Claudius Sorry. How has Edu fucked it. It sounds like the issue is with Nketiah. A similar thing happened a couple of years ago. He rejected another deal.

There were reasonably reliable reports Eddie agreed terms with Marseille (he also flew there), but we refused their offers, which were also reported as over €20m.

If Edu isn't able to find him another agreeable deal, it's decisively not Nketiah's fault if he remains an Arsenal player.

It's not up to Eddie to take a deal that reduces his pay packet.

      Claudius Once they get a contract over £50,000/wk, they are hard to shift because the market is limited to 10 clubs.

      Nketiah agreed a deal with Marseille so this either doesn't apply to him, or a reduced fee offer from Marseille is precisely the hit we take from offering him a large contract.

      I've already made similar comments about the situations of Ramsdale and Nelson, and I can't see much that's inconsistent in my outlook here. If we can't sell, or refuse to sell players we also can't use or refuse to use, the buck stops with Edu.

      Edu in his role has to be the main decision-maker accountable for a rather short list of things: player recruitment, renewals, loans, sales, impairments and other contract exits. On the football side he shares accountability with Arteta, but on the financial side he is on the hook. If not then he's just Arteta's butler.

      I'm rarely down with blaming players for accepting wage offers or refusing to accept wage offers, as professionals they just follow their incentives.

        Burnwinter Marseilles were nowhere near our valuation. The issue again comes back to the wage we gave him after Obasi ran down his and Balogun’s contracts to grab us by the balls. When other clubs come for Wfdie, they have a spend envelope, say £50m over 5 years. His wage takes up £25m of that amount. Versus if you want Solanke, his wage takes up £13m, leaving you up to £37m for transfer. This is the issue.

        Which is why I’m glad we fully dumped guys like Patino. They aren’t going to make it here. Let’s not put them on wages that become hard to shift later. Ideally, we would’ve had Nketiah and Nelson on longer contracts and shifted them easily by now.

            Claudius Marseilles were nowhere near our valuation. The issue again comes back to the wage we gave him after Obasi ran down his and Balogun’s contracts to grab us by the balls.

            Marseille were reported as having bid with a €25m package, there was some ambiguity there but again, there was no doubt as to whether Nketiah could've been moved for a substantial fee.

            Edu also organised the last contract Nketiah signed, the fact that involved negotiation with the player's agent is entirely standard. "Oh no there was an agent—and besides, he'd run down his contract!" These are exactly the situations Edu's role revolves around.

            If we have priced Eddie out from a transfer from one of the reduced list of clubs able to tolerate his wages at this point, then falsely pencil him in as a rotation option—a role in which he was already mostly unused and useless last season—then surely it must be considered a failure for Edu.

            To put it another way, if you insist it is not a failure, what would be a failure? Is anything a failure? Your arguments about this consistently propose there is no such thing as failure on the sales front, which I find untenable.

              Like I said, the big mistake we made was extending him at a high wage. I think I’ve been clear there.
              But life isn’t black and white. We did that because we wanted to retain him and we’re also dealing with a lot of churn at the time. During 2022-24 we were the club dealing with the most change. Every player you lose requires the manager and DoF to go sign another equivalent player, for a fee.
              So while I’m critical, I’m not going to sit here and act like Edu is incompetent. Because that’s clearly not the case.

                Romani had the same line "not expected to stay" yeah, that seems to be coming from the club. I think we got a little agitated on this one

                Claudius So while I’m critical, I’m not going to sit here and act like Edu is incompetent.

                You're interpolating. I have said "this would be a failure (or fuckup, or whatever) on Edu's part in this case". It would be.

                It would be a sales failure if we weren't to close on Nketiah's exit. He won't (or at best shouldn't) be playing for us. It strongly appears there have been ways to close a deal however conceptually unsatisfying. One can predict conditions for Nketiah moving on wouldn't be better in the future after another 4–11 months on the bench.

                For obvious reasons, the norms of football transfers such as aggressive agent work, a player's agreement on personal terms being vital to any deal getting done, and the need to balance multiple ambiguous situations can't be treated as mitigating factors. Those factors are the bread and butter of the job.

                If Nketiah doesn't move on, let's just call a spade a spade. No one's flatly suggesting Edu is incompetent, but he can be good at some aspects of his job and challenged when it comes to others. I don't expect miracles from him.

                  Surely this is an economic matter, i.e., we get a lower fee from Nottingham Forest, who can then afford to pay him higher or pay him a sign-on bonus to capitalize the difference in earnings. The fact that this hasn't happened with sophisticated negotiators on both sides indicates to me that Nketiah doesn't want to go there for whatever reason (maybe he doesn't like that part of England and wants to be in London - hence, Crystal Palace) etc. Purely down to him.

                    Bernard Woolley yup! If you listen to industry people, you realise that players hold a lot of sway in these deals. This isn’t just clubs trading commodities

                        Bernard Woolley Purely down to him.

                        One can't say this is "purely" down to the player when the player's agreement to any given contract is absolutely vital.

                        If this situation's purely down to Eddie because he had the legal right to refuse to sign with Forest, then every contract Edu has ever overseen was equally purely down to the player. It's Edu's job to see the landscape of these deals. That includes understanding any involved player's intentions and desires.

                        Any one of these contracts involves bringing at least four parties together (Arsenal, the player, the destination club and the player's agent). No one's saying it's easy, but it is what it is.

                        We may rail against squad players for wasting away on high wages, but Edu's employed by Arsenal to be across all these factors at both ends of an Arsenal footballing employee's useful tenure as an Arsenal footballer.

                        If Eddie doesn't get moved on because we ruled out the only destinations he was willing to accept that would also pay his wages and pay us a fee, that would be a failure.

                        Coffee's for closers.

                            Burnwinter I completely agree. It's Edu's job to ensure that we get the best possible deal that is actually actionable in light of all circumstances. All I meant was that this is not just because of Nketiah's wages being too high since that is an easily solvable problem through a combination of lower fee for the club with a sign-on bonus for the player. This is some other intangible in the mix.

                                Bernard Woolley Fair play, I think I pulled you into the point I've been trying to make to Claude. Any case, I really want to see us get a fee for Nketiah this summer—it'll be a blow if we don't.

                                  Claudius obviously the players hold sway on where they go and work. Otherwise you are trading humans like cattle. Eddie doesn't have to go to Forrest if he doesn't want to. We don't know why, it could be his role there, could be his wages, could release clause related, etc At the end of the day its Edu's job to find a deal that works for all parties.

                                    I don't blame Eddie for not going to Forest - they're badly run, odds are they'll be in or around the relegation zone and his contract will no doubt have a relegation clause. Nketiah doesn't want to be 26 and playing in the Championship on a fraction of the wages.

                                    At least Palace should be relatively loaded right now.

                                    Window shuts on Friday to be fair so not a lot of time left thank god.

                                    I really do hope we can bring an attacker in regardless of whether Eddie stays or goes.

                                    The departures of ESR and Vieira have opened up space and it doesn't seem like we can rely on Jesus.

                                    HomeSteak That was fast

                                    They probably had contact with Eddie and offered him a better deal than Forrest before he pulled out of that one. And who's going to pick Forrest over Palace at the moment anyway.

                                      Just praying some club takes Nketiah for decent money and we get Trossard level quality from a surprise forward signing. It should still be on the cards ...

                                      Anyone who's followed his progress has gotta be fond of Nketiah as a human being, but if Smith Rowe's not good enough for us, Eddie's certainly not a player to rely on as we try to scrape a title again. If experience is a guide he'll rarely play.

                                      Bring us some good news Edu.