Captain wrote:
What has Nasri done to deserve being paid the same as Cesc then?
I thought that your point was and always has been that some players are getting premature wage-hikes. There's no clearer example than a bloke being given parity with our highest earner off the back of half a season of goalscoring form.
(statistically, Theo blew Nasri out of the water this year)
There's no doubt of Nasri's ability. It's not that half season that bothers me - it's the mediocre half season he's just had.
My feeling is we need to try to retain Nasri on somewhat higher wages and make a further hike to the sort of level he's presumably asking for, contingent on him repeating that form and making it consistent. We need to tell him "you think you're good, and if you actually are, you'll earn extremely well".
If we consider him in form, we would struggle to replace him (it'd cost at least £20m in a signing fee most probably) which is 3-4 years of a 100,000/week wage anyway. There is a huge value in retaining players like him.
My chief concern with Nasri is that he hasn't been a hugely consistent player for us at the level that I think will be implied by his wage demands. He has faded badly in the last six months and if that's the nature of his contribution he doesn't deserve to be among the very top tier of our earners.
With respect to his contract, I'm sure he and his agent will argue for a significant wage rise which is mostly independent of performance level, but that's where we need to focus our negotiations.
The trouble is I'm not sure what sort of performance metrics would be acceptable to the parties. Appearances are ok but blunt; TGA is also too blunt as a measure; etc.
