Southamp­ton only did busi­ness with one oth­er club when it came to mak­ing new first-team sign­ings in the Jan­u­ary trans­fer win­dow.

That club was Bournemouth, with two play­ers being added to Rus­sell Martin‘s squad from the Pre­mier League side.

Those indi­vid­u­als who made the move to St Mary’s were winger David Brooks, and mid­field­er Joe Roth­well.

But with the duo only sign­ing on loan deals until the end of the sea­son, there may be ques­tions about what the future holds for them beyond the sum­mer.

Now thoug, Roth­well has giv­en some insight into the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a future for him­self at Southamp­ton.

Joe Rothwell drops summer hint

Speak­ing recent­ly, the mid­field­er was asked about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him stay­ing at St Mary’s beyond the end of this sea­son.

It seems as though that is a move Roth­well would be will­ing to make. Respond­ing to that ques­tion, he admit­ted he would be ‘mas­sive­ly open to’ a move to Southamp­ton.

That he said, would be an option for him if it becomes clear that his time with Bournemouth has come to an end.

Giv­en the cir­cum­stances, that is a sit­u­a­tion that Southamp­ton may arguably want to ensure they are ready to take advan­tage of.

Southampton should be open to permanent Joe Rothwell move

Admit­ted­ly, Roth­well has not exact­ly estab­lished him­self as a reg­u­lar in the start­ing line­up since his move to St Mary’s.

He has how­ev­er, made some big impacts for the club regard­less of that. On not one but two occa­sions, he has come off the bench to score match-win­ning braces.

Those have con­tributed mas­sive­ly to help­ing to keep Southamp­ton in the race for pro­mo­tion.

Indeed, accord­ing to SofaS­core, Roth­well has an Expect­ed Goals tal­ly of just 1.52 while play­ing for the Saints.

That shows just how good he can be, at com­ing up with some­thing out of very lit­tle for this team.

Hav­ing a play­er with the abil­i­ty to do that could be vital for Southamp­ton next sea­son, what­ev­er divi­sion they are in.

With a 92% pass suc­cess rate, the mid­field­er has also wast­ed no time link­ing up well with his team­mates, so there are oth­er rea­sons he may be use­ful to have around at St Mary’s too.

The fact he does seem to have set­tled rea­son­ably well here, may also pro­vide some hope he could make a bet­ter impact in the top-flight for Southamp­ton, than he did for Bournemouth.

Mean­while, giv­en he start­ed just three league games before being allowed out on loan in the sum­mer, may sug­gest he does not have much of a future with the Cher­ries.

It is also worth not­ing that with Tyler Adams now back in the squad after a sea­son-long injury, it could be even hard­er for Roth­well to force his way into Andoni Iraola’s side if he returns there in the sum­mer.

The for­mer Leeds Unit­ed man was excel­lent in the top-flight last sea­son, and may there­fore be pre­ferred to Roth­well as an option in the cen­tre of the park.

That in turn, may mean that Bournemouth are will­ing to let Roth­well go again in the sum­mer. Based on the midfielder’s com­ments here, Southamp­ton may well want to be ready to take advan­tage of that.

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