RONALD Koeman could face stiff competition if he wants to make Serbian international midfielder Dusan Tadic his first Saints signing.

The 25-year-old goalscoring playmaker was the fourth top scorer in the Dutch top flight last season, scoring 16 goals as FC Twente finished third in the Eredivisie.

Two of those goals were on the opening day of the season in a 4-1 thrashing of Koeman’s Feyenoord.

Tadic is very much in the Adam Lallana mould, a left sided attacking midfielder with an eye for goal.

Lallana has told Saints he is keen to move to Liverpool once he returns from the World Cup in Brazil. Like Lallana, Tadic is capable of creating goals as well as scoring them.

In addition to his goals, the Serbian finished top of the Eredivisie assists league in 2013/14 with 14 – four more than anyone else.

Tadic, who has a year remaining on his current Twente contract, has attracted interest from Seville and Everton.

He was previously linked in 2013 with the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and even Barcelona.

Though Twente are believed to want around £10m for the player, he only has one year remaining on his current contract.

That means his club might have to accept less than £10m or risk losing him for nothing next summer.

The only three players who scored more Dutch League goals than Tadic in last season’s Dutch League were Herenveen’s Icelandic striker Alfred Finnbogason (29), Feyenoord’s Italian Graziano Pelle (23) and Alkmaar’s Aron Johannsson (17).

Tadic scored 13 goals for the club in his first season with them in 2012/13 after arriving from Groningen, the club where Koeman started his career in the early 1980s.

He celebrated his Twente league debut by scoring twice against Groningen.

Tadic was also on target when Twente beat Koeman’s Feyenoord 3-0 in November 2012.