Joe Savage insists Harry Souttar is the transfer benchmark if Hearts end up selling Kye Rowles.
The Aussie international penned a new five-year deal just months after arriving in the capital from Australia. A stellar World Cup in the heart of Australia’s defence alongside Souttar meant there was interest in the defender, but sporting director Savage was quick to head that off by rewarding Rowles for his impressive start to life in maroon with a long-term deal.
Souttar - brother of ex-Jambos star John - made a deadline day move to Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City for £15million. Savage wants Rowles at Tynecastle for a few years yet, but admitted that the club can now point to Souttar’s switch following an impressive World Cup in Qatar alongside Rowles when setting their asking price for the Socceroo. It’s unlikely to be the same fee, but that money involved in that deal strengthens Hearts’ position when it comes to fielding offers for Rowles.
“That was a really easy negotiation with Kye,” said Savage. “He had interest in him but as soon as we spoke with his agent and with Kye and said we wanted to extend his contract, he is more than open to it. As soon as I put it to him that we wanted it to be a five year contract, he was over the moon. HIs girlfriend is studying medicine in Australia and she’s planning to come over. So giving him that long term platform and that future for himself, the commitment that we wanted and expect him to be here for that length of time, he wanted to sign straight away.
“You want to build the team around full internationals who are playing at the top level. You see his Australia partner Harry Souttar who’s just gone to Leicester for £15million. It begs the question, what would Kye be worth if someone were to come in for him? You’re taking Harry Souttar off the back of a good World Cup, let’s not kid ourselves. He’s been injured and played two games for Stoke before he came back from his injury.
“Kye’s had a brilliant World Cup as well so it’s good for us that you can see the market value of those players who have had good World Cups. We can they say, if anyone is ever interested in Kye, that he had just as good a World Cup as Harry Souttar.”
As well as extending Rowles’ stay, Robbie Neilson added three new faces to his squad. James Hill and Garang Kuol were loaned from Bournemouth and Newcastle respectively, while Yutaro Oda was signed on a long-term deal from Vissel Kobe. Savage was pleased with the business done. And he explained why loan deals in January are perfect.
“We were pleased to get the three players done as early as we did,” he told Hearts TV. “Oda had been a target for a long time; it takes a bit of time trying to deal with the Japanese situation, getting him across to do medicals and sort visas, work permits and things like that.
“Garang, we’d been tracking him from tracking Kye Rowles when he was at Central Coast Mariners so as soon as we knew he was going to Newcastle, we got in contact with them to say we’d be interested, so we were delighted to get him.
“James Hill was someone that all of the recruitment department knew about and the coaches knew about because of his time at Fleetwood, When he went to Bournemouth, he wasn;t getting games so we thought we’d ask the question and see if he could come out on loan.
“The window’s been good for us. The boys are still settling in, especially Oda and Garang. They’ve just moved over. Garang had only been at Newcastle for two or three days, then he came up to Edinburgh. Yutaro had never been out of Japan before so it’s a settling in period for them. James Hill I think has settled in really well and really easily. Generally, January is a window for loans unless you are signing from the Asian market like Japan and Korea. The league is finished there so you can sign the players and that’s what we managed to do with Yutaro Oda.
Loans are perfect in January because it’s short term, get to the end of the season and you can look at things again once it’s finished and you're starting the new one. Without trying to blow smoke up our backsides, we’ve used the loan market quite well. We’ve managed to get some good ones in that have hit the ground running, so it’s been pleasing.”
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