What is Southampton FC's transfer stance on £70k-a-week man Joe Aribo - He cost Saints £10m in 2022 | OneFootball

His 2022 move to St Mary's hasn't panned out very well.

Joe Aribo will reportedly be free to leave Southampton this summer for a reduced fee this summer.

It's going to be another heavy-selling summer for the Saints, just like the last time they were relegated to the Championship when they made £145 million from letting players go.

A number of Will Still's best assets are being lined up for moves away from Hampshire this summer. The likes of Tyler Dibling, Mateus Fernandes and Aaron Ramsdale will all likely move on, with Paul Onuachu and Kamaldeen Sulemena having already departed the club.

Some, however, are set to be much more profitable than others.

Joe Aribo to be made available for cheap deal by Southampton

Aribo, for example, who joined Southampton from Rangers in 2022 in a deal worth up to £10 million, is a player that the club are willing to let go of this summer, according to TEAMtalk.

The midfielder has played a fairly prominent role over the past two seasons. He featured in 67 league matches from the beginning of the 2023/24 campaign until the end of the previous one - he started in 55 per cent of those contests.

He is heading into the final year of his deal with the Saints, giving them a limited window of opportunity to try and get a return on their investment of three years ago.

Aribo joined Southampton with a promising reputation from his time with both Charlton Athletic and Rangers, but he's struggled to make good on the hype and investment.

He's never really established himself as a guaranteed starter in the Saints midfield - though his best season came as he scored four goals to help their promotion back to the Premier League under Russell Martin in the 2023/24 term - and it hardly helps that the 28-year-old Nigerian international is earning a weekly wage of £70,000 according to Capology estimates.

Another Southampton regular of recent times, Adam Armstrong, will also be made available this summer, as per local journalist Alfie House. He, too, feels unlikely to feature heavily in Still's plans going forward after a poor season last time out, both with his parent club and while on loan with West Bromwich Albion.

Any mega bucks that the south coast outfit does bring in this summer will come as a result of their highly sought-after quartet. Three English players - Dibling, Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Ramsdale - could fetch Southampton nine-figures between them this summer; at least that's what their chairman, Dragan Solak, is reportedly hoping for.

Fernandes, Saints' Portuguese midfield prodigee, is also being targeted by a number of clubs, like Leeds United, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.

A £30 million package was what Leeds were willing to pay for Fernandes, as per Alan Nixon, but it was later claimed by the Daily Echo that Southampton value the 20-year-old, who they signed for £15 million last summer from Sporting Lison, much higher than that.

Southampton's first resort shouldn't be to sell assets - but Joe Aribo stance will be different

With a new manager in place, the natural thought would be to try and give him as much money as possible to try and rebuild the team that he has inherited. That might not be the only way for Still to get the most out of this Saints team, however.

Dibling, Harwood-Bellis, Ramsdale and Fernandes are all incredibly talented players to be in the Championship. There would be no harm done by keeping them for Still to use, because it would only provide him with a more talented team.

Harwood-Bellis and Fernandes have both stated that their focus is on having a better season next time out with Southampton, so why not try and hold onto them for as long as you can if they are happy to stay?

But a different stance is clearly being taken with Aribo, and you can see why.

Like many other high-earners at the club, Southampton will likely struggle to accommodate his reported wages and he hasn't really shown enough during his three years with the Saints to convince them that he's worth being kept on beyond next summer, when his contract will expire.

Southampton, then, should take the opportunity to cash in on his services to gain a fee as opposed to losing him for nothing this time next year, even if that will come as a loss on what they shelled out to Rangers in 2022.