Could Ron Vlaar fill the central-defensive void at Southampton?

One of the better performers from Southampton’s impressive  seventh place finish last season, Toby Alderweireld partnered club captain José Fonte to great success at the heart of the Saints defence. Unfortunately, plans to exercise the buy clause that would have made the Belgian’s stay at St. Mary’s permanently have fallen through, and he has signed a five-year contract with rivals Tottenham Hotspur.

The departure of Alderweireld leaves Southampton with just three senior contracted centre-backs and no others in the squad seemingly able to fill-in, even to an improvised capacity. Manager Ronald Koeman would surely need another starting quality player to complement José Fonte, Maya Yoshida and Florin Gardos.

Before the signing of Alderweireld on loan from Atletico Madrid last season, however, Koeman was looking at Aston Villa’s Dutch centre-half Ron Vlaar, and now this window it seems he is again a target. With the 30-year-old’s contract at Villa now expired he is a free agent, and his name has popped up in the course of more than a few clubs’ rumour mills.

Another solid season with cellar dwellers Aston Villa has seen him remain a viable Premier League quality player and now, with the added prospect of having no transfer fee attached to him, it would appear certain that he will soon find a new club.

79 English Premier League appearances for the Villans with reasonably consistent quality of play would make Vlaar look as though he is a somewhat safe bet for a manager, the only money at risk being whatever wage is agreed to. At 30 the defender is in the twilight of his career, but we have seen that with the right approach to fitness and recovery another four or five seasons would not be an impossibility.

Until recently the Saints and Lazio seemed frontrunners for Vlaar’s signature, but the Italian side have ruled themselves out of contention – stating that they have “fitness concerns” over the centre-back.

Recent reports indicate that the former Villa skipper has reinjured his knee and has undergone surgery for a torn medial meniscus, the same injury that was operated on in January of this year, seeing Vlaar out for a month. This time around the recovery seems much less straightforward, looking most likely that he will miss the rest of 2015.

This, of course, will greatly damage the chances of the uncontracted player finding a new club, but could be a double edged sword for the remaining interested parties as competition for agreeing to terms may now be much less fierce.

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The other side of that blade of course is that Vlaar is a gamble. Missing the majority of the first-half of the season and the entire preseason, it will be no small task getting back into fighting shape for the ageing centre-half. When Vlaar does return to fitness he is in no way guaranteed to have the same impact as before his time-off and injuries such as these have a bad habit of dogging players for the remainder of their careers, bad news even for a talent years younger.

Should the big Dutchman not fit the bill, Koeman will surely want to wrap up a signing as quickly as possible, with preseason matches having already begun and a core starting XI already beginning to be formed. Should ‘Concrete’ Ron be brought in as one of the two starting central-defenders, the manager will want as much time as possible to acclimatise the new signing to the Southampton side.