30 Aug 2026 08:35:38
Letting Salah leave a year ahead of his contract expiration, without having a ready-made replacement in, might very well be Hughes' biggest mistake as our Sporting Director. I don't understand the thinking behind it. Now, we have gone from Salah at RW, to targeting Diomande, to targeting Minteh, before opting for Sarr?
My god, I have never seen such a downgrade. The market for wingers is poor, I get that, but Sarr is an exceedingly average player. Somehow, we are humouring £70 million.
£70 million? For him? To make matters worse, we are apparently willing to sell Gakpo, who still has quite a few years left on his contract, for the same amount of money as Savinho. Savinho, who scored 2 PL goals in his Man City career in 2 years.
The fact is we were under no pressure or obligation to release Salah a year early, and could have persisted one more year with him. Instead, we release him, and are now in panic mode, 2 days before the end of the window. Incompetency of the highest order.
30 Aug 2026 09:03:14
Surely Fofana is a better and cheaper option than Sarr.
30 Aug 2026 09:04:08
Salah is not a player who is happy to be on the bench or to be hooked mid game.
His powers were waning.
Keeping him another year and witnessing his deterioration wouldn't have helped anyone. It might have led to a lot of criticism of the player.
I think it was the right decision to let him go before that happened.
The error is to not have an achievable plan to replace him, but letting him go was probably the right thing to do.
30 Aug 2026 09:08:40
It will be worth signing Sarr, just to stop him scoring against us. I've probably just jinxed him now to score an own goal.
30 Aug 2026 09:09:24
Check Salah's performance in their Europa League qualifier. He's the goat, but the time had come.
30 Aug 2026 09:42:33
Bs, it was the right thing to let Salah go. His downside coincided with the rest of the squad imploding, which was down to abhorrent management. You don’t go from a record breaking MVP to someone suddenly past it in the space of a few months, particularly with Mo, who was such a physically fit figure.
Stupidity and arrogance of the club again. Mo was right, he was thrown under the bus for their failings.
30 Aug 2026 09:50:44
Also, saving £20 million on his salary may have come into it.
30 Aug 2026 09:59:28
Mango, it's why I keep banging on that something must be rotten behind the scenes
Salah had to go if Slot was staying due to what he said about what was going on.
However, we binned Slot anyhow.
So, Hughes and Edwards were overruled on keeping Slot, and by that time Salah was in his way out a year early.
The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and that has manifested itself in Hughes' approach to transfers.
We all know we need a deeper squad, but we have moved away from adding value to players, to spending huge amounts.
30 Aug 2026 09:59:37
You sound like a swampdonkey alright. Trabzonspor had 2 red cards in that game, what is Salah supposed to do? Nonsense.
30 Aug 2026 10:17:26
Hughes has become the biggest 'disagreeable person' ever.
30 Aug 2026 11:09:13
Mo had to go. The way he left shows player power, as he wasn't up for sitting on the bench for a year, no one would pay a fee given his wage demands, we had to accept the loss of fee but saved his wages.
{Ed001's Note - he was forced out, it was not player power, he wanted to stay.}
30 Aug 2026 11:14:35
Mango, Slot did not want Salah to get his new deal and wanted him gone after the season we won the title and the club overruled him.
Ed01 said so last sea when I asked him this exact question.
So that set the stage for the open beef btw both guys from the off.
And I agree with everything @Frode said.
30 Aug 2026 11:36:09
He wouldn't have stayed to sit on the bench Ed, that's not Mo. Also the club wouldn't have wanted him to because of his wages, and his outburst at Slot and Co.
By the way I agreed with some of what he said, and know a bit of inside info about some of the players that he was also alluding to. I'm not going to repeat it though on here! I don't necessarily agree with the way he went about it though.
{Ed001's Note - he would not be on the bench
30 Aug 2026 11:50:18
Correct, Ed01. Slot wanted him gone while Salah wanted to state hence, the crap we all saw last season.
In fact, Slot didn't even want Salah to get his new deal to begin (something you told me last season on this forum) so the dye was already cast btw both individuals.