Gerard

He came here as a 22yo and was a massive coup for the club, he wasn't a tier one young striker like Haaland but a tier two two young striker in world football. He was linked to Liverpool and I was surprised we got him. It's now two years later, he is 24yo and has failed to establish himself in the first team as an automatic pick. Yes he still has potential and could blossom elsewhere but we have a manager who doesn't apparently want him and getting a large percentage of your money back on a player who came here with high potential and still hasn't put his marker down is good business in my book. I find most of our really great players over the years have come here and looked the part very quickly so happy to cash in on Daka and roll the dice elsewhere on another player. You won't go far wrong if you can get 80% of your money back on players who it hasn't worked out for here within one or two years of signing.

Thought this was a completely unfunny joke thread but here we are

I fully support the manager's decision as I have been nothing but 100% impressed with him so far. I admire his single mindedness and how he makes his own decisions on what he feels is right. Souttar can feel harshly treated though, he's done pretty well when he has played and I remember going on the Stoke forum when we bought him and the consensus was that he was one of the best five players in the Championship.

Not wrong though are they? We are a basket case of a club, spent best part of £30m on two defenders in January now we want shot of them.

It's ideal, we have a player who has great potential but could also flop. Taking him on loan for a small fee with a 25 game trigger means it has lots of potential upside with little downside. Under had a similar profile when he came here, at his peak he was considered a wonderkid with a high ceiling but we seen very little evidence of that and dodged a bullet. 25 games is ample time to either trigger it or slow it down so we're not obligated.

How funny would it be if KDH ended up at Man City whilst Tielemans, Barnes and Maddison ended up at inferior clubs.

Ric also raved about Danny Ward, we all dream of a team of Ric's picks.

The beauty is it only kicks in if he plays half the available games, if he's not worth the money but still good enough for the first team we can do something in January and not play him as not to trigger the obligation.

After seeing Tete in training for a couple of weeks they've probably reevaluated who is now 4th choice.

It would be ridiculous the selling club halting the transfer over one good game. Surely there is a reason why they wanted to sell him in the first place.

You can't judge that until the end of the window. It would probably be irresponsible to sign Piroe with the three other strikers still here. We may get an offer for Iheanacho that we can't refuse and be left with Vardy and Daka. It may not be ideal or optimal for Maresca to be left with Vardy and Daka but we'll still have arguably the best No9 options in the division.

19yo loans with an option to buy, what's not to like about that. I can't imagine too many clubs loan 19yo's with an option to buy though.

This would be a signing to get the juices flowing for the fans, these are the profile signings we crave. I already like the fact that he's South American, 20 and NOB fans think his level is way above ours. We're still a relatively high profile club in the world and this would be a gateway into England for him if he rates himself to become a top player. Watford have signed some real Brazilian talent over the last few years so why not if we can agree a deal with Newell Old Boys.

I've always though the pivot point from when the club gives advantage to the player is two years. At two years left it's about 50/50 but once you let the player run beyond that then they start having the whip hand. It's why I wasn't overly happy when Tielemans was adamant he was signing a 4 year deal instead of the usual 5 year deal for a footballer of his age and transfer fee. Ideally at two years the player should sign or new deal or be sold. It's why I was happy to see Barnes sold whilst we still had some power unlike the Maddison transfer when on another timeline Tottenham are playing hardball with one year left.

If he has signed a deal it will be for higher wages and a low minimum release fee.

It's not about forcing him but what is practical and sometimes you have to do things for the greater long term good. We could be in a position that we have a £15m+ offer for Iheanacho and he wants to leave. We also have Daka who we might have no offers for but Roma saying they won't pay a loan fee but will cover his wages. Enzo may not be enthralled with Daka but he is a striker virtually every club in England outside the PL would love to have. It's not just about doing what the manager want short term, that £15m+ could be put to better use in the future or buy a striker of Enzo's choosing rather than what he inherited.

No what is a hypothetical assumption is saying that Iheanacho is the difference between promotion or not. Turning down £15m for Iheanacho is virtually paying £15m to have him here for a season. Come New Year he is free to talk to other clubs, it's no different to us approaching Piroe next year to get him on a free. I remember posts on here saying we should turn down a hypothetical £12-15m for Tielemans in the January window as PL survival was worth £100m to us. We still went down anyway as there are no guarantees.

I'm certainly not saying your post is without merit as there clearly is a strong case for what you say. For me it's all price dependent, a £10m offer I would agree with you. A £20m offer is a must sell and the tipping point is somewhere between the two. Enzo may have to be forced to sell Iheanacho and integrate Daka if we have a big offer for one and not the other. Daka after all is a £25m striker with a pedigree that outshines virtually every other striker in the PL. He may not be ideal for Daka but sometimes you can't have everything you want and you have to work with what you have.

If Iheanacho played for someone else, how many on here would be pleased if we took him on a year long loan and paid a £15m loan fee?

And if he doesn't we've spunked another £15m up the wall again. There has to be a balance of what he brings to us that is better than any other player in the squad or who we can buy bring and the cash. Keeping players until they run their contracts down and refusing big offers is not a feasible long term strategy, there has to be a balance. We can't keep spending hundreds of millions on players and no return.

A lot of people assume: Iheanacho = promotion No Iheanacho = no promotion That is not necessarily the case in fact we could just as easily get promoted without him or stay in the division with him. Iheanacho will be worth nothing to us after AFCON and the January transfer deadline has passed. He's not that instrumental to the way we play that we'll be a much poorer side without him. Iheanacho is not a player we're actively trying to sell so you would think any offer would be substantial and worthwhile. If offered £15m we'd be foolish not to take it, we can't keep letting saleable assets move for free, Iheanacho is not that good he's not replaceable. It's a good strategy for a club like ours to sell any player at their peak value and Iheanacho is not increasing in value at some point. I swear there would be a sizeable minority on here who thinks we should have kept Maddison for his final season to "guarantee" promotion. Selling Iheanacho means we can play hardball with Daka rather than take a paltry loan offer last day of the window. Maresca may not like Daka but he's still a £25m player in the Championship with decent pedigree, sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

Akgun like Under and Ghezzal before him sound like broken players who have had stand out seasons in the past. Hopefully with Akgun we take the Under route and get him on loan with an option to buy. With Ghezzal we were the only interested party and he was completely unwanted at Monaco, I never understood why we threw money at them rather than a loan with an option to buy as they would surely have gone for it. I don't see anyone else throwing millions at Galatasaray for Akgun so surely as he's unwanted there they would be open to a loan with an option? We do seem a soft touch in the transfer market and you get the impression we do what we have to to get players in rather than drive a bargain.

I hope this isn't true. One good season two years ago and they've just signed Tete to replace him. He smacks of Ghezzal/Under, not against the loan with an option to buy at all but throwing €10m at him is ridiculous.

The team that beat Sunderland 5-2 was the peak O'Neill team. Heskey and Collymore at their peaks would be a nightmare to face for any team in the world. Both well over 6 foot, athletic, quick, powerfully built and really skilful footballers, they had it all. Collymore a brilliant natural goalscorer and Heskey an unselfish foil. I remember Heskey's England debut against Argentina and IIRC he retired a 35yo Sensini that night with one of the most dominating displays I've ever seen, they took him off after half an hour because it was like watching a cat with a mouse. Izzet and Lennon wouldn't have looked out of place at a dominant Man Utd side at the time and CB's like Walsh, Elliott and Taggart were a formidable trio, I remember one season we never conceded a headed goal until February until 5,5" John Beresford sneaked in.

We were top in October under him in his first season mainly because we'd only conceded two goal in 8 games IIRC but although everything looked rosey with the league table the football was terrible and we looked like relegation fodder and it was only the Martin O'Neill effect and players keeping us up there, the more Taylor put his stamp on the team the worse we got. Getting sacked by Maldon & Tiptree (who?) is no surprise to me, he should have been nowhere near full time professional football.