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Michail Antonio spent a season on loan at St Mary’s, but was not given the opportunity to play a role in Southampton’s rapid climb from the third tier.

Every footballer probably has a story about the major transfer that slipped away from them — but for Michail Antonio, this one is likely to have hurt more than most.

The forward had already moved from non-league Tooting & Mitcham straight to then-Championship side Reading as a teenager in 2008, but regular game time was difficult to get in Berkshire.

As a result, the Royals sent him out on a number of loan spells — five in all — before eventually making the last of those exits permanent when he joined Sheffield Wednesday.

Before that, however, Antonio had spells with Cheltenham, Southampton and Colchester, and his first two loan moves in particular left him with mixed emotions.

Antonio told FourFourTwo about his EFL debut for Cheltenham in 2009: “It was under Martin Allen, on loan at Cheltenham against Leeds. I went from playing in front of 200 to 500 people at Tooting, to 20,000 people at Elland Road in the space of six months. Unbelievable.

“For the first 28 minutes, I was absolutely flying, going past people for fun, taking long throws, taking corners — I was doing everything. Then after 28 minutes, I tore three ligaments in my ankle.”

After recovering from that injury, Antonio was sent out on loan to League One once again.

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This time, he joined Southampton, where he played his part in their Johnstone’s Paint Trophy win at Wembley.

He said: “That was probably one of the best days I’ve had.

“We had some unbelievable players in that Southampton squad — Kelvin Davis, Jose Fonte, Dan Harding, Morgan Schneiderlin, Adam Lallana, Jason Puncheon, Rickie Lambert, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain — and we were in League One!

“It was crazy. Southampton had started the season on -10 points, and we just missed out on the play-offs.

“But we won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final against Carlisle and I really enjoyed my time there.

“I actually wanted to sign for them again, but Reading told me no.

“The following season Southampton got promoted, and then they went from League One to the Premier League in just two years.

“I was left thinking to myself, ‘That could have been me…’.”

Antonio did eventually reach the Premier League himself only a couple of years later, moving on from Sheffield Wednesday to Nottingham Forest before earning a move to West Ham, where he spent 10 years and made 268 top-flight appearances.

As it turned out, sometimes patience was all that was needed.