Guti the Spanish DP? (UPDATED)

The day after the Sporting KC season ended, Robb Heineman posted on Twitter that the team was making an offer on a Spanish designated player. Since then, people have been speculating who it is that KC is trying to sign. It especially picked up after Heineman posted yesterday that a deal was done and would be announced in January. People are assuming the announcements are one and the same. The big talk right now is that KC is looking at Guti Hernandez. The former Real Madrid midfielder made almost 400 appearances for Los Blancos before moving to Besiktas for the 2010-2011 season. Things apparently haven't gone so well for Guti there and he's been granted a release from his contract with the Turkish club.

In the past Guti has been linked with a move to MLS, specifically the LA Galaxy. That, combined with the two things above and you get your speculation that Guti is the Sporting KC DP target. While the dots can easily be connected, I'm just not buying it. At least not yet. To me I don't think KC is going to go after a 35 year old. If Julio Cesar is still around next year that would give KC a midfield with two midfielders approaching or already in, their mid-30's. That doesn't seem to be the way that the team has been wanting to go. Overall it seems to me that the team is looking to get younger. That's why I still believe that KC is looking to take advantage of the league's new designated player rules that give less of a cap hit for younger DPs. The team will likely be going after a player who is between the age of 21 and 23 so that it will only be a $200,000 cap hit. The other thing is that the DP is likely to be someone that the vast majority of us have not heard of.

And the team has basically confirmed my suspicions, as VP of communications, Rob Thomson told Goal.com, "Our technical staff along with our ownership group are looking at a lot of players right now, but Guti seems just to be a speculative rumor."