They are playing PSG. Irrelevant who lines up for them 😆

Gazza M wrote:

He has a clause where if he started 17 games this season,  we'd pay an extra 2.5m. He's currently on 16 appearances,  hence arsenal are playing hardball

I can see both sides of the arguement. Its a shit note for him to start his arsenal career on, but paying an extra 2.5m to allow him to play in a game he might get hurt in doesn't sound like good business either. We already paid for the player, and agreed to loan him for 12 months. St etienne got a pretty sweet deal all in all

The get hurt argument is ridiculous. Players don’t typically go out and get hurt.
And this can’t be the same club that turned down €10m for Mkhitaryan in January and pays about the same to Ozil every 6 months to mostly sit on his ass. Now they want to play hardball over the last €2,5m of Saliba’s deal? Doesn’t add up. Still penny wise like clowns.

Apparently we were upset when Liverpool wouldn't honour a clause they agreed to...

I thought we'd agreed to pay if he made 17 starts but will now only let him play if we don't have to pay it, or have I misunderstood that?

invisibleman18 wrote:

I thought we'd agreed to pay if he made 17 starts but will now only let him play if we don't have to pay it, or have I misunderstood that?

17 starts within the loan period that has expired. Now they're asking us to extend the loan and still pay if he makes more starts. 

Haha we should never do that we're not a charity.

If anything they should be paying us for the favour. Incredible.

Jed wrote:

If anything they should be paying us for the favour. Incredible.

I relieve Huss of his job. You’re it.

There was similar talk about Mkhi with Roma wanting us to sign him to an extension on his current contract so they could then loan him from us for next season, because they didn't/don't want to pay 10m for him.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
invisibleman18 wrote:

I thought we'd agreed to pay if he made 17 starts but will now only let him play if we don't have to pay it, or have I misunderstood that?

17 starts within the loan period that has expired. Now they're asking us to extend the loan and still pay if he makes more starts. 

Yep. If it's before June 30, by all means. Totally different scenario

Is the key word here “starts”? If it is, there is an obvious solution considering football now uses 5 subs...

invisibleman18 wrote:

I thought we'd agreed to pay if he made 17 starts but will now only let him play if we don't have to pay it, or have I misunderstood that?

Yeah so he needed to play 1/3 of all games for that trigger to be set off. They've played 51 games so a third of that is 17. It is a clause we had put in because we wanted him to play games for them. They probably wanted the money we've told them they'll only get it if he plays a certain number of games.

So you can kind of see their point of view as well, it is a bit of an unfortunate situation really. Both sides should have shown some compromise and let him play the cup final.

flobaba wrote:

Is the key word here “starts”? If it is, there is an obvious solution considering football now uses 5 subs...

What is your solution? They can't sub him in any more than they can start him without having the loan extended. 

JazzG wrote:
invisibleman18 wrote:

I thought we'd agreed to pay if he made 17 starts but will now only let him play if we don't have to pay it, or have I misunderstood that?

Yeah so he needed to play 1/3 of all games for that trigger to be set off. They've played 51 games so a third of that is 17.

Now you're putting Arsenal in a slightly better light than they deserve. They've played 41 matches, so he's played more than a third. 10 matches were cancelled due to Corona, and technically Saliba didn't play those matches so we don't have to pay. Kind of shitty from us, but I don't think they should've been required being payed to play their best defender anyway. 

I think we gotta stay classy, pay the 2.5 mil and let him play. Because the only reason he hasn't already played 17 games is COVID which is hardly ASSE's fault.

banduan wrote:

I think we gotta stay classy, pay the 2.5 mil and let him play. Because the only reason he hasn't already played 17 games is COVID which is hardly ASSE's fault.

That will be their argument. But we will lose over £50m in match day revenue also due to Covid. We aren’t their insurer. If they want him to play for free that should be negotiated

thats quite a bit of money for a cup final sentiment. I'm thinking more so that we keep good graces with St. Etienne if feasible because their scouting is quite good. Likely to develop more quality players worth bringing over in the next two cycles.

banduan wrote:

I think we gotta stay classy, pay the 2.5 mil and let him play. Because the only reason he hasn't already played 17 games is COVID which is hardly ASSE's fault.

Covid and the foot injury, neither of which we had foreseen back in August.

We obviously counted on having to pay that money when we drew up the contract, and while it would have been nice to save some pocket change I think it's fundamentally wrong to do it at the expense of a young player who's excited about a cup final. Also reputation matters, how you conduct yourself matters. It might be better to just suck it up and maintain a good relationship with St Etienne and other French clubs.

Do they want him to play in the cup final or do they want millions of money? My suspicion is very much the latter. The "classy" thing to do is to waive the fee so he can play, not for Arsenal to pay them a fuckton of money for no reason.