Saints are set to begin their contribution to potentially the biggest summer of spending in Premier League history.

With clubs reaping the benefits of a huge new television deal, there have already been a number of big-money moves in the past few weeks.

Last summer’s transfer window saw clubs in England’s top-flight spend an estimated £630m, and they are already well on the way to recording another enormous figure.

Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have splashed almost £150m between them on just seven players!

Saints, whose coffers have been swelled by the sales of Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert, will soon add to the expenditure.

The club are close to signing striker Graziano Pelle, having raised their offer for the player this week to around £6.4m (€8m), and a deal is hoped to be completed within the next few days.

They are also hopeful of signing FC Twente midfielder Dusan Tadic, which would cost them about another £9m.

Both would be in the top five or six record signings made in the club’s history.

With new manager Ronald Koeman having been guaranteed that all funds generated from player sales will be reinvested in the squad, there are likely to be a number of other incomings as well.

Saints were estimated to have spent a club-record £36m last summer, and about £33m the year before that, and it is possible those figures could be eclipsed again by the end of August.

Chelsea and Manchester United have led the way in the top flight so far, with the Blues paying £32m for Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa and £27m for Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas, while United have spent around £27m on Saints defender Shaw and £28.8m on Atletico midfielder Ander Herrera.

Those four deals together are worth around £115m.

Liverpool have also made a splash, spending around £23m on Saints captain Lallana, £4m on his teammate Rickie Lambert and about £10m on Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Emre Can.

The overall total will perhaps be impacted by Manchester City’s spending being restricted to a net £49m, as a result of Financial Fair Play sanctions.

But they have already spent £12m on Porto midfielder Fernando.

With another two months to go before business closes until January, spending is likely to soar, and with Saints looking to strengthen in plenty of areas this summer, they are likely to play a big part in it.