, and was capped at Under-21 level for England. Unfortunately, injury problems restricted him to just six appearances after New Year, but he finished the season with a highly respectable nine goals in 25 league games. Jones was keen to keep the player, but after rejecting one Blackburn offer the club could not turn down a second. The sum for Davies eclipses the £5m that former Ewood boss Kenny Dalglish paid Norwich for Chris Sutton in July 1994, Rovers' previous transfer record. The deal also represents Southampton's record transfer fee received, exceeding the £3.3m also paid by Dalglish to take another striker to Blackburn, Alan Shearer in the summer of 1992. Davies, who holds the record for the youngest player to appear in the Coca-Cola Cup, when he came on against West Ham in September 1993 aged 16 years and 180 days, was shortlisted for the PFA Young Player of the Year award, and Southampton fans will be angry at his departure. Jones has already started looking for a replacement, though, targetting Carmine Esposito of Italian side Empoli. The 27-year-old scored 14 goals in Serie A this season, to keep the unfancied side in the top flight. But the attention now is on Davies. His former manager at Chesterfield, John Duncan, claims he can go on to become a full international. I've not been surprised by what he has done so far. We always knew he had talent. For someone so young he had this incredible physical presence, but with his power he also had a good brain. He was always willing to learn and he picked up things very quickly. He's the kind of player that when the ball is close to him any defender would have trouble getting near him. No matter what the quality of the defence, he will always be hard to handle. Things have just got better and better for Kevin, and I'm delighted for him. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually played for England. He's done it at Southampton and in the Premiership in a very short space of time, and I'm sure he can do it for England as well. Such fulsome praise begs one question why didn't Chesterfield have a clause requesting a percentage of any future sell-on fee? Their share of the £7.5m would almost certainly have exceeded the £700,000 they received last year. TOP FIVE TRANSFERS BETWEEN ENGLISH CLUBS £15m Alan Shearer to Newcastle from Blackburn, July 1996 £8.5m Stan Collymore to Liverpool from Nottingham Forest, July 1995 £7.5m Kevin Davies to Blackburn from Southampton, June 1998 £7m Stan Collymore to Aston Villa from Liverpool, May 1997 £6.25m Andy Cole to Manchester United from Newcastle, January 1995 TOP FIVE TRANSFERS INVOLVING ENGLISH CLUBS £15m Alan Shearer to Newcastle from Blackburn, July 1996 £12m Juninho to Atletico Madrid from Middlesbrough, July 1997 £10.75m Jaap Stam to Manchester United from PSV Eindhoven, scheduled for 1 July 1998 £8.5m Stan Collymore to Liverpool from Nottingham Forest, July 1995. £8m Andrei Kanchelskis to Fiorentina from Everton, February 1997

WENGER OPTS FOR THREE MORE YEARS   ARSENE WENGER, back in London after a well deserved holiday to open talks on a new deal at Arsenal, is set to commit himself to the club until 2001 - rather than the six years on offer. Although the Frenchman, with only one season remaining on his present contract, intends to tie up a longer deal with the new Premiership champions and FA Cup holders, it is unlikely he will opt for more than a two-year extension at this stage. And aware he holds all the cards, having landed the domestic Double in only his first full campaign in charge, Wenger is in a strong position to dictate the course of the discussions just underway. Understandably, in light of the recent attempts by the French national team, Italian Serie A giants Inter Milan and French side Paris St Germain to snatch Wenger, the Arsenal board had been hoping to persuade him to sign a six-year deal, worth a bumper £6million. But money is not an issue for Wenger, who describes his first 18 months with Arsenal as the most satisfying spell in ten years of management. And while he was happy to ignore the calls from the continent this time around, he is not going to rule out a switch farther on down the line. Before that, Wenger plans to enhance his fast growing reputation in the game, by launching a serious challenge for the European Cup. In addition to his own future, he has also been discussing his players who are out of contract. And once again there have already been one or two surprises from the man whose much-ridiculed transfer buys proved the critics wrong during an amazing finale to the season, when they stole up on Manchester United to win the Premiership, before completing the Double by beating Newcastle at Wembley earlier this month. Veteran goalkeeper John Lukic seemed certain to be on his way, but has been offered a new one-year deal, and the same applies to Frenchman Remi Garde, who has put plans to retire on hold for one more season, at least. Garde, capped six times by France, but now 32, explained his reasons for rejecting a coaching post with French club Lyon: The Double success has been the spur for me to stay and continue playing. Some of the players were saying I couldn't go after what happened at the end of the season and when people such as Dennis Bergkamp and vice-chairman David Dein are telling you that, you sit up and listen. "I decided to retire after a winter of injuries and glandular fever. But Arsenal have a long hard season coming up and so I'm aiming to be 200% fit and ready for when Arsene calls me."

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