Hearts sporting director Joe Savage reckons the Jambos could be in for a cash windfall over Kye Rowles after tying down the Australian defender on a new five-year contract.
Savage says there was interest in Rowles after performing well at the World Cup with the national team so he was thrilled to get a deal done.
And he has posed the question about what he might be worth after his Socceroos team mate Harry Souttar just moved from Stoke City to Leicester City for £15million.
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Savage told Hearts TV: “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 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.”
In the window Robbie Neilson was able to welcome Garang Kuol, James Hill and Yutaro Oda, as well as securing Rowles' extension. He revealed the club had been tracking Oda for a while and that they were always going to look at loan possibilities like Hill and Kuol.
Savage added: “We were pleased to get the three players done as early as we did.
“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.”
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