It'll be a huge shame to see Pan depart. His energy in the midfield will be hard to replace and his enthusiasm in the green shirt made him a bit of a cult hero throughout the season. I can't recall many players receiving an ovation like he did when he came off around the hour mark against Accrington in March.
There's absolutely no doubt of Pan's potential and I can understand the club's stance to cash in. It now swings on the fee - there's a chance the rewards of a promotion push because of his input may be worth more than the fee we settle on?
I look at Fleetwood and Schueys comments regarding Matete going for 400k to Sunderland (side note, the ref that day and the way he allowed Pan to have lumps kicked out of him absolutely contributed to his injuries and our limp finish). Fleetwood cashed in for a reasonable fee for one of their midfielders, but subsequently without him they've just survived relegation with a record (?) low points tally...
As another poster has pointed out with Sonny's departure, there can be very fine margins for a very good squad becoming a poor one. I've confidence in this club staff more than any other before them, but Argyle teaches you caution.
This is a very good post and nicely sums up my fears about us allowing Pan to leave.
Somebody questioned whether a single player can make the difference between mid-table and the playoffs. Yes, of course they can. Take Hardie out of our squad this season and you could easily see a scenario in which we won four or five fewer matches and finished well outside the playoffs.
Swap Michael Cooper for an inferior keeper and it would have been entirely possible for three wins to have turned into three draws and three draws into three defeats.
Pan's contribution is harder to measure because he doesn't stop shots or score goals, but he does cover more ground than anyone else in our squad and probably wins possession more than anyone else too. The guy has the kind of engine and periscopic limbs that you just don't see in a lower league player. He's a rare and unique talent and makes life easier for his teammates because he does a lot of their running and tackling for them.
If the management has identified a replacement and he ends up being as influential as Pan then I'll be the first to congratulate them because that'll be some achievement. But I don't think they will because I don't believe there's another Pan out there - and certainly not for the kind of money we'll be shopping around with.
I do get the arguments that it's good business sense to cash in on a player's value while he still has some, but I genuinely believe that Pan is a special case and should be treated as such. We should keep him for another season and have a real go at promotion with him at the heart of our midfield. Who's to say he wouldn't be keen to stay if we ended 2022-23 with promotion to the Championship?
Instead, we could be kicking off the new season at Ipswich or Wednesday, watching Panutche Camara in a blue shirt helping a League One rival diminish our promotion prospects.
I just don't get it, and won't unless the club have already identified a replacement and want Camara's transfer fee to bring him in.