- Sep 15, 2007
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The Schneiderlin and Rodriguez rumors are hard to ignore and it does sound like we are putting in the work to tie them up. It'll be interesting to see how those moves could change our squad. Schneiderlin being able to play DM/B2B and Rodriguez being able to provide starting talent at LW and real nice depth at Striker. He can basically be like our Welbeck in that he can play on the left but also through the middle which is obviously valuable for a club that is expected to make a challenge in many competitions.
I personally think the players most effected by a potential Schneiderlin signing could be Dembele and Sandro. Both will have suitors and we should be able to recoup all the money spent on Schneiderlin (realistically more than what we paid, too) via their sales. It'd give us Paulinho/Schneiderlin/Bentaleb as options for a B2B role and then Capoue/Schneiderlin as option for DM. Carroll could be loaned out again, hopefully to a Premier League side, and I don't see that being very hard to find someone to take him on.
As for Rodriguez, I don't think it has much effect on the bigger names at the club. I always thought Falque was a player we would look to sell if we thought we could get a decent enough fee. I'm a big fan of Falque, I think he's shown generally well when he's been called upon (even a couple years ago now when he played against Norwich), but I could see us moving him on if we are convinced Rodriguez is looking at a return of October instead of December-January. Perhaps we keep him here for depth in the event Rodriguez suffers a setback and then look to sell in January (would still have a contract remaining until Summer 2015). Perhaps Kane would be effected in that he might be loaned out. I personally would like to keep him here and let him continue to develop under the tutelage of Pochettino.
Good summary Snarf
I'd suggest its likely that we'll find over the next few days that 2/3 players who Poch doesn't want in the squad (not that they are bad players, just where we have too many in one position and they don't fit Poch's system).
Not sure who they'll be - and lots of SC'ers will make their own guesses, but there were 22 players on the north america tour being looked at by Poch and a further 11 players not on the tour - so if we have indeed acquired Morgan and Rodriguez that's 35 players before sales/loans....whilst Southampton have a shortage of players, so the players will both bridge any valuation differences issues and give both clubs what they want.