People need to grasp that when a player's contract runs down, it is not indicative of whether or not he will remain at the club. It simply tells us that re-signing him is not a top priority, or that the player perhaps thinks he is worth more than the club does.

Quite likely Palace may have said to Andros "we definitely want to keep you, but not at £70k a week (or whatever he's paid)". Andros replies "I can get £80k somewhere else" to which we reply ok, we'll let your contract end and you can test the market. When you've got a firm offer let us know and we'll see if we can work something out". It's a way of letting market forces, rather than agent demands, determine a player's value.

It may be that we want all ten out-of-contract players back (or the new manager does) but by letting their contracts run down in a pandemic environment once they've become free agents and without many big offers out there now, we can re-sign all of them for far less than they were on before. That's the up-side of the situation. As for Benteke, we nailed him down simply because proven goalscoring centre forwards who are in form are the hardest thing to find so it was doing the early deal. Players like, say, McCarthy or Schlupp are a dime-a-dozen; at least a bit more easily replaced.

My guess is that of those ten players, we'll keep all, or close to all, of the ones we want to keep most likely on more favourable (to the club) terms than before. I'm totally relaxed about the contract situation; it's a storm in a teacup for the media but largely meaningless for the club.

People need to grasp that when a player's contract runs down, it is not indicative of whether or not he will remain at the club. It simply tells us that re-signing him is not a top priority, or that the player perhaps thinks he is worth more than the club does.

Quite likely Palace may have said to Andros "we definitely want to keep you, but not at £70k a week (or whatever he's paid)". Andros replies "I can get £80k somewhere else" to which we reply ok, we'll let your contract end and you can test the market. When you've got a firm offer let us know and we'll see if we can work something out". It's a way of letting market forces, rather than agent demands, determine a player's value.

It may be that we want all ten out-of-contract players back (or the new manager does) but by letting their contracts run down in a pandemic environment once they've become free agents and without many big offers out there now, we can re-sign all of them for far less than they were on before. That's the up-side of the situation. As for Benteke, we nailed him down simply because proven goalscoring centre forwards who are in form are the hardest thing to find so it was doing the early deal. Players like, say, McCarthy or Schlupp are a dime-a-dozen; at least a bit more easily replaced.

My guess is that of those ten players, we'll keep all, or close to all, of the ones we want to keep most likely on more favourable (to the club) terms than before. I'm totally relaxed about the contract situation; it's a storm in a teacup for the media but largely meaningless for the club.

Man, I'm bored of this.
seems like this has dragged on an on.
We should be well into talking about which of our transfer targets are going to West Ham by now.

Has anyone signed yet?

It's weird that they haven't announced him yet, given that he's definitely, definitely signed. The delay is really eating into his three year contract.

I think parish might fancy a bigger risk and challenge than no striker, left back, keeper or whatever and is trialling no manager. You never know, he may set a trend. He did with skinny trousers.