Thread by @babuyagu

The problem I have looking at our squad right now is that lots of people have 2 years left on their contracts.

Which means if it was me, I only have 2 choices with those players - a new contract or sell.

And we were in this position with Origi once upon a time and the deal we

gave him has made him impossible to sell since then, despite our efforts to do so.

Phillips is probably the best case of this where the fanbase's opinion on this range from 'never good enough sell' to 'should start the season with Virg'.

Talk about differing opinions.

With Emre Can, we didn't offer him a new deal.

Do you pay Emre the rate of your top players? Or sell him despite having potential and wanting to realise it.

We got stuck between the two. Held on one season too long and he ran out his contract.

And don't even start me on the

Aquilani - loan with an OPTION to buy - deals.

So whatever we do this summer needs to include a long-term solution for anybody with 2 years on their contracts.

Rhys Williams (?)
Adrián (0)
James Milner (1)
Caoimhin Kelleher (1)
Ben Woodburn (1)

All rest = 2023 expiry
Jordan Henderson
Xherdan Shaqiri
Roberto Firmino
Virgil van Dijk
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Mohamed Salah
Sadio Mané
Fabinho
Naby Keïta
Nathaniel Phillips

That is a LOT of new contracts we need to sort out which means pay increases + agent fees. Some we

won't care about the deal running down (e.g. Milner, Hendo). Others we might feel renewing isn't going to give us good value and need to be moved on.

But either way we are going to have a lot of expensive renewals &/or a large turnover of players.

Difficult summer

IMO... I wouldn't extend Hendo this summer. There is no need. He will be 33 when his current deal expires and his injury record is a concern. At that point it is probably a rolling 1-year deal.

On the Naby question, I mentioned elsewhere why I think we need to consider not falling into the 'sunk costs' fallacy here.

But I also think there will become a point where we get so little out of a deal (small fee/loan with option? & supplement wages)

https://twitter.com/babuyagu/status/1395173176326381573

that it becomes a case of we can either pay for him to maybe come good on someone else's pitch and get a small fee or risk losing him on a bosman in a year... or we can keep and pay slightly more and hope he can put the last 2-3 years behind him. So the opportunity to benefit is

better from keeping rather than selling. His situation is certainly the hardest to call of them all but I suspect he stays simply because age (just turned 26) and potential gains outweigh whatever we could get for him this summer.