Player For Sale – No Logic Required

Like bluebottles buzzing around an appetising morsel, a swarm of articles about the prospective sale of Jimmy Bullard in January has emerged from between the pages of the recent press and no amount of batting away with irate backhands appears able to dispel them.

All of these tales appear to be inspired by the fact the Roy Hodgson declined to renew Bullard’s contract at the start of the season.

But if a club were looking to sell a player in the near future, would they be running his contract down, or hastily extending it? Which has the greatest influence on a player’s market value?