Marmoset

The way he's gone about it is daft and disrespectful, I'd be pissed off with him if I were a Liverpool fan. He should have kept his mouth shut until the end of the season then quietly said he wants to leave if a decent offer comes in. He;s going to have a rough ride next year if Liverpool play hardball and no one matches the fee they want. But I don't have any problem with him actually wanting to leave. Whatever Liverpool's past, I don't think anyone can realistically argue that he's not more likely to challenge for major honours, improve his own game in the CL and be around better players with someone like City. Don't get the 'he should stay at Liverpool where he's guaranteed to play' angle, he'd likely start most games for City and he should have the confidence to back himself to do so, and go on to be a main player for them, not worry that he won't step up to the plate and so not even attempt to. There's clearly more incentive than just money for hm to leave.

More to blame in the blame game than the people who decided not to invest further in our midfield then?

Well he's our second top assister, joint third top scorer, and in the league he's second only to Cisse in terms of goals+assists, so yeah even though stats don't tell the whole story especially in a position like cm he's clearly contributed more than most. There's more to playing cm than goals and assists obviously but the idea that he's 'league one standard' is just a bit of a dumb exaggeration.

Hyperbole IMO. He hasn't been the worst performer this year, hasn't been the best, hence average.

I know, I said that in the post. Maybe not very clearly I'll give you.

Will probably get slaughtered for this but the reason many don't hate him is that he has contributed more in goals and assists than most this season, and he's had a lot of OK performances. He's just an average player, would be fine as backup if we had properly replaced Cabaye. Obviously he's had a lot of awful performances too but so have all of them, and he goes missing way, way too often, but I think that's down to a lack of ability/nous than intentional hiding. Think a lot of the venom for him comes from his bellendery at Sunderland and the fact he HAS been our Cabaye replacement, and he can't even begin to compare. And he was a Pardew fave.

I like him as a man but as a player he's done, not that he was ever really good enough for this level anyway.

He should've had more opportunities but he was no great shakes imo. I prefer his type of player to the graft first creativity second sort, but I don't think he ever looked anything special in the admittedly little time that he got. That's obviously not to say he wasn't better than some of the players chosen ahead of him, and wouldn't have been better under a different manager in a different system, but I won't be gutted if he leaves.

After so many years of Messi/Ronaldo, who do people think will be the next player to be widely recognised as the best in the world? Or are these two going to keep trading Ballon d'Or's until they both retire?

Yup. We were lucky to have Hughton and the key players that dragged us up last time, hard to see who would step up now.

If I was in Ashley's position, it just wouldn't make sense to try and sell following relegation. You don't sell when your stock is at it's lowest.

Which is why I simply can't see him selling off cheap, which he'd have to do if we're in the Championship, when he can just wait it out, loan us enough to modestly invest in the team, get promoted, and we're back where we are now a few years down the line except with more money owed to Ashley.

The end goal for me (and I'm sure all of us) is him selling up. I personally can't see him selling at a loss, and I doubt anyone would offer him enough to avoid that for a Championship club. If we go down he'll just wait it out until we get promoted again, while in the meantime if this ideal investor looking for a Prem club comes along we could miss our chance. Other than the slight satisfaction at him being annoyed by the relegation I see no positives to going down. It'll just be the same schtik with even lower quality football and players.

Think he's more likely to receive an offer that he'd accept in the Premiership, so no.