I really don't get how people can say it's alright for £10m+ assets to leave for free/run down contract next season as long as we sell one player (Bassey) for £25m+?
That's alright if you are consistently selling one player for that every year. We aren't guaranteed the same European money we got this season in the next, we don't have a conveyor belt of £25m players coming through, and the money in Scottish football is terrible. Comparing to Liverpool players contract situation is redundant as we rely on player trading models to help cash flow and to refresh the squad yearly - Liverpool don't have the same reliance on player sales.
We have to start selling players at their peak value unfortunately. Otherwise we can expect summer transfer windows similar to the last.
It was me TBF re letting some players run their deals down - never made reference to Liverpool
If were to sell Bassey for that fee, around 25 million, on top of Patterson money, that is the best part of
40 million in fees this season, before even considering any other sales . You can then chuck in the
15 million from the Europa League.
If that funds a summer like last this summer, and arguably even next, we would be as well chucking it.
A massive part of the reason Bassey is of value is because of our run in the Europa League, a massive factor in our run in the Europa League was - Goldson.
If we sold Goldson last summer, and the replacement was a bit hit and miss, do we go as far in Europe? does Bassey hold the value he does now?
If we had sold Aribo last season for instance for 12 million, and he was then replaced by Sakala as we "player traded" do we perform as we did in Europe?
As you say, money in Scotland is awful, we need Europe we need that money, that platform, a team that can get to Europe and perform when there.
We can't simply sell every single player, and have every single player in the squad as a possible sellable asset, we do need to retain some players and simply have banked, known quality hinging the squad as well to offer the chance for players to become "tradeable"
There is now a proven record over a number of years between, their business, and ours, that clubs will find sellable assets, the idea we might not have a player to sell isn't something that we should be scared of
We in recent years could have sold Morelos for 16 million did sell Patterson, 16 million, Bassey likely will go for 20 million - Celtic sold the likes of Ajer, Frimpong and Eduard for upwards of 10 million.
*people need to consider where we have been when they make mention how little activity out we have partaken in
If we are nailing our scouting we should always have at least one sellable asset there to hinge a possible stumble in Europe, while also offering us the chance to retain a squad that could also be considered to compete in Europe and win the league.