I'll give a bit more detail here, as José actually went to some length to explain the situation that led to that article.
When I asked him about these reports in Portugal he was very keen to answer and asked me to set the record straight. Other stuff is being held back but I'm fine to put this out there now. So here you go...
He was asked, by a Portuguese journalist, whether he come back to Portugal and which club would he most like to play for out of 'the big three' of Benfica, Porto and Sporting.
He remarked that he would never shut the door on returning home (would be daft to...) and said he couldn't pick one of the three as they're all great clubs and he already has connections with Benfica and Sporting due to his past.
The journalist then went away and wrote a story of 'Fonte eyeing move back to Portugal' and linked him with 'the big three'.
I could tell from the way he was speaking to me about it that he was quite annoyed and would appreciate it being put right.
He said he's very, very happy here. He loves the club, he is really happy with the manager, he's settled here and his young family are happy where they are living too. He said he feels at home and called this 'my club'. Says he feels a special bond and a lot of appreciation for Saints.
Said he would 'love' to finish his career in Southampton but he'd be foolish to shut too many doors because there's always a chance he falls out of favour here. But he said, as long as he was wanted and happy here, he doesn't envisage leaving before he retires.
As above, he's doing his coaching badges with Kelvin right now. He's very passionate about coaching and developing youth players and that ties in nicely with Saints. He'd like to follow Radhi's route and said he 'would really love to, definitely' manage Saints if the chance ever arose.
). Great to see some of the old players again, though sad that many didn't last long in the EPL. As I missed the FA Cup, it was the greatest day of my footballing life.
