The prolific striker is on loan at Fulham from Derby County. Not that he wants to be.
This utterly bizarre tug-of-war between Fulham and Derby County surrounding the future of Chris Martin has taken another bewildering twist.
According to the BBC, the Scotland international inked a new three-and-a-half-year deal with The Rams on Saturday. He’s set to return to Derby then, right?
Not necessarily. According to a Fulham spokesperson, Martin will remain on loan at Craven Cottage until the end of the season where they have the option to sign him on a permanent deal.
This comes just a few weeks after The Sun report that Martin attempted to engineer a return to the iPro in January.
“I am not sending Chris Martin back to Derby. He will stay with us and he will respect the contract,” Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic said, as reported by The Sun.
“We are not a train station – you cannot get out where you want.”
The 28-year-old may have averaged a goal every other start in Fulham colours but, understandably, this latest wrangle hasn’t won him too many admirers on the Cottage terraces.
And, to think, the whole unseemly situation could have been avoided if Derby, in particular Nigel Pearson, had done the sensible thing and not farm the club’s top scorer for the last three seasons out the door on deadline day.
For now, however, the war of words between either side of the Martin rift look set to continue. On Twitter at least.
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