reports of a mega offer of three first-round picks for the Blues superstar<\/a>.<\/p>\nAnd Rhys Stanley earned a new one-year extension.<\/p>\n
Is that a sign Marshall is staying at St Kilda?<\/p>\n
Perhaps something else had to give to avoid the club getting backed into a corner … and that something was Aleer.<\/p>\n
Now to really put the tinfoil hat on.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t forget that the Saints \u2018came late\u2019 for Jack Silvagni to snare him from Western Bulldogs and Collingwood in a move that already bolstered their key defensive stocks. <\/p>\n
One list manager foxfooty.com.au spoke to after St Kilda secured Silvagni was adamant the club wouldn\u2019t also go for Aleer. <\/p>\n
Could the Hawks land Zach Merrett? | 03:06<\/p>\n
Is it possible they were always prepared to cut the cord on Aleer if the price in a trade wasn\u2019t suitable? You\u2019d hope they wouldn\u2019t have stung him along this far. <\/p>\n
In addition to landing Silvagni, it\u2019s also worth noting how much else has changed since the Saints were first linked to Aleer earlier this year. <\/p>\n
That includes a bumper extension for Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera potentially in the realm of $1 million more than they were anticipating. Plus the added funds for Wilkie and Flanders picking them as his preferred new home.<\/p>\n
Put simply, money could\u2019ve gotten too tight and they needed a scapegoat.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also possible the Saints could be leveraging GWS\u2019 Clayton Oliver plans to get Aleer for cheaper \u2014 possibly even for free.<\/p>\n
While GWS is believed to be happy to have Aleer back (though what would be on much less money to his Saints offer), the club has already committed to signing Jayden Laverde to cover the defensive void list spots are suddenly tight.<\/p>\n
While the Giants could open up list spots, there\u2019s now a scenario where St Kilda gets Aleer for nothing, provided bridges haven\u2019t been burnt.<\/p>\n
The other fascinating subplot is that Aleer\u2019s management, Centimeter Perfect Global, recently had Melbourne backflip on a deal for Wade Derksen. <\/p>\n
And while they\u2019re an emerging management group compared to some of the big dogs, they do represent a very important Saints player: Alix Tauru. <\/p>\n
Negotiations for \u2018The Flying Viking\u2019\u2019s next deal will sure be interesting.<\/p>\n
But where to here for Aleer? He\u2019s left in a tough situation.<\/p>\n
Everyone will throw up Western Bulldogs as a landing spot given they\u2019ve been searching for a key back. But he mightn\u2019t appeal to them.<\/p>\n
Collingwood and North Melbourne could be other options for the athletic 195cm high-flyer.<\/p>\n
The tricky part is that other clubs in the market for a defender have already made plans. It\u2019s worth noting, ironically, that clubs rarely shift gears when that happens.<\/p>\n
For example, Carlton has locked onto Buku Khamis and Sydney is set to add Jai Serong. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s clearly less than ideal circumstances with such little time for prospective clubs to get their ducks in a row in a bizarre trade period twist.<\/p>\n
And perhaps we\u2019ll only know in the fullness of time the real reason for it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No deal!? In a shocking trade backflip, St Kilda has pulled out of its pursuit of Giants defender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,689,684,125216,125215,106949,1129,125217,125218,2105,121839,6179,12112,9017,27725,77701,125212,83080,125208,125207,677,46,38760,19064,49776,125219,125209,125210,85,1122,26889,125213,1117,125214,1133,125211,660,7067,3439,698,25581],"class_list":["post-200221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ben-cotton","tag-bizarre-trade-period","tag-buyers-remorse","tag-career-move","tag-charlie-curnow","tag-club-getting","tag-dylan-smith","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-graeme-allan","tag-jack-silvagni","tag-jack-steele","tag-janelle-st-pierre","tag-jordan-de-goey","tag-key-defensive-stocks","tag-key-priorities","tag-landing-spot","tag-list-manager-foxfooty-com-au","tag-multimillion-dollar-spending-spree","tag-oceania","tag-perth","tag-rumour-mill","tag-sam-de-koning","tag-sam-flanders","tag-second-round-pick","tag-sheer-money-side","tag-shocking-trade-backflip","tag-sports","tag-st-kilda","tag-st-kilda-saints","tag-tinfoil-hat","tag-tom-de-koning","tag-trade-backflip","tag-trade-period","tag-trade-period-twist","tag-victoria","tag-west-coast-eagles","tag-western-australia","tag-western-bulldogs","tag-zach-merrett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}