The Cabbage
Striker
Depends on how strong our contractual position is. Can we force him to be a safc player if we deny him now? Would we want to do that if he’s made it clear he really wants to go? I don’t think it’s a dynamic we’ll ever get away from tbh - and we probably wouldn’t want to. It’s just that the levels have changed. Is it worth forcing the lad to stay at safc till the summer and miss out on a move to an elite club just to maybe get a marginally more comfortable mid table finish? And in the process undo some of the reputation for looking after players that we’ve spent years trying to cultivate, just at the point that we’re trying to reemphasise it with a wider, more talented player pool?You must be logged on to see media items
"Won't stand in his way due to the scale of the opportunity" and "no break clause in the deal".
I do appreciate our stance on that when we were in the Championship where we were very much of the view that not blocking PL moves would ultimately encourage more players to come here, but now that we're actually in the PL and losing him makes us lose depth at 3 positions (we obviously won't be signing a PL level RB, CB and CM in January), I'd be a bit more selfish if I were the club here like.