Andy

Not sure how we'll ever be able to replace a footballing guru and prophet so heavily coveted by *checks notes* West Ham. Might as well just fold this fucking club now.

Well yeah, with the benefit of hindsight we can all see that now. I don't remember very many people posting on here that he was away at the time.

There's a massive gulf between being a flop and Real Madrid wanting to follow through on signing him like.

We have no idea what obligation Osasuna have or what their terms with Madrid are. If this clause is real and ends up in the contract, then I'd be pretty confident that it was the only option that existed to get the deal done.

But in that scenario, he has got used to the league, as Real Madrid want to sign him I don't think a release clause that applies to only the biggest club in the world (and may not even exist in the first place) is worth being worried about, tbh.

At this stage last season, there was little indication that Isak was going.

I don't mind this as it gives the player some added incentive to perform well too. If he's played well enough for Real to want to activate the clause, then we've benefited from that on pitch and we haven't lost out financially on the transfer. In that scenario it's basically a glorified loan.

The season we sold Anderson, Joelinton was a major part of us winning our first trophy in decades and gave an absolutely elite performance in the final in particular. He was also a major part of us finishing 5th that season. Glad we kept him and sold Anderson and Minteh, personally. Sick of the hindsight merchants on Twitter in particular going on as if selling Anderson was some kind of catastrophic and obviously incorrect decision by the club (usually directed at Howe specifically). Most people were baffled that we'd got such a good fee for him at the time, when it was initially reported as £40m.

Depends what the alternative is and whether signing him permanently is even an option (and if so whether the fee affects our ability to do business in other positions). There are a lot of variables. I'd probably rather a loan than end up with a keeper way down our list though.

Some of City's local journos were saying the club wanted him to sign a new deal and go out on long term loan a few weeks back. Wouldn't be averse to that to buy some time to sort other positions out.

Calling Gordon our only player who can create is just a damning indictment on our other players. Also absolutely mental to compare players from different leagues and styles of football by their stats.

What fans would be demanding and what he's actually worth are two different things though, it's crazy that City are bidding that amount. He didn't even have a particularly good season last year, his form in the middle of the season was a contributer to Forest struggling.

Nonetheless, the Isak scenario highlighted that we are actually vulnerable to losing our best players and that the media reports are often actually true, so it's difficult to see how people can be so readily dismissive of rumours about losing one of our better players. Especially when we've just had a poor season and already sold one them. Those external factors you mention still exist. So as I say, until the club can rebuild confidence that we can hold on to our assets, it's justified that people worry over stories about the likes of Hall leaving.

You could easily argue that it's up to the club to rebuild a lot of the confidence that was lost from that saga and last summer as a whole, to be fair like. This is obviously an extremely tenuous rumour, but if we got to the end of the window and had sold Hall, you wouldn't exactly by lifting my jaw up from the floor.

Getting a bit worried as to how we're going to pad our bench out when we have injuries to outfield players next season