There's a risk with any length of contract, be it 2 years or 5 years. Any player could break their leg tomorrow and that would be it, it's just something the club has to live with.
In the scheme of things, 5 years does seems like a long time, but at least that's now a position that we don't have to worry about for a good few summers yet. If he has a good season this year I'd feel a lot happier knowing he still has 4 more years on his contract rather than only 1 or 2, as that would greatly increase the likelihood of him leaving as other clubs would probably think putting an offer in is a risk worth taking and we all know that if an opportunity comes up to get another signing-on fee, players generally take it (in our experience anyway!).
I'm not saying that particular risk goes away with a longer contract, but it'd certainly make people think twice as they'd know they would have to at least match the length of the deal or offer a hefty pay increase, combined with quite a high transfer fee.
It feels as though we are saying to other clubs with this, 'he's ours until he retires, look elsewhere', and he's signed the contract, so is happy to agree to that as well.
If it doesn't pay off, then so be it, but we would have had doctors, lawyers, accountants and not to mention the manager, chairman and CEO all to approve & analyse this, they would have looked at all the facts and have obviously spent a great deal of time and effort securing this deal and considered it a risk worth taking. I've got no problem with that.
Getting the kind of deals I like is difficult enough on Football Manager, never mind real life! For me this deal is a.....Given.
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