Shearergol

We won't, but we should, buy three strikers and have a good youngster ready to come through....

6-1, Ali with 4 and Kane with 2. Yedlin with ours.

Because they know there won't be?

I hope whatever we laid out is refunded. Fucking waste. Signing an injured player was a joke anyway. Rafa out.

Mane’s ace but I really do hate him, for no real reason. Liverpool’s attacking in fantastic but it does seem that everyone in this competition has just been a bit shit against them.

2-0 them. No fantasy points.

no I'm hoping Liverpool are at least 4 nil up with 20 minutes to play and lose 5-4 in the last minute of extra time.

I'm tempted to transfer Salah and Firmino out and bring in players who have 3 games left. I know full well that as soon as I do it said players will get dropped/injured anyway.

Arsenal perhaps?

Shelvey.

Hopefully they'll buy him back and he can take it with him.

Scunny.

Somewhere else though. Please somewhere else.

Complete guesswork. Could as easily have just been bought by a consortium who’s major investor owns Eastleigh. It's not complete guesswork. Clubs in League One can only spend a maximum of 60% of their overall annual turnover on wages. Sunderland's turnover is 5 or 6 times most clubs down there, and 10 times in terms of some of the smaller teams, and they have the added bonus of being able to spend 75% of their income on wages as a relegated club from the Championship. Realistically based on the current contract situations it's only Cattermole and Rodwell who will be sitting around eating into the wage bill, leaving them a huge amount relatively to spend on building a team. League One clubs don't spend on transfer fees, which means they can outbid all the other sides down there for players in terms of wages. Unless Birmingham go down as well, they have no realistic rivals of a similar size. The only hope there was for them struggling down there was if they got stuck being unable to sell the club and were saddled with the debt. That's gone now and they have a whole summer to prepare. They will absolutely piss it. So you think they will do well by throwing large wages at players who only want to go to Sunderland for the money? Isn't that what's gotten them into this hole in the first place? I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek mind, obviously having some financial clout is a benefit. I'm just cautioning that it's hardly a guaranteed route to success. No. They don't need to throw around huge money at all. The average League One player is on 2k a week ffs. Are they? 4 or 5 years ago maybe.

Could have two ‘that goal’ in the same match.

Which goal?

Well mainly because that was Slimani's first start for us and has barely played for ages. I've had plenty of matches to watch Gayle, and rather than crucifying him (as you claim) I'm simply hoping we sell him. He's our current number 9, he can't score goals. Obviously the length of the thread was tongue in cheek, but fair play at your attempt at humour.

who, me? Nah sorry, I couldn't get quote working on my phone, was directed at the guy who said Gayle would be first out of the door for them Forgot he even existed soz

Bit harsh. I'm counting Colback as already gone. OK, Maybe Ciaran Clark first.

I don't give a shit about resale value, I'm only concerned that we get value and £30 mill for a 29 year old who has yet to prove himself in the premiership is not value. Rafa has picked up Dubravka, Lejeune and Merino and I've no reason to doubt he can spot a forward. Ahh ok, so it's nothing to do with the fee, you just don't want Slimani as our main striker next season? Well that makes more sense, and I'm with you, if we can unearth the next Messi from the depths of South America for a couple of million, and he goes on to scoring 40 goals next season, I'm all for it. Have to admit, I'd always "prefer someone better" whenever we get linked with a player, but I'm pretty realistic too.

The fact this thread is only at 17 pages shows how much of a nothing player Gayle is. Hope he's first out the door in summer, he's been stealing a wage for too long now.

Not as good as Shearer so can't be worth over £15m. There must be some strikers out there in Europe we can pick up for pence. I mean Anelka only cost Arsenal £500k didn't he? Why don't we sign someone like him?

Was class all game. Lovely take for his goal too. Clearly a fairly switched on kid too going there, a brave manager would take him to the WC. I really hope Sancho has set the example for the rest of the English youngsters out there - there's too many that waste their careers in U23 football or poor loans in the lower leagues - go out of your comfort zone and take a chance. All credit to Sancho - hope he goes on to have a successful career. I remember getting stick on here for saying that Oliver Burke was a moron for leaving Leipzig for West Brom, so don't hold your breath. It's weird to think that we'd probably have never seen him play for Man City, but I bet they buy him back in a few years for about £200m.

Fuck sake man, our own fans debating the re-sale values and writing players off because they're over the hill at 29. What have we become? If he's the right player, in the right system, under the (clearly) right manager, just fucking sign him. I couldn't care less how much he costs or how much we might sell him for. God forbid we might actually be able to buy someone else in a couple of years without relying on selling players, or even worse, bring a youngster through. Talking about resale values, give your head a shake man.

Defensivley he was good. Passing was a bit shit though. Just an off night like all of them (apart from Diame, Kenedy and maybe PD)