Andy

Nonetheless, the Isak scenario highlighted that we are actually vulnerable to losing our best players and that the media reports are often actually true, so it's difficult to see how people can be so readily dismissive of rumours about losing one of our better players. Especially when we've just had a poor season and already sold one them. Those external factors you mention still exist. So as I say, until the club can rebuild confidence that we can hold on to our assets, it's justified that people worry over stories about the likes of Hall leaving.

You could easily argue that it's up to the club to rebuild a lot of the confidence that was lost from that saga and last summer as a whole, to be fair like. This is obviously an extremely tenuous rumour, but if we got to the end of the window and had sold Hall, you wouldn't exactly by lifting my jaw up from the floor.

Getting a bit worried as to how we're going to pad our bench out when we have injuries to outfield players next season

Not surprised, thought he looked like he'd never set foot on a football pitch in his life in one of the pre season friendlies he played either last summer or the summer before (can't remember when it was).

He almost did it a few times across the season, so "accidental" feels like a harsh critique. I think he definitely meant to put the ball in that area, but obviously it still requires some luck to end up in the net.

It's sad that watching Arsenal's tears is one of the highlights of the season, but I'll take it

Thank fuck for that.

Arteta's lifting the trophy lads. Just accept it now to make it easier to watch.

Aye, can't argue with two trophies at Palace.

Did anyone expect anything other than an Arsenal win considering everything else that's happened this season? I wake up every day at the moment expecting to read that PIF have sold us to Trump

The likes of Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford are set up from the very top to allow a manager to succeed in that environment, their recruitment infrastructure in particular is absolutely superb and it's why Brighton and Brentford especially have been able to change managers and maintain the exact same level of success, with the previous managers hardly pulling up trees at their respective new jobs. It's a very different demand to move to a club where the expectation is to be able to compete on all fronts, win trophies and manage egos. My argument is that there are very few examples of it actually working in the premier league, whereas there are plenty of examples of it failing.

I think Iraola will do well there but it's always hard to tell. It's pretty easy to look good at clubs like Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth where there's almost no pressure and finishing top 8 is seen as being wildly above expectations. Plenty of managers have been good at those types of clubs then failed miserably when they've got their big move.

Don't really get this perspective like. There's not much else going on to talk about and dissecting Gordon's career here and the reception to him leaving is a natural point of discussion.

I don't like Slot but him winning the league does get downplayed ridiculously easily like, I've probably been guilty of it myself too. It's almost like it doesn't count because it was his first season.

Performance-wise and in terms of overall contribution, Isak was infinitely better than Gordon, particularly in their respective final seasons. The main differences between the two sagas are (a) one of them went to a club we don't like, and (b) the club didn't want to sell one of the players, but were quite happy to sell the other. The narrative around the two situations is completely different as a result of those two factors. Yes Isak went on strike and acted a cunt, but Gordon never had the need to do so as the club didn't dig their heels in. I'd bet my house that if we'd stopped him going to Barcelona he would've done exactly the same thing.

I don't want to lay into the lad too much more as he's gone now, but I do think those champions league penalties last season have done a lot of heavy lifting for him. 6 open play league goals in 2 full seasons is just massively sub-par, and there were lengthy spells of both seasons where he was just jogging around the pitch looking disinterested that seem to have been completely forgotten by some. I feel like this transfer has left people looking back more fondly on him because he's gone to Barcelona and the PR from his marketing team and the club has been in full force. If he'd performed as he has, sat out for large periods of the season when a transfer was brewing, then signed for Man Utd or Liverpool, I'm not sure he'd be getting the same response.

He forgot to do both of those in the last two premier league campaigns

It's different to the Isak situation for sure, but I'm still not convinced it's been handled brilliantly. Ignoring the accusations from Shearer about feigning injury and the on-field bust-up with Trippier, Gordon still went through the motions for large parts of the last two seasons IMO, and putting out a soppy PR YouTube video won't change that for me. It's absolutely miles from ideal that he vanished for the last six games of the season when we still had a good chance of qualifying for Europe - that either doesn't reflect well on Gordon, or it doesn't reflect well on the club, depending on whose decision it was. He was supposedly one of our key players and he should have been on the pitch giving it 100% until the end of the season to put an extremely poor league campaign right. That would have had far more value for me than "protecting" him and ensuring we got him sold. Just because it was better than Isak, doesn't mean people have to wax lyrical about the situation.

While it's not pissing me off, I agree with your general point. I'd imagine it's extremely easy to sell a player to Barcelona quickly when they've made an offer that is right for all parties.

I'd say he is quite limited going forward, like. Generally very good defensively but his attacking contribution has been extremely underwhelming compared to some of those glimpses he had in his first season.

I'm not sure there's any other way way tbh. The only route I see to us being a consistent top four club in the current financial era is by being a good selling club first. Besides, aside from Real Madrid, Man City and Barcelona, basically every other club is a stepping stone to some degree. I don't think this is anything new either, I'm fairly certain we signed the likes of Hall, Tino, Isak, Botman, Tonali, Osula, even Bruno, with the objective of developing them and making profit on them at some point down the line.

We got ripped off for Wissa, that doesn't determine Gordon's market value. The last thing we need is another Isak situation with him kicking up a stink for the next three months.

I don't think it's that poor tbh, he's really not worth much more than that and I think it's best for all parties to just get the deal done.

Signing for the team that Shearer first accused him of feigning injury against eh?

£60m + Wissa and I'm listening