There was a video of him in a studio with Wenger in which the discussion was in French and included a question to PV as to whether or not he had been offered and taken the Palace job. I assumed that would have been earlier this week and that the studio was in France. Also do we know whether or not SP went to France?

With that recently rumoured new investor perhaps it'll just be a hologram of PV at the training ground.

The deal is done. The problem is, Dazza's contract with Parish requires Dazza to be given 48 hours notice of any impending announcement by the club and since Dazza's phone battery's gone dead, Parish can't get hold of him. Thus, the release has been delayed. You'll know PV has signed when Dazza posts confirmation later today when he gets back from Carphone Warehouse and then you need only wait 48 hours for the official release to follow. Simples.

Edited by sydtheeagle (01 Jul 2021 1.15pm)

People need to grasp that when a player's contract runs down, it is not indicative of whether or not he will remain at the club. It simply tells us that re-signing him is not a top priority, or that the player perhaps thinks he is worth more than the club does.

Quite likely Palace may have said to Andros "we definitely want to keep you, but not at £70k a week (or whatever he's paid)". Andros replies "I can get £80k somewhere else" to which we reply ok, we'll let your contract end and you can test the market. When you've got a firm offer let us know and we'll see if we can work something out". It's a way of letting market forces, rather than agent demands, determine a player's value.

It may be that we want all ten out-of-contract players back (or the new manager does) but by letting their contracts run down in a pandemic environment once they've become free agents and without many big offers out there now, we can re-sign all of them for far less than they were on before. That's the up-side of the situation. As for Benteke, we nailed him down simply because proven goalscoring centre forwards who are in form are the hardest thing to find so it was doing the early deal. Players like, say, McCarthy or Schlupp are a dime-a-dozen; at least a bit more easily replaced.

My guess is that of those ten players, we'll keep all, or close to all, of the ones we want to keep most likely on more favourable (to the club) terms than before. I'm totally relaxed about the contract situation; it's a storm in a teacup for the media but largely meaningless for the club.

People need to grasp that when a player's contract runs down, it is not indicative of whether or not he will remain at the club. It simply tells us that re-signing him is not a top priority, or that the player perhaps thinks he is worth more than the club does.

Quite likely Palace may have said to Andros "we definitely want to keep you, but not at £70k a week (or whatever he's paid)". Andros replies "I can get £80k somewhere else" to which we reply ok, we'll let your contract end and you can test the market. When you've got a firm offer let us know and we'll see if we can work something out". It's a way of letting market forces, rather than agent demands, determine a player's value.

It may be that we want all ten out-of-contract players back (or the new manager does) but by letting their contracts run down in a pandemic environment once they've become free agents and without many big offers out there now, we can re-sign all of them for far less than they were on before. That's the up-side of the situation. As for Benteke, we nailed him down simply because proven goalscoring centre forwards who are in form are the hardest thing to find so it was doing the early deal. Players like, say, McCarthy or Schlupp are a dime-a-dozen; at least a bit more easily replaced.

My guess is that of those ten players, we'll keep all, or close to all, of the ones we want to keep most likely on more favourable (to the club) terms than before. I'm totally relaxed about the contract situation; it's a storm in a teacup for the media but largely meaningless for the club.