Danny Röhl, Southampton talk and the changing landscape of Sheffield Wednesday's compensation
Reports from the south coast this week have suggested Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Röhl remains Southampton’s top managerial target heading into next season. Here The Star takes a look at the lay of the land should those reports be realised.
Reports of Southampton’s continued interest in making Danny Röhl their manager will come as no great surprise to Sheffield Wednesday - and a suggested tilt at a summer second attempt would arrive in a different landscape to their last effort.
The Premier League side are known to have made a strong play to steal away the Wednesday boss in December after the sacking of Russell Martin, with compensation widely understood to have been the central stumbling block in a switch that would have seen Röhl return to the club he served at as an assistant manager to Ralph Hasenhüttl during the 2018/19 season.
Southampton since appointed Croatian Ivan Juric as manager, though results have not picked up and there is said to be a break clause in his contract in the increasingly likely case of relegation to the Championship. New Saints technical director Johannes Spors, appointed last month, worked with Röhl during their shared time at RB Leipzig, when the now Wednesday boss rose from video analyst to assistant manager while Spors was chief scout.
How much is Danny Röhl compensation?
The Star revealed last summer that the compensation figure required to take Röhl from Wednesday was set in the region of £5m, with an added fee in the ballpark of £5m required to sign key backroom staff members along with him. The German since signed a new deal to nail him down in principle until the summer of 2027. It should be stressed that despite that interest, The Star can not lay claim to any present knowledge of the strength of any Saints interest beyond the reports from our colleagues down south.
Those reports now suggest the cost to sign the German coach away from his Owls deal is set at around £4m, a figure sources believe to be ‘realistic’. Several members of Röhl’s backroom staff are out of contract in the summer, however, which would in theory negate the need for any compensation on that front. The Wednesday boss told The Star last week that any talks around new contracts for staff members were on hold until the end of the current campaign.
The Star also has reason to believe suggestions of a lower compensation fee required by a Championship club are on the money, which - should the reports of an intended summer swoop prove to come to fruition - would put Southampton in a curious position in the story given their likely relegation back to the second tier this season.
Though there is no suggestion Southampton have made any official approach through Wednesday for Röhl this time around, sports lawyers The Star have spoken to believe the nature of their initial December interest having been made as a Premier League club could stand to complicate matters from a compensation perspective even if a formal approach was to be made after their relegation is confirmed.
Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri is known to be a tough negotiator and relations between the two clubs are understood to be frosty after the previous Röhl affair and the turn of events that eventually saw Shea Charles recalled and then loaned back to the Hillsborough club on inflated terms in January. As was the case in December, it remains likely that should any approach for the manager arrive - from any club - Wednesday would hold out for a full, or close to full, payment of the compensation they would be entitled to.
It remains to be seen what comes of mooted interest from the south coast. For now, Wednesday are preparing for a whirlwind run of Championship action, with away trips to Plymouth Argyle and Norwich City leading into the Steel City derby on March 16. A strong run in those games would serve to cut the seven point gap on the top six.
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