Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has confirmed that a deal has been agreed to part ways with head of recruitment Joe Shields, who is expected to join Chelsea.
90min reported earlier this week that Shields had been in talks with Chelsea over becoming the Blues' new director of recruitment, just three months after he joined Southampton from Manchester City.
While Hasenhuttl declined to name the reason for Shields' departure, he did confirm that Southampton have agreed to part ways with the recruitment chief.
"As clear as I can do it - he came in August and is leaving in October," Hasenhuttl said. "For us, it's not the perfect situation. I don't know, sometimes people get driven by new chances and we see this a lot here with a long-term project. If he wants to leave in the short-term maybe he has his reasons."
He added: "It's not a big loss for this club because the impact he had in the six weeks was not the biggest.
"We are not in the situation where we now fall into depression. He came in August when a lot of transfers had been done and he was not the person that brought Romeo Lavia in for example or someone like this. We'd like to have people here for longer but it's better for him to leave immediately."
As Hasenhuttl pointed out, Shields did not join the club until Southampton had completed most of their transfer business. He was influential in the deals to bring Sam Edozie and Juan Larios to St Mary's but arrived after the signings of Lavia and Armel Bella-Kotchap were completed.
Nevertheless, Shields has been widely praised for his ability to scout talent. He led Man City's youth recruitment between 2018 and 2022 and is now expected to be a major figure across all of Chelsea's transfer business, with co-owner Todd Boehly keen to build a young, exciting team at Stamford Bridge.
Shields is set to become one of many new faces behind the scenes at Chelsea. Christopher Vivell is in line to join as technical director and talks remain on with a number of candidates.
Norwich City's Stuart Webber has been contacted although 90min understands Boehly's preference is Michael Edwards, but the former Liverpool man has ruled out joining a new club until the end of the season.
Source : 90min