Quote Originally Posted by I am invisible View Post
Yeah, I have a feeling our hand may be forced with Xhaka - if we are looking to bring in another CM (and the names we're being linked with aren't backups), then he's not going to stick around to sit on the bench when he could probably go back to Germany or to Italy and go and play for CL side.

I'm not sure he's one we would have actively sought to move on otherwise, given the sheer number of other 'outs' we might be looking at (inc. up to 7 other CMs!), but if he's down to his final 2 years, and he's not committing further, then, by the club's own self-imposed standard, we have to cash in and move on.
One of the few players that would bring in a reasonable fee as well. Bissouma would be a good signing if the links are true, but still leaves us very short in centre mid!