GORDON STRACHAN is hoping to raid former club Saints for star striker Kevin Phillips.

The new Celtic boss is set to offer £750,000 for a player he brought to St Mary's for £3.25m in August, 2003.

The Scottish giants are hoping to have the signing of Phillips,pictured above, sealed fairly soon but have had to wait because the player only came home from holiday in the middle of this week.

Although it is thought that £750,000 would not be enough to land Phillips, Saints are understood to be prepared to sell the 31-year-old in the hope of keeping Peter Crouch and the player is believed to be ready to move on.

Sources in Scotland suggest that Celtic's offer is an opening gambit and the actual price could increase to around £1.2m.

During his time at Saints Phillips has made 58 starts and 15 substitute appearances, scoring 25 goals.

Strachan signed Phillips for Saints after the striker had been relegated with Sunderland and now it seems history will repeat itself but this time he will go north of the border to form a strikeforce with John Hartson, Chris Sutton and possibly Craig Bellamy.

Strachan has also been linked with a move for Saints keeper Antti Niemi and centre half Claus Lundekvam but so far this is only bid that has been made.

Phillips started his career at Saints before being released as a youngster and joining non-league Baldock Town where he switched from a right back to a striker and started his prolific career.

He joined Watford for £10,000 in December 1994 and then in 1997 moved to Sunderland where he formed an awesome partnership with Niall Quinn.

It was at this time that Phillips became one of only three players to score 30 Premiership goals in a season and made the first of his eight appearances for England.

In all he scored 132 goals in 236 appearances during six years in the north east where he became a living legend.

Phillips was the runner-up to Crouch in this year's player of the season after scoring 13 goals in 26 appearances and his departure would leave Harry Redknapp with Crouch, Brett Ormerod and Dexter Blackstock as his frontline strikeforce for the new season.