MIDFIELDER Oriol Romeu insisted he would do everything he could to help new arrival Lyanco settle in at Saints – including trying to find him a hairdresser! The Brazilian centre-back arrived at St Mary’s from Torino last month, in a deal worth a reported £6.4million. Ralph Hasenhuttl has described the centre-back as a “long-term project”, as he looks to integrate into a new squad and surroundings. And having helped translate messages from Spanish and Italian for the 24-year-old, Romeu insisted he would be a “good addition”. Quizzed on working with Lyanco last week,
Oriol Romeu said: “I’m trying to help him with everything because he speaks Spanish, he is good and fluent in Spanish and also speaks Italian. He speaks Portuguese. He is not yet ready for English but he is doing lessons and trying to get there as soon as he can. Overall he looks great. He’s a young lad also willing to do well in this country, willing to do well for this club. He’s big, strong, good on the ball and I think it’s a good addition. We all hope that he can do well, he can feel comfortable. Now we try to sort things out, we were trying to get a hairdresser this afternoon for him because he wants to cut his hair! That’s the type of things you need to do from them sometimes. Whatever they need to make them feel comfortable is the main thing.”
Romeu himself had to make his way in English football, having made the move from Barcelona to Chelsea under Andre Villas-Boas in July 2011. Since then, he has gone on to make 206 appearances in the top-flight, having joined Saints in the summer of 2015.
Oriol Romeu said: “Nowadays you’ve got bigger department in the player liaison side,”
