i have no issue with giving Tekkers an extension - his form in the 2nd half of the season was impressive and shows that when fit and motivated he is a quality striker.

My slight concern is how much we are paying him. His previous wages of c£120k a week were clearly excessive and although he previously signed a 1 year extension on reduced terms i'd be very surprised if there was much of a reduction as he signed this mid season so he must have been happy with the terms.

This extension has been sorted quite quickly which suggests new terms must be quite good too. If it is say £100k a week in total i'm hoping it is a lower weekly basic wage and higher bonus element e.g. £60k a week basic, £25k per game and £50k a goal.
If he plays say 30 games and scores 10 goals then that's over £4m a year. If he scores 15 it's nearer £5m a year.
There was interest from Turkey but they only wanted to pay wages of c£50k a week so hopefully SP used this to his advantage

My question is why are we giving him a contract extension with no manager in place, what’s the point if the new head honcho doesn’t fancy him and never plays him. Is this a case of our new manager has already agreed terms and wants Big Ben in his plans.....,,, I think I may have answered my own question.

In dog beers I’ve only had one.

Great to have this confirmed, just hope he remains injury free over the summer. He has shown what he is capable of, I hope we can get 10-15 goals out of him each of the next two seasons.

He was rumoured to have been offered a contract extension a month or two ago. This may be why he can agree to one without a new manager and why others have to wait until the new manager is appointed.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

“That’s a joke son, I say, that’s a joke.” “Nice boy, but he’s sharp as a throw pillow.” “He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent” “ “Son… I say, son, some people are so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”__ Forhorn Leghorn

Benteke s contribution to the side has been widely underrated by many. Yes the goals dried up for him, though scoring has proved hard by anyone in the way the side has approached playing in this league, But his overall contribution has mostly been as good or better than any of the others given that deep target man job that he has so often been. For much of his time he has been picking up much to deep because of the teams inability to play higher up the pitch. More recently he has shown that the goals are still there in the right conditions, It would cost some decent money to get a player capable of giving what he has done, certainly in this recent period.
Why give him a contract, before a new manager? Why give him away if the new manager doesn’t like him? The chances are most of the candidates likely to take the job would want him anyway , just as the Belgium, national team want him. But if that was not so, he won’t go to Turkey for nothing.

You can't really judge Batshuayi against Bentenke as one has played a bit part and one has played 5 seasons. The former has scored maybe three important goals, the latter played a huge role in keeping us up under Allardyce and played a big role this season.

Going back to your original post on this matter, you said...

I don’t think he’s anything like the best header in the league.

The stats say he is right up there, especially as we were producing very few chances per game. There were also a few occasions where keepers had to make top-class saves to deny him a headed goal. Inside and outside the box he wins the ball with his head more often than not. That's not a stat, that's just from watching the games. The stats just back it up.

None of this covers up the fact that for at least half his time with us he has not been good enough, and I'm still not convinced he knows how to shoot anymore, but my point was that there are very players who have his aerial presence.