They are still giving Roles games, which suggests it’s not Roles refusing to sign a new deal doesn’t it? Normal MO is to freeze kids out that are refusing to sign, no?
Honestly Windy, I'm so fucked off with the situation right now. I could just about forgive the way Edwards, Onomah, KWP have been treated if we'd gone out and bought Mbappé, Tolisso and *insert hot young RB* but to piss away their potential on the likes of Moura, Sissoko and Aurier is very disappointing.
And here's the thing, no manager has got the leeway to do that and fail than Pochettino. He's got so much credit in the bank, so much kudos at this club with Levy, that if he had introduced them and they'd all failed and we ended up 6th this year, he wouldn't have got the sack, unlike a couple of his predecessors.
If he'd succeeded we get three good players - even if they turn out not world beaters, they wouldn't have to have developed much to be at least as useful as Moura, Sissoko and Aurier - we would have had 150m in fee and wages to use on better players, and maybe even recouped some/all of that from selling on those three kids as and when.
Piss poor management of resources IMO. Making Poch de facto head of recruitment was a huge mistake (but I think Levy had to give him seething he wouldn't get at places like RM) that has backfired on Pochettino himself mostly. If someone like Klopp (and even Guardiola) can accept working as head coach and having a DOF/recruitment analytics team, then I don't see why Poch can't accept it.
There should be someone over him saying "look, we don't need to spend 25m and another 20m in wages on Aurier, who will need developing too, let's give KWP this season as back up" and then see where we are.