I'd be putting a 2 year contract on ⅓ wages stacked with performance weighted bonus in his pigeon hole tomorrow. If he likes being here then great he'll sign it, if he wants to hold out for the opportunity of more money somewhere else then that's fair enough and we'll move on.
I wouldn’t commit to him for 2 weeks, let alone 2 years! Look, he’s a talented boy. We can all see in fleeting moments why he spent some time at the highest level domestically. But he’s in L1 for a reason just like all the others and I think he could consider himself
incredibly fortunate to still be one next season. Unfortunate/misunderstood or not, he’s been completely unreliable under 3 managers. Though to Des’ enormous credit, he has got by far the best football out of him at a good time. Though the cynical part of any fan should be asking whether this is a coincidence with only a few months left to earn himself a living next season.
If he’s staying at this club, I want it completely on our terms and I wouldn’t commit to paying him much at all unless he’s managed a certain number of minutes and not only that, make sure those minutes are good ones and not what we saw last season - I.e. incentivise him heavily to play well and contribute with goals, assists and kilometres! Purely getting on the pitch should be deemed insufficient when we’ve got players busting lungs for us every few days while he nurses his latest injury. It’s not fair to the other players. Harris will be paid nowhere near Murphy and look at the commitment to the cause, the availability, the effort levels and more recently the numbers to go with it. Murphy is a good player, but we will be
absolutely fine if he fancies it elsewhere.
In the case of all 4 or 5 of the injury prone players that we have the chance to move on this summer (Bodin less so, a rare case of ‘when it works’), I’d wholeheartedly support the club in bordering on the unreasonable with the contracts and if they all end up moving on, so be it. I want to see a fighting fit Oxford United side next year at whatever level. I don’t mind a couple of mercurial options for real X factor but only if, and I mean only if, the contract suits us and does right by the other players who have pulled their weight week in week out.
