If you have good luck with injuries, which happened to us last season for the first time I can remember in decades, you have players hanging around the club without really doing much. You have injuries and don't have the players in the squad, you end up playing kids.
Your choice.
Actually it's not your choice, which is a good think if you want to get rid of all the squad players because they aren't playing.
We need a squad of 14/15 top quality players to ensure competition and general rotation. We then need another 6/7 squad players, of which I count the likes of Holgate, Davies, Lookman and DCL who are there as long term injury cover and to be developed.
I'm not against selling Lookman if he's a disruption to the squad or if we need to raise funds to improve the starting XI, but he would still need replacing in the squad with somebody else who just "hangs around" until he's needed.
The issue to me in all of this, over and above people reading his body language is the contractual situation. He has 2 years left.
I always remembered with Barkley thinking, over and above it being a perfect storm that his form flounced with the season ending leaving him 2 years to go and enormous upheaval happening that summer, that there was a lack of strong and decisive leadership at the club to allow him to continue on that season without signing. With young players, as things currently stand, if you let them go much beyond the 2 years left on the contract stage you are asking for trouble. It becomes widely known they are going and you're ability to command fees drops.
If he will not sign a contract this summer, Brands will be left with little choice but to move him on. If he had 4, or even 3 years left there is some flexibility. However with 2 years left the likelihood is his value goes 1 way, which we saw with Barkley. I can't imagine Brands taking such a chance.
I have never been too bothered about body language. I think part of it is just his natural demeanour, he will never look like a Calvert Lewin who busts a gut. His game is about precision, acute moments of quality in the most congested area of the field. It would be hard to judge body language off that. I also appreciate he may not have settled. However I am a believer that you can settle very easily if things suddenly take an upturn in your life or work. If he started banging goals in like Richarlinson last season and was called up to the England squad suddenly he'd be very settled. Likewise the body language experts soon go away as frankly nobody really cares how you look if you are producing the goods.
What can't be written off though is the contractual situation. He will soon be in a very powerful situation with the club, and I'm sure his agent if it goes much beyond this summer will be saying to hang in and he will likely get a pretty decent pay day (ah la Barkley). I can't see us allowing it.
Fortunately things have conspired reasonably well for us. Tottenham seem to have more freedom to spend now. Hassunhutl is now at an English club with reasonable funds to spend. Palace are also going to have an enormous amount of money to spend this summer and the requirement for a winger. Thats before you mention clubs like Leipzig who I'm sure will be interested. So there's a chance he holds his value, or even we get more money than we expect from a Palace.
The idea of course is he signs a deal. However we tried in vain in hoping if we just played Ross he'd see the light and sign. I can't see us making the same mistake.