Just because a handful of high profile players insisted on release clauses in their contracts doesn't mean it was standard policy at the club. There might be other players who had clauses, I guess we'll never know, but I never got the impression it was standard policy from us. That would be a weird thing to do, as being a selling/trading club is one thing, but restricting your bargaining power isn't a wise way to go about that model. And Williams was a very shrewd operator. Much more likely, these particular high profile players (maybe one or two others) insisted, or rather their agents insisted, on the clauses in order to sign their deals. Santa Cruz didn't go via a release clause, which further suggests it wasn't standard policy as he was very high profile. Neither did Bentley. The Bellamy clause is the only one that was really low (barely above what we paid for him) but it would seem he wasn't coming in the first place without it as frankly he saw himself as better than us (backed up by quotes in Robbie Savage's autobiography). Duff and Jones, theirs were lower than we could have got, as nearly every minimum fee release clause ever triggered is (that's pretty much the point of them), but probably only by a few million in each case. In Duff's case, the contract was signed before Abramovich upturned the established order for what players cost.

Duff had a release clause, Bellamy had a release clause, Jones had a release clause. Santa Cruz was a terrific deal for us, it was fairly clear at the time he had gone back off the boil and was a crock. Bentley dragged on for most of the summer, culminating in the player drunkenly interviewing with Sky Sports on holiday to say he wanted out. Don't think there was much chance of keeping him without him becoming hugely disruptive. I'm not a fan of putting in release clauses, kinda think they should be banned, but Bellamy wasn't signing in the first place without it. Possible the other players weren't signing their contract extensions without them either.

In fairness, if we had been in the second tier at the time, and that was the only opposition Duff had gotten to show his class against, that's probably about as good as we could have expected back then. I'd say it's more like selling Duff for £4-5 million from the second tier.

I take it you mean a loan? I was thinking the same.

Nobody will ever convince me he didn't do that shit on purpose. I've always suspected someone threw him a bribe, telling him it would also speed up his move away.

It does, but not in the mens game. Has to be a record at our sort of level and above. Certainly in England, if not globally.

Not as thick as he thinks we are... imagine expecting fans to believe that a 5-0 defeat to an average side won't have any effect on our confidence leading up to playing one of the best sides in the league! 🤣

Has to be a world record, that.

Whoah whoah, steady on! Hyam was very very poor tonight, but he wasn't two own goals and a red card poor! Which was on the back of another own goal in the previous game, which I believe made for 3 own goals in less than 90 minutes of football across both games. At least, I assume you're talking about the Cardiff game, as he actually scored a goal for us in his very last game (in the cup).

People assume that logically, an owner would cut their losses at 200 million in debt, unable to fund the club and playing in the third tier, with clearly none of the debt to ever be repaid. The mistake is assuming logic from Venkys.

Christ tonight was dire. Especially the second half. We're very fortunate we have this points cushion and everyone around us is in poor form instead of fighting for their lives like usually starts to happen at this point. I suspect we'll stay up, potentially we won't even need any more points, but I expect 2 more will suffice. Then I expect us to go down next season.

Totally bizarre decision. Can't think of any justification for it at all. Eustace must have been watching a totally different game.

You seem to struggle with nuance. I never said anything about a policy, nor have I implied it. I simply believe that in this current situation, we should attempt to renew the players with expiring contracts, at the right terms. I never mentioned their ages, that was all you - in fact Gally is older than the age range you said. Nor did I say it should have been a full-on policy 3/4 years ago, I was talking about a single player. It's all situational, not policy, and that's why you're putting words in my mouth by saying what you said. But what we did 3/4 years ago, not renewing the contracts of BBD, Lenihan, Rothwell, cost us an absolute fuckton in lost revenue, so even if it had been a general policy I espoused, which it wasn't and isn't, we'd still have made a lot more money on it than we'd have lost in extra contracts. Though I should probably clarify this summer on reflection - I wouldn't renew the broken Fleck, and although after his first few games I'd potentially have been ok with a cheap further year from MacFadzean if he maintained his form, I wouldn't now. Forgot about those two when answering your question. I was essentially just thinking about Dolan and Gally, who both have 1 year extension options that I'd exercise. If Gally won't commit to a further contract at reduced terms, I'd be open to offers for him. Same for Dolan, with a bit more leeway on his contract. Hyam, Siggy and Markanday are out of contract next summer and don't have extension options. I'd see what they want this summer, and if it's too much, again consider any offers or actively attempt to sell them. If I were to put words in your mouth like you have with me, I'd say that 'your policy' of letting everyone's contracts expire has fucked us over repeatedly, a lot more than it's benefitted us, and we have no money to replace them.

I thought it was pretty obvious, but: "You're basically advocating that every player under 26/27 should be offered a new deal to protect our investment. That will work out some of the time, but it will lead to some awful contracts." I never said this. Nor do I believe in that as an absolute policy.

None from the first team squad.

It's not the benefit of hindsight, it's the benefit of remembering that I was relatively happy with him in that season and thought it was worth protecting our £7 million investment. I do want to keep Gallagher, although it will have to be at the right wage level. But he has less potential to improve now than Brereton did in that season as he's a lot older. IMO we don't have the money to buy someone at a similar level but on less wages. Additionally, we were rejecting cash bids for him this January, so he does have some market value. BBD had scored 7 goals in the league from out wide and looked like a nailed on starter who may improve and we'd invested 7 million in, to justify a new deal. At that point his wage demands wouldn't have been too high, and the understanding is he wasn't on all that much. I'm not basically advocating that, you're entirely putting words in my mouth.

I'd have been perfectly fine with extending his contract after the 20/21 season where he scored 7 goals from out wide. In fact after the investment we had made, it was a pretty obvious thing to do.

I think we'll stay up now. Too many other teams around us in poor form who would need to all have better form than us to the tune of a few points. I'm actually more worried about next season.

20 million for a young, fully-contracted English player scoring as many goals as he was in the Championship is perfectly normal, I'm not sure where you're deriving that verdict. We got almost as much as that for Armstrong with a year left on his deal.

The latest LT article about Finneran, with quotes from GB, makes me think very much that we'll be losing him in the summer. All of the language is about being 'hopeful' he will stay, and acknowledging a 'life-changing' offer could come in from elsewhere. I can read between those lines.

Having a fit Sammy is even more important though.

Yep. Management isn't about just giving people what they want anyway. It's about knowing when you do and don't do that in service of the bigger picture.

If he gets injured or even if he just isn't as fresh for the next game, yes, it's very obviously a problem. I've seen enough times over the years where somebody gets kept on after they've clearly taken an injury and it just gets worse. Sometimes they make it through the whole game and seem fine, only for an injury to be announced a couple of days later. Sometimes they can make it through the next match too but then the injury becomes too severe and they're out for weeks or months. Or sometimes they just carry the injury and play through it for months but their performances clearly drop off. It was a fucking unnecessary risk because the game was won, end of. Even if we get away with it 100%, that stands. It was stupid.

That's not a remotely good enough reason to risk our best player when 4 goals to the good, he's had a knock and we're in a relegation fight.

Anyone got a good explanation for why we have kept Szmodics on the pitch?