Darren Bent lol.
Fucker went for more than we sold Henry.
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Sure, but it wasn’t a terrible contract from a club perspective and much cheaper than paying a transfer fee + wages to someone else—all assuming of course that a player “better” would come in as backup. And his new deal didn’t hamper the club signing higher profile targets for other positions.
Given the deal for Eddie leaving, it worked out pretty well.
I understand some fans are still rue the Ozil and Auba deals, but this wasn’t near that category of financial malfeasance.
@Joshua I’m confused given you’re a backer of the Dortmund selling club spreadsheet model that you still see the contract as a negative even though it would result in us selling the player for a good sum.
Or you changed your mind on that (which fair enough)? Just seems like what the club did here should be right in your wheelhouse.
I would have sold Eddie before he got to the point where he was in a position to leave on a free. I think he’s kind of one dimensional.
What we ended up being able to do (sell him for 30m) is good. I’m happy we were able to do that. What I didn’t like was the second contract for a guy who wasn’t going to be good enough.
@jmb27 We don’t know what the club could have or would have done if Eddie got a bosman to Palace. There’s just no way to know if we would have been better off. We probably approach the window completely differently.
Giving Eddie 100k/w is probably overpaying by about 30k. Equates to £1.5m.
We’re gonna get 15-20 times that this summer (fingers crossed).
He had us by the balls to give him a tidy contract, and we agreed to his demands clearly on the basis we would get a solid fee for him.
Overpaid him sure but we were doing it to secure a fee - a fee that would be worth the big contract.
It was a gamble by the club and they deserve credit for the way they handled this player.
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Of course they do. I’ve never disputed that it was good to get money for him.
Luckily we found a buyer and he was able to get his bag somewhere else.
But by tying him down to a reasonable contract, it allowed the club to address more pressing needs at the time.
For a backup striker role, who’s been better in the Prem?
Again, backup sticker transfer fee + wages would have been much higher than the contract that Eddie got.
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Of course it would, but we’ll never know what the club would have done if it was forced into the market because the club took the safe route and kept Eddie. That summer window probably looks totally different. I doubt we roll the dice on Vieira if we’re trying to replace two strikers. (And that was a deal I had no issues with at the time. Has it worked? Not exactly. But I still like those kinds of deals.)
Maybe we sign DCL and it’s a disaster. Or maybe we use that extra 100k/wk to convince Neto to leave Wolves that summer (transfermarkt has him valued at 32m in June 2022) and by moving to London he discovers clean eating and Pilates so he doesn’t get injured as much.
In the context of where we were that summer, shedding a lot of bad contracts for basically no money, I didn’t really think letting him go was an issue because I saw keeping him as throwing away an opportunity to have a clean break with a player who wasn’t good enough to take the team where we want it to go.
He got that contract June 2022. Following the 2021/22 season. So ideally you would have to sell him at least the season before. His record was: (Including a failed Leeds loan)
What money you think we getting for him then?
Definitely less than what we’ll end up getting but that’s not my point. I didn’t see anything special about him then and still don’t so if we punted him to Barnsley for 5m after a failed loan at Leeds I wouldn’t have really cared because I didn’t rate him.
Yes, the balance with him has always been 70% donkey/30% diva.
I just don’t see how you think in hindsight that selling him for 5m 4 years ago is better than the 30m (if it happens) today? Any selling club model takes the latter deal.
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Nketiah got a new contract because he was a young striker who had been the top goal scorer for the England youth team and was in decent form for us so there is no way we were going to let him leave on a free like so many other players had done.
Also, he was the only cover for Jesus so to go into a season without cover for such an important position would have been negligent to say the least.
He might not be top quality but how many clubs have a striker as good as him sitting on the bench?
But if we do get around 30m for him and possibly 20m for Nelson Arteta will have to strengthen our attack because the options upfront really lack the depth of quality we need to win the title.
I never said it was better. I’ve said many times in this thread that it’s a good thing we’re getting 30m. Obviously any selling club takes the deal.
At the risk of repeating myself, I did not think it was worth keeping him at the club because I didn’t think he was good enough. I also had doubts about being able to move him on 100k/wk because I didn’t think he was very good and we were already working our way out of bad contracts and players who were making too much money to move. I thought it was an ambitious and unimaginative move. I understand why the club did it. I just disagreed with it at the time.
Me thinking it was bad to tie him down to that contract doesn’t prevent me from also applauding the club when they did manage to find a way to move him and at a nice profit. If it ends up being 30m then it’s really impressive because I don’t think he’s a very well rounded player, is coming off a pretty crappy season last year and bar some tremendous development, he’s not going to really change who he is.
https://x.com/Tanziloic/status/1822989046739505407
Says that Marseille and Lens reached an agreement on Wahi for 30m euro.
Welp. I hope we have some backup plans for Eddie.
It’s time @Bl1nk. Move our beloved thread back to its rightful place
Devastating news.
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Get in there Palace, come get yer boy.
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At least we don’t have to sign a player to cover for the striker position. 
Not a great sign that Bournemouth and Forest seem to be competing for this guy who has never hit more than 14 league goals in Portugal rather than turning to Eddie.