The club offered Kouyate a 1 year contract but he wanted it to be extended for another year.
Club policy is not to offer 2 year contracts to players in their 30s and Kouyate was 32 at the time.

Edited by Willo (15 Feb 2023 9.51am)

I think you've introduced a dose of reality here.

If we look at the financials first, Palace are hamstrung in terms of revenue growth. As you rightly say, even the proposed new development will only take us to a level of our peer group.

That in turn restricts Palace's ability to compete in the transfer market. Which also means increased pressure to get the right players in and not waste money.

There are 2 ways around this.

Firstly, the owners could inject more investment into the club. Harris and Blitzer get a lot of bad press, understandably so given their reported interest in taking their money elsewhere. But they have been part of our sustaining our place in the PL. However, if you and I can see a '' glass ceiling '' for Palace, you can guarantee they can as well. Textor then becomes the more interesting character. It's unclear what he ultimately expects from his share of Palace, but I think he's going to take a different approach from them. It's not hard to see a scenario whereby Textor ( finances permitting ) buys H and B's shares. At that point I would anticipate a significant change in how the club is run and by whom. For better or for worse ? - couldn't say.

Secondly, player sales. We've seen plenty of references to how the likes of Brentford and Brighton are thriving at the moment, while Palace stay firmly midtable. Both clubs have sold players at considerable profit without it affecting their ability to compete on the playing field. Our main departures have been AWB and Sorloth in the last few years. Hopefully, but not of course guaranteed, our Academy will bear fruit and we can generate some meaningful transfer fees. But Palace's scouting needs to radically improve as well. Our saleable assets at the moment are Guehi, Andersen, Olise and Eze. The rumour mill has already started re Guehi although the fee quoted must have come from Daniel Levy ! But we may need to become more of a development and selling club to generate funds.

Yes, if eventually we do go down the club will be in a healthier state than before although that's a low benchmark given the days pre 2010's ownership.

For what it's worth I think that Steve Parish has been an outstanding custodian of our football club. I know he's not everybody's cup of tea, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

An interesting summer beckons....

Old, Ungifted and White

I think most think he isn't going to anyway. I don't know why Vieira thinks he still might. Only difference from a couple of seasons ago is it won't be with anyone that good.

Red and Blue Army!

And his last game this season was against us in early November, since when he has been out with a hamstring injury.

Which is why you don't offer the oldies long contracts.

I disagree. As I posted earlier he's been out with a hamstring injury since his game against us early November. Those kinds of injury tend to be an issue for the older players and take longer to heal for most of them and such injuries tend to re-occur- just ask Jimmy Mac.