This. Why pass up the opportunity to secure a great player in good form? If the price is right I'd offer him a 1 year extension in a heartbeat
Any notion that Yaya will sign up for just one year, and on reduced terms at that, is delusional.
Anyone wanting to keep Yaya just has to look at the transformation of our attacking play with three young, pacey, energetic and talented forwards and ask themselves why we can't be brave and try to change the midfield in a similar way.
Keeping three players of 31 and above in the most physically demanding area of the pitch is fucking crazy, when we have the chance to bring in someone like Weigl and give him time to slowly develop into the team (e.g. Sane). Fernandinho and Silva's careers are both coming to the end as well so we have to take a chance while we can to replace the older players one by one, otherwise we'll end up in another situation like we have with our fullbacks.
Ps... That isn't slagging Yaya off for any of the sensitive souls we have on this subject, it's about using his space to bring in younger talent to help us progress long term.
Anyone wanting to keep Yaya just has to look at the transformation of our attacking play with three young, pacey, energetic and talented forwards and ask themselves why we can't be brave and try to change the midfield in a similar way.
Keeping three players of 31 and above in the most physically demanding area of the pitch is fucking crazy, when we have the chance to bring in someone like Weigl and give him time to slowly develop into the team (e.g. Sane). Fernandinho and Silva's careers are both coming to the end as well so we have to take a chance while we can to replace the older players one by one, otherwise we'll end up in another situation like we have with our fullbacks.
Ps... That isn't slagging Yaya off for any of the sensitive souls we have on this subject, it's about using his space to bring in younger talent to help us progress long term.
reduced terms - why would he & Seluk accept them? It's still Yaya & Seluk after all and they'd make a summer's worth of bad press about not getting what they want.
Got himself fit - he should never have been unfit in the first place, it's just unprofessional and as soon as he's not guaranteed his place again he'll give up.
he's still capable - yes, but he's still not a patch on what he was and still leaves us exposed defensively. I don't want a midfielder who's still capable, I want one who over 5 years will grow into the top level midfielder and help turn the team into something better.
and whilst Pep has final say he shouldn't on this, because it smells of him continuing to turn back to Yaya because he knows him and is Yaya, rather than moving on and being forced to pick a younger player and actually build our team for the next 5 years. Until the day comes when Pep turns to the bench and sees an established first-teamer and an A Garcia/Foden and picks the kid to come on, then we have to make the decision for him imo. He's not lived up to his side of the bargain on that this season and he simply has to, Yaya is just another obstacle particularly when nobody accepts he would be first choice and would actually get us closer to where Pep wants us to be, because fact is he is a temporary patch-up job and can't do the whole job a Pep CM needs to be able to do.
I don't want yet another half-arsed, past it over-paid first-teamer sitting on the bench when it should be a youngster Pep should be giving experience to. At Barca he wasn't given endless 30+ outfield players to sit on the bench, he was given a stellar first team and Barca B to choose from.