{"id":10389,"date":"2013-09-15T06:40:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-15T06:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/wanyama-happy-with-saints-move\/"},"modified":"2013-09-15T06:40:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-15T06:40:14","slug":"wanyama-happy-with-saints-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wanyama-happy-with-saints-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanyama ‘happy’ with Saints move"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{Victor Wanyama does not regret swapping Celtic for Southampton, despite seeing his former club handed a dream Champions League draw.}}<\/p>\n

After two fantastic years in Glasgow, the highly-rated 22-year-old Kenyan headed south of the border in July.<\/p>\n

Southampton paid a club record fee of US$20m to secure Wanyama’s services.
\nThe move capped an incredible rise for Wanyama, whose superb display in the famous 2-1 win over Barcelona thrust him firmly into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Celtic again face the Spanish giants in this year’s Champions League group stage, as well as AC Milan and Ajax.<\/p>\n

So, with such glamour ties coming up, would Wanyama preferred to have stayed on an extra year in Glasgow?<\/p>\n

“No, obviously Champions League they are good games, but it was time for me also to move on,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I will be just looking forward to support them.<\/p>\n

“I believe one day Champions League football is achievable at Southampton.
\n“Everything step by step and I believe one day we will be also there.”<\/p>\n

Wanyama’s Celtic departure looked inevitable, although Southampton did not always look like it would be his destination.<\/p>\n

Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and Cardiff were all linked with the powerful midfielder, but it was Saints that were given permission to speak to him.<\/p>\n

Initial talks broke down following suggestions of issues with his representatives, but the impasse in discussions was finally broken and he penned a four-year deal.<\/p>\n

“It was my decision after meeting with the chairman and the manager,” said Wanyama, whose brother McDonald Mariga plays for Parma in Serie A.<\/p>\n

“I was just happy with the things they were telling me and that’s why I chose Southampton.<\/p>\n

“The ambition of the club they had and I was just happy to come and join them.
\n“It has been a little bit easier to get used to the change, because the team-mates here have been really helpful and it has been easy for me to settle in.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Victor Wanyama does not regret swapping Celtic for Southampton, despite seeing his former club handed a dream Champions League draw.}} After two fantastic years in Glasgow, the highly-rated 22-year-old Kenyan headed south of the border in July. Southampton paid a club record fee of US$20m to secure Wanyama’s services. The move capped an incredible rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048254,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10389.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10389"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10389"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}