Players Contracts

Aubameyang is being chased by Barcelona. I don't blame us for not being able to tie him down. Or him, for that matter. It'll take years of success to be able to hold onto those players.

Saka, however, should be straightforward.

comment by Giröulski Alt-153 and Alt-160 forever (U14971)
posted 9 minutes ago
Aubameyang is being chased by Barcelona. I don't blame us for not being able to tie him down. Or him, for that matter. It'll take years of success to be able to hold onto those players.

Saka, however, should be straightforward.
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Not exactly, to keep this type of player we need to be:
1) Consistently qualifying for the CL
2) Regularly challenging for the PL

With those two securities it's much easier to tie our best players down to longer contracts.

That is the level we should expect to be at and aim to get back to, success would be winning those competitions.

We're in a tough spot because we've not been meeting either of those objectives for quite a while now and that has led to players running their contracts down.

Even if we somehow manage to qualify for the Champions League this season I wouldn't hold it against Aubameyang for wanting to move, so long as it's to a club with a good chance of winning it like Real, Barcelona, Juventus or PSG etc. He may only have a few years left at the top level providing he stays injury free (although physically he still looks in top shape and it could well be 4 or 5 for all I know).

The issue with some of the players you quote are that they are the ones who have delayed signing negotiated deals. So what you are saying is that we should have sold Auba?

You can't tie up players who are refusing to sign because you won't pay what they're demanding. Whether Auba stays or not will likely be decided by whether we make CL next season, if yes then he'll stay and guarantee playing. If we don't he's off. Same with Laca if he can get a CL club offer. As for Saka, we need him signed to a big buyout but we won't risk meeting his wage demand to get it done. We're stuck with him because it's a huge risk to give him a big salary off what's basically half a season of "Positive indicators for the future." His run of good form couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time for the club (in contract terms, great for match form). No doubt his recent media attention has swelled his head to thinking he's worth 100k+ already.

Definitely already got a hint of "Little merc" about him that one, so don't be surprised if he goes this summer, it's likely. Question is just whether or not we'll get him signed to a buyout and get a decent fee. Probably not, if he keeps going great guns as he is. On a plus note, HE'S playing a dangerous game. Aside from injury risk, all it takes is for him to face true quality and get skinned and pocketed comprehensively a few times (at his age, just a matter of time) and his transfer stock plummets. 70 mil to 30, in 3 or 4 games. Bit of media slamming and boom, little mister ain't got such big balls no more when talking about what he will and won't sign for.