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Ben Arfa can line up at RW as well, though. And Jonas as well. And Marveaux. Having this kind of flexiblity is great because the players can switch wings during a match. There's no reason to sell Jonas just because he won't be starting. He'll be the first winger to be subbed on, even if we get Barnetta/N'Zogbia, and he'll start if we don't get one of them.

taxfree vs Ethi Please fight to the death.

Only Tiote who would go for more than that imo. Ben Arfa as well.

so

Ruben de la red had a buyback clause if I'm not wrong. It's a pretty smart thing to do if you're the selling club, but you obviously have to take a hit on the transfer value itself unless you're willing to accept a high buyback clause, which would be useless.

What?

Having his own thread makes the prospect a lot more real

That 4-4-1-1 formation is pretty much this: Tiote Cabaye Marveaux N'Zogbia Ben Arfa Ba It's a 4-2-3-1 when we attack, and 4-4-1-1 when we defend as the two wingers drop back. Sexy.

Sturridge for 10m would be the signing of the year, wouldn't it?

Then we beat tottenham a couple of weeks after that. And we fucked Leeds up 4-3 away too. What a great season that was

Liverpool are overrated as fuck. They've got shite in midfield and defence. Suarez is the only world class player they have, and him and Carroll don't work together because he likes the ball at his feet whereas Carroll's advantage is his strength and height. I said this a month ago and people laughed, but we're not far away from them. Ben Arfa and Tiote are better than anything they have in midfield - except an on form Gerrard, who is unlikely to return - and Coloccini and Enrique are better than anything they have in defence.

Douglas seems to think we're still in for him and Matuidi like. We'd be laughing with those two plus Erdinc. I've been offered 5/1 that we'll finish above Liverpool. If we get Barnetta, Erdinc and Matuidi (or players of the same level who play in their positions), I'm sticking £200 on that.

Where are these holes? The only real gaping hole is up front imo. I'd rather spend that money on Sturridge than cover for three, four, five positions. While I don't think our depth is particularly great in terms of quality, I don't want to see us spend our money on buying "cover". As we've mentioned Everton, I would prefer a top quality first team ahead of massive depth in terms of numbers like we have at the moment, which is the principle they generally operate on. I think you're overplaying our financial crisis tbh. I just don't see it. Right now we've got a hole at RB, CB, a winger, CM and another striker. I see us addressing two, maybe three, of those positions this window by spending £15-25m net and getting first-team starters. That would be good progress for us considering last year we were still in the Championship. I also think that by filling those holes, we'll be able to compete for the top 8. But if we spend £20m on Sturridge, I think we won't be able to cough up anymore because his wages would obviously be extremely high. That would mean that we wouldn't have a winger to back up Jonas/Marveaux, and with the thin squad that we already have, that's not something that I'd prefer doing. I'm not sure about our finances, honestly. We were getting close to £100m in revenue when Ashley came, but that dropped to £70m-ish last year, IIRC. Now that the TV money is higher, we'll break £100m. Our wage bill was £70m-ish, close to £80m when we got relegated. That came down to what, £60m, last year? I think it's roughly about the same level, marginally less. That's a good ratio. I don't know about all our other costs, though, and how much money we will be able to spend on transfers sustainably from next year onwards. The Carroll money was obviously an exceptional item, which is why expecting us to spend all of it (and be able to pay the wages associated) this summer is unrealistic. We'll eventually spend more than we get from selling. That's a given, imo. I'm not worried about our long-term finances anymore and I'm bullish about our chances of competing with Liverpool and Spurs in two years.

You would need one for all the contractual stuff, and all the endorsements too. There are probably many good football agents around who take good care of their clients and genuinely look out for their best interests, but then you have scum like Mackay who's just looking to make a quick buck everytime a client moves clubs. I bet you players like Giggs, Scholes, Messi, Xavi etc. all have agents/advisors as well, only they have good advisors who look out for their long-term wellbeing.

The latter for sure. Sturridge is top class. He's probably worth close to £20m, and in an ideal world we'd be able to spend that and still get in Barnetta and a central midfielder. At this point in time I think if we bought Sturridge our budget would be blown, and we have too many holes in the squad at the moment. Like I said, in a year or two's time we should definitely be financially capable of spending £15-20m on a player, which is why right now I'd go for the Barnetta/Erdinc/Matuidi combo for £25m.

I think we'll spend £15m net this summer (Barnetta/N'Zogbia and Erdinc). Maybe more if we can get a good price for Matuidi, which would take us to £25m net spending. I think that would make this one of the best windows we've had for many, many years.

They spent £15m on Fellaini, £9m on Bilyaletdinov, £6m on Heitinga, £11m on Yakubu. They can spend from time to time, even with their £70m-ish turnover. Our turnover is £30m more. We'll be able to spend, man.

That's ridiculous Sturridge at least has Premiership pedigree. Wickham could easily be a complete failure in the Premiership. He's even riskier, even considering the lower wages and transfer fee.

I see us as a bigger, financially-stronger version of Everton in a couple of years time. They spend within their means but can still make the £10-15m signings as well as keep their best players, pay good wages and can put up a challenge for the top 6. Since we have a bigger stadium and greater revenues, I see us challenging for 6th in a year or two's time and still have the capacity to push on - the capacity that Everton obviously don't have. Maybe I'm in dreamland here and Ashley will probably fuck it up by doing something stupid like he's done every single year, but it's not too unrealistic to expect us to be a bigger version of Everton in two years. And a bigger version of Everton is pretty much one good season away from breaking the top 4 much like Spurs did.

What's our turnover, though? It's probably £100m+, with wages of £60m+ or so. That's a decent ratio and allows us room to invest, but it's not like we can afford to put all our eggs in one basket. I hope we're making a profit without having to resort to sales because that's the only way we'll be able to continually invest in the squad. And like it or not, relegation probably cost us £40m or so, and that's something that I see Ashley wanting to recoup (even though it was his own fault that we got relegated in the first place). You look at clubs like Arsenal and Man Utd: both clubs make a profit off the pitch which is used to invest in players. That's where we'll end up in a year or two, in my opinion. We can't afford to go down the Shepherd route of spending more than we have because Villa and Sunderland have tried that route and they will have to scale back eventually or have their owners continue pumping in money (which is unsustainable, especially when they can't break the top 4).

I'm also not sure whether following Man Utd's strategy seems to be a good idea. They can afford to blow money on these players because they generate operating profits that can support lavish spending on new players. The last time they spunked this much money they got Anderson, Nani and Hargreaves for £50m+. Only Nani has turned out to be worth it and yet they're still financially fine. They're already spending £50m+ this summer (De Gea, Young and Jones) and Young's the only one with a track record (and one that I actually think isn't good enough for Man Utd). I'm not sure whether we're capable of blowing £15m on a player and giving him ridiculous wages (which, let's face it, Sturridge will certainly have to be on) when our financial situation is still uncertain. (and by financial situation, I mean our ability to generate enough revenue to cover all our costs and support our transfer spending. It's useless if we're spending the Carroll money on Sturridge only for us to not be able to afford to pay his wages 2 or 3 years down the line because we're not generating enough revenue. We still have deadwood to remove and that's why we should be able to afford players like Sturridge in a year or two's time when our wage bill is not filled with crap.)

I'm not sure that it's a less risky strategy. I think both strategies has its advantages, but I would think the fact that there is such a premium on English players means that we're priced out of most of the guys that you would think we have a chance of buying, Sturridge included. I like him a lot and I wouldn't mind spending £15m on him, but anymore and we risk blowing a significant chunk of the Carroll money on someone who might not fit into our team (much like Owen, incidentally). Our strategy at the moment, like it or not, seems to be about value signings and spreading our risk. We are obviously looking for quality but putting an increased emphasis on getting value for money. I reckon it's a good strategy for us for now, since we still have a lot of deadwood to clear, which will clear up wages that can be spent on someone like Sturridge in the future. Right now we just need to get players in, and the players that we have been linked with seem to be of a decent quality; players that should mean we're able to compete for the top 8, which is a good objective for next season. If all goes to plan, next summer will be the summer where we can look for one or two £10m signings that help push us up to a top 6 position. There's not a lot of value in the market at the moment because clubs seem to be flushed with cash, but the market may be better in a year when the financial fair play rules are fully in place.

I reckon Matuidi is the one that's least likely to happen because we can go 4-2-3-1 without using him (and he's likely to be the most expensive), but that's an extremely offensive formation that wouldn't be appropriate for quite a few matches.

There's no doubt that we're still after him, which is good news. It means that we didn't settle for Marveaux. It'll be him or Barnetta in as our second winger, and hopefully we'll line up 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 like this: Tiote Cabaye N'Zogbia HBA Marveaux Ba Tiote Matuidi Cabaye HBA N'Zogbia Ba Or if we get Erdinc in, we could even go 4-3-1-2, like this: Matuidi Tiote Cabaye HBA Erdinc Ba with some real depth on the bench.

Our home games are pretty easy in the second half of the season. If we can something like 25 or so points from the first half of the season, we should be able to manage 60 overall, which would leave us in the top 8.