When Joe Aribo departed Rangers for Southampton last summer in a deal worth up to £10million, very few would've predicted how the move would pan out.
The 25-year-old was a mainstay during Gio van Bronckhorst's Ibrox tenure and played a key role in a side that finished Europa League runners up to Eintracht Frankfurt and lifted the Scottish Cup against Hearts just 12 months ago, which earned him a four-year-contract at the English Premier League outfit. But with the Saints currently propping up the table having already gone through three managers this season, Aribo's future looks bleak.
Southampton boss Ruben Selles recently made the claim that his squad is 30-men strong and that Aribo was working hard to get back in the first team plans after being dumped to the U23s at one point. However, that has yet to come to fruition. The Nigeria international was left out Selles’ matchday squad once again for their meeting with relegation rivals Nottingham Forest on Monday and the midfielder hasn’t featured since a 2-0 defeat to Crystal Palace five matches ago.
This could leave Aribo in a precarious position. It would take an unlikely sequence of results for Southampton to preserve their 11-year status in the top-flight. They lie six points adrift and require maximum points from their final three games while hoping Forest lose all theirs and that Everton don’t pick up more than one point – mission improbable if not impossible.
Aribo has a release clause of around £15million, although it is unlikely another Premier League club will want a nibble at that price and the projected fee may be out the price range of most Championship clubs.
He has made 20 appearances down in the South Coast, scoring two goals. That is a stark comparison to his life at Rangers where he amassed 149 games during a three-year spell, netting 26 times in the process. And as it stands Aribo’s faces a career conundrum before his exploits at Rangers becomes a distant memory and he’s tarred for being a ‘failure’ at Southampton unless a remarkable reverse occurs.
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