Thanks Canterbury.

I still feel resigned to the fact that we won't be hanging on to this team forever. That will, for me anyway, reflect some success however.

What I am hopeful for, is that this represents a step up for us as a club beyond merely surviving relegation each year. Not a huge step, but a necessary and positive one.

What is important going forward is that we continue in the same vain. The summer transfer window was hardly representative of all our wildest dreams however even the likes of Henderson and Franca do represent we are trying to bring in young, exciting talent to hopefully bring success for us albeit before they may eventually leave for the top. It looks as though we're planning for that inevitability but ensuring we receive the financial compensation to start the process again.

COYP and Olise is ours for now.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Completely agree with this, was disappointed with the window but it's gone now and no point harping on about it (until Feb 1st).

The most important thing is for the club to recognise that we are probably going to lose a few of these key players next summer, especially if Eze doesn't sign a new deal, and to get in front of the situation.

They did brilliantly well recruiting Olise, Eze, Guehi and Andersen who must be worth £200m+ between them now. So use the majority of that money to replace them and strengthen other areas.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

You'd hope that would be a fair compromise.

You'd also hope that we looking for Eze/Olise replacements that we can get in, and bed in before their inevitable departure

Way of the world, I'm afraid. American sports take steps to prevent boring monopolies by giving the lowest finishing team the first pick of the draft (i.e. summer recruitment), but we over here have never had that sort of check and balance system in over 150 years of football. It's an open market system and (without getting all Marxist about it) that generally means the rich will get richer and the pecking order is hard to disrupt.

It wasn't quite as bad until freedom of contract. After that, players knew they held all the cards.

It was nice to hear Parish send a message to the bigger clubs, but he knows that (whatever sweet talking he has pulled off with Olise, and Zaha before him) it's ultimately not in his gift to compel Eze, Geuhi, Docoure et el to sign new contracts. As and when they approach the final two years of their contracts, if those lads want to play for bigger clubs, and if the bigger clubs want them, that is where they will end up.

Yeah, a cut-off date for the release clause would be best (and not that unusual I think, though I'm only basing that on media gossip about other players with such clauses).

It's not something we have much experience of at the palace. I can't think of the last Palace player to have a (known, reported) release clause?

…or you extend them as we did with Zaha, have just done with Olise and are reputedly trying to do with Eze.
Calvin Phillips can’t get near the Man City team, nor can Smith Rowe at Arsenal.
I suspect Nketiah will find himself out of the team once Jesus is fully fit.
Young players like Elliott, Carvalho and Jones all hoped to hold down places at Liverpool but are treated as squad fodder and Liverpool have just bought another 3 midfielders.
Who would want to join the basket case that is Chelsea where is some cases you’ve got three players competing for one position?
The grass is always greener goes the saying , and at least at Palace our better players will be guaranteed to play and be looked after.
If you just accept the ‘bigger’ clubs’ sense of entitlement that they can cherry pick players from the likes of Palace on a whim (provided the terms are met - which won’t present a problem to such clubs) then we will see Doucoure, Guehi, Anderson, Olise and Eze depart because it’s just accepted as the natural order of things which we can do nothing about.