Klaus wrote:

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.

Agree with that. The season being extended beyond the expected end date was noone's fault and I feel it would have been the classy thing to do for any club to extend loan deals with the same terms. It may also risk ruining the relationship between clubs and perhaps they won't deal with us again in future.

If yous ever get rich let me know. Anyone who gives away 2.5m for the sake of being polite is OK by me.

Klaus wrote:

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.

Arsenals argument will be we are already paying top money for their player and surely they need to show some compromise as well? They tried hard to get other clubs involved to start a bidding war, sounded like he wanted to join us which is why that didn’t work. Arsenal won’t have forgot about that either, they were happy to play the game to squeeze us so can we be blamed for trying it ourselves? Sounds like we told them we wanted to keep to a training schedule and not pay the fee and we’d extend the loan, our position isn’t entirely unreasonable for once. And I’m one who usually disagrees with a lot of our decisions off the pitch these days.

Like you say though if this leaves a bad impression of the club that doesn’t work in our favour either and his profile of player is what we should be actively look to sign. Then again from what I can gather our reputation is pretty shit anyway so can’t get much worse either!

Out of all the underhanded things clubs do in the football transfer market, this barely registers. St etienne should point figures at their own league for prematurely ending the competition.

It's a stupid clause that they agreed to anyway, surely it should be a tiered system - £1m every 10 games, not an all or nothing clause that gets derailed due to injuries or unforeseen circumstances.

L'Equipe reporting that Saliba wants to play in the cup final and the clubs may restart talks to find a solution. That would be the ideal scenario here, he deserves a chance to play in the cup final for his boyhood club.

Mirth wrote:

Out of all the underhanded things clubs do in the football transfer market, this barely registers. St etienne should point figures at their own league for prematurely ending the competition.

It's a stupid clause that they agreed to anyway, surely it should be a tiered system - £1m every 10 games, not an all or nothing clause that gets derailed due to injuries or unforeseen circumstances.

It's a standard clause. They're typically written this way. They don't scale. They just say - qualify for Europe, score 10 goals, play 20 games. 

If we can find a deal that works for everyone, we should do it

Its the obvious compromise. Get the feeling they are more concerned about the money though. The old deals up, surely that can write up a one game extension contract for the final that doesn't include paying them for a clause they failed to meet within the given time period?

Let him play if Etienne waive the fee. If they won't play their best defender without receiving a bonus fee on top, then fuck them.

How would any of you feel if we were in that situation with a player? Imagine Aubameyang joining Real Madrid and we risk losing him for the F A Cup final because we demand an extra couple of million from them. We'd be livid.

Qwiss! wrote:

Its the obvious compromise. Get the feeling they are more concerned about the money though. The old deals up, surely that can write up a one game extension contract for the final that doesn't include paying them for a clause they failed to meet within the given time period?

which is what everyone else is doing. we had to write extensions for Ceballos, Cedric and Luiz. new deals. they can kiss the 2m goodbye and say 'please' to ask to use our player for the cup final. 

Shady wrote:

Let him play if Etienne waive the fee. If they won't play their best defender without receiving a bonus fee on top, then fuck them.

How would any of you feel if we were in that situation with a player? Imagine Aubameyang joining Real Madrid and we risk losing him for the F A Cup final because we demand an extra couple of million from them. We'd be livid.

This. St. Etienne are so obviously in the wrong here.

L'Equipe reporting talks have restarted and positive, good news and hopefully he can play the cup final. They are reporting that they have agreed to forego the 2.5m bonus payment.

Too right.

Horrible nasty pieces of work at that club. Pulling saliba through the mill mentally before thr Cup final.

Nobody is going to pay you 2m to do you a huge favour.

Can't wait to have Saliba at Arsenal. We've done so well with under 23s such as Torriera, Martinelli, Guendouzi and then Saliba being the main acquisition. Hope he comes through unscathed these final few months if he's playing the final.

Also important we sign a senior defender this summer because while Saliba might be the future it would be unfair to put so much pressure on an 18 year old. I’d rather he is eased in than thrown in the deep end.

JazzG wrote:

Also important we sign a senior defender this summer because while Saliba might be the future it would be unfair to put so much pressure on an 18 year old. I’d rather he is eased in than thrown in the deep end.

Yes. While we have signed Luiz and Mari I am not impressed with either as THE man. If we could find a way to secure Upamecano, we would sort out centre back for the whole of the 2020s barring witchcraft. Then we can spend the next 12 months releasing the centre backs we don't need. 

Claudius wrote:

JazzG wrote:

Also important we sign a senior defender this summer because while Saliba might be the future it would be unfair to put so much pressure on an 18 year old. I’d rather he is eased in than thrown in the deep end.

Yes. While we have signed Luiz and Mari I am not impressed with either as THE man. If we could find a way to secure Upamecano, we would sort out centre back for the whole of the 2020s barring witchcraft. Then we can spend the next 12 months releasing the centre backs we don't need. 

From your mouth to God’s ears

For me a CB should have the priority after DM, but Luiz re-signing has massively complicated everything.

Mustafi, Sokarits, Holding, Mavropanos, Chambers, Mari and still Luiz.

Add Saliba on top, and we really have to move players out to make space for any newcomers.

It's actually not THAT bad. As a lot of those guys come back, they can be sent on loan. So we can keep

• Saliba
• Luiz
• Mustafi
• Holding
• Mari
• Chambers

Sell

• Sokratis
• Mavropanos
• Kolasinac

We are frequently going into back 3s, so we can use some combination of Tierney, Saka, Cédric at LWB.

I think Holding is done given how infrequently he plays. His lack of pace and immobility on the outside will kill him. He can only play the middle CB in the 3, and has not had the chance to do that. So I think when the time comes, Holding will be sold. Chambers is recovering. And Luiz is only here one season where Saliba (and Upamecano) will be adapting. I think if we are planning forward we will finish the season with a roster of

• Saliba
• Upamecano
• Mari
• Chambers
• +1