Dman

Its ridiculous - If we're honest, Martin is a largely underwhelming appointment. Its obviously done. The players aren't even back from holiday - I don't see the clamour.

Fair - my misunderstanding then - sounds like we're on the same page where £45m feels like a sensible price point.

Politics aside.. Its a beautiful place - highly recommend visiting if you get a chance.

possibly its a smokescreen..? He knows we've really moved on and have Potter at staplewood holding that hideous shirt.. Keep the crowd thinking Martin is our target. Cue David Fizzy comment "do you think potter could really still be a target"

It can't be that bad for them... They've just appointed a manager who rejected us..

Because you're miss understanding. If we sell for £38m this year, we'll end up with less than the £32m in our pockets than we would if city brought him back next year. £40m is the benchmark here. Ironically, for us to end up with 38m in our pockets, we need to sell for £45m 🙂

I've seen that ugly fucker Saint Rob has been wetting his pants on a daily basis about the announcement of Martin, like its the new coming of Pep. Pretty sure he was slagging him off a few weeks back when it was first announced..

Struggle to adapt to what? He came from one of the biggest clubs in the country at the minute. He's getting games for a top national team. He's already played in the PL and was a stand out player at 18 years old. The fella has already adapted.

That's not true. We'll have to pay City 20% sell on fee regardless of where we sell him. £32m is £40m - the 20% sell on fee. Anything over 40m is more than we'll get next year. If we sell for 33m, we'll end up with something like 26m. That's not even factoring in that the buy back clause City inserted is a deal to suit them (i.e below the expected market value). We should absolutely be selling for more than 40m to anyone other than City. £45m feels fair to me. This boy is going to be a superstar.

Keep it coming Turks - good to finally have a genuine ITK on this site!!

Agreed. Was given the poison chalice of being Mane's replacement. Got dogs abuse when he was arguably one of the last to deserve it. Is it any wonder he lost confidence.. It must be fucking horrible to be a player at St Marys the past 3-4 years. It's have been interesting to have seen how he'd have developed under someone like Poch or Koeman, where there was a feel good feeling at the club.

Newcastle targeting Tonali from AC Milan... JWP starting to run out of options? Villa / West Ham likely to be only viable options at this stage..?

Brighton are a PL, European club. We're not. They're in the position to keep hold of a player and keep them relatively happy. We;re not.

Almost certainly would have been already having these discussions. I'd be amazed if he's not already spoken with the key players who are staying.

Surely it has to be over the 40m price mark. That is the price in which City can buy him, so is slightly reduced in terms of market value (i.e a deal for them). Personally, I think we should be looking at 40m after relevant sell on clauses are paid, so c.45m

I think they definitely will. Apparently Xhaka and Partey are both leaving - Rice & Lavia would be pretty much a L4L replacement of them both.

Good move for him, good move for Arsenal, good move for City. Will get game time in a style that will suit him, playing 'pep's way', could easily see him moving to city in 2-3 years. Wouldn't be surprised if Arteta replaces Pep and takes Lavia with him.

Not sure that's true. He got 78 in the first innings which could prove to be vital come the end of today (win or draw). We need to find a way to get Foakes in the side (not only for his keeping, but hes also a great player of spin to counter Lyon), but i'm not sure where / how. Bairstow has to bat 6/7, he can't go up the order, that's been tried many a time before. With the bat, hes been in great form, leave him be down there. Duckett or Pope would be the obvious choice to drop, but then who goes 2/3? The only thing I could think of is sticking Brooks in at 3 (he has opened before but I wouldn't open him now), Bairstow or stokes in at 5 in Foakes in at 6. As for a spinner, true bazball would be to stick in someone like Rashid, who you know will be expensive but will take wickets. We're in a bit of bother from a spinner point of view. But Root is more than capable of holding an end with the ball. He's juts not going to win us a game, like Lyon will. If we're looking for a spinner to hold an end, we could turn to Danny Briggs - Been very good since moving to warks. If wickets / weather are going to stay like this, we need to get Wood in. Maybe for Anderson...

But look what we ended up with... Any red blooded male on a night out can spot & want a 10/10 - the trouble is, a bit like saints, most end up with the minging 3/10 of the group.

Looks like on of those rodents you find on a cartoon, just with acne.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if they went for Lampard (or Gerrard) and i'd piss myself as a result.

No chance - another manager who'll just fall off into obscurity. Poor manager who'd have been sacked 10 games into this season anyway.

Its universally expected that he'll leave though. I'm not sure there can be any more speculation on his future. That being said, I think we're in a position where practically every single player in the club could leave, so I guess they had to use someone.

I guess it's weighing up the value of promotion against what we'd get for him (then lose on a free). We'd probably only get back what we paid for him 10-15m and promotion would benefit us a lot more than that. I'm not his biggest fan, but think Che would do really well in the championship. Personally, i'd rather we kept him than go for someone unknown for similar sort of money.

Doyle, Bednerak, Stephens and Edwards would be a really solid core of CB's (and suited to playing out from the back).