It’s difficult with Ross. I don’t think he has a big enough presence to be a centre back for us and he’s probably not good enough as a footballer to be a truly effective midfielder. The deep lying defensive midfield role is his best bet I think but we don’t really need to utilise anyone in this role very often.
I don’t think we’ll learn much more about him from another loan spell. I still think he could be a really useful option off the bench given he can fill in at RB, CB, CM. You could bring him on if protecting a lead or if needing a bit more bite in the middle. Just not convinced he’ll ever be first choice, which is a shame, because I like him.
For the good of his career, a team like Hibs might be the right move. There is still a chance he could progress and for that reason I’d like a ‘buy back’ option if that is possible. We sell him for X, and if we choose to we can buy him back for Y, say at any point after 1 season. So we get first refusal.