When Nathan Jones made an, almost, throwaway comment about wanting to trim his squad of deadwood and make it more streamlined, the one player that he probably wasn’t talking about was Joe Aribo.
The former Rangers midfielder might be struggling to force his way into the new manager’s plans, however, with over 20 appearances this season for Southampton, he is hardly stealing a wage but this hasn’t stopped the Scottish media from suggesting that he is heading out the door at St Mary’s.
Almost immediately, the discussion turned to whether or not he would be welcome back at Rangers but, there is a reason why he left us – he wanted to return to England.
Not only is he closer to home but he is on a reported £70,000 per week salary, he’d have to more than half that to cut short his time down south and sign for Rangers again.
The other point to consider is that, the initial deal saw Southampton pay more up front with add-ons to take the overall package up to £10million, there is no way that we are going to hand over £6m back to re-sign a player who didn’t want to stay here.
With the cold, hard facts out the way, to top it off, there isn’t even a romantic need to bring him back, Malik Tillman is younger, more productive in terms of goal contributions and would be cheaper to sign on a permanent deal, we have also just signed Todd Cantwell and have Ianis Hagi and Tom Lawrence on their way back.
Aribo would be a good option alongside a number six in the middle of the park, I always thought his defensive work was underrated and that we played him too far forwards but the numbers just don’t add up – we will, however, always have Braga and Seville to remember him by.