Clrnc wrote:
Basically he said it's always been in the plans to activate Partey clause at the end of the window after we signed Aouar because we didn't want to get fleeced by Lyon. But circumstances prevented us from signing Aouar. We also didn't want to sell Martinez as we didn't need the cash
Whilst I can agree with the first part regarding activating Partey's release clause late, I find it hard to accept the rest.
IMO the circumstances re Aouar were entirely about the money re both the fee wanted by OL, and the inability to arrange a payment schedule that did not require us to pay a sizeable fee upfront, (as we were going to have to do so re Partey's release clause for around 40m). As such it became an either/or scenario based upon finances.
Likewise I don't believe we didn't need the cash re Martinez as he was not only our biggest/only sale from the senior squad in terms of fee received, but the PL clubs were already losing money re COVID, and there was no indication of any return of match day revenues.
Further to this IF we didn't need the money then why didn't we do last summer what we have now done in Jan re the likes of Ozil & Sokratis? Why didn't we do so once they were not included in the 25 man squads for PL or UEFA comps & why then do it now, and why the emphasis on reducing wages/operating costs? Why the wage cuts, redundancies and the loans from KSE and The Govt scheme?
IMO the statement simply doesn't match the 'evidence'.
