Unbelievable

How much have they paid Hull for him? £4.5m allegedly, club record. Good deal for Derby. Wouldn't have minded him here.

Nailed it

How much have they paid Hull for him?

Mike Ashley nearly gets a stroke contemplating spending double figures on a player. What makes you think someone like Bacca for upwards of 20m isn't way, way out of our self imposed contraints? Don't get me wrong, I do agree with you that this is what should be done, but this club has made it abundantly clear they want more English players and they don't seem to want to spend the going rate (which is usually higher for English players). It's a recipe for disaster.

I'm not suggesting 10m isn't the top end of the Championship market. I was merely illustrating the point that nowadays 15m will not get you a striker who scored 18 goals in the PL last season, last year of contract or not.

I'm sure everybody would triggs, but even abroad teams are wising up to the riches in the Premier League and not letting their best players go for a pittance. I mean, look at what Man U paid PSV for Depay.

Van Persie was probably the best player in the PL when he went to Man Utd and that was only 20m with one year left. Austin is mainly a poacher who has had one season in the PL. 15m is still a lot of money anywhere outside England and we could get a lot better player for that price from abroad That was also years ago, prices continue to inflate, and the english player premium still exists today It was about 3 years ago. They can't have inflated that much. We could get basically any player in La Liga outside of the top five for 15m and similar or less wages than we would have to pay Austin Well, it's not far fetched imo to suggest transfer fees in general may have increased by 50% in that time. Nowadays 10m gets you a promising youngster or a good player from the Championship, not a number 9 who has just scored 18 in his debut season in the Premier League.

Van Persie was probably the best player in the PL when he went to Man Utd and that was only 20m with one year left. Austin is mainly a poacher who has had one season in the PL. 15m is still a lot of money anywhere outside England and we could get a lot better player for that price from abroad That was also years ago, prices continue to inflate, and the english player premium still exists today Exactly. Add to that Van Persie was also quite a bit older, meaning his value was only ever going to decrease during the course of his time with Man United. Those who think QPR will not get 15m for Austin need a reality check imo. TV money is ever increasing, as is the importance of investing to stay in the Premier League. This is something which everybody from Leicester to Watford seem to realise, but seems sadly lost on wor Mike. We simply need to spend big to stand still, let alone progress, or we will get sucked in the relegation battle again and come out the wrong side of it (again) sooner rather than later.

Inler to Watford?

The word "calibre" didn't feature at all in the email. It said "type of player", which is probably more a statement about their work rate than about their quality.

Since that stint the likes of Dan Gosling, Ryan Taylor and Gouffran have featured numerous times in our midfield. I would say that Bigi would have easily contributed more than all three of those.

A manager sacked from a Championship club who failed at his last four jobs, a promising young assistant manager and a few of the managers' buddies from his previous club on top of absolutely no investment in new players and a multitude of uninspiring reported targets? I understand that after setting the bar at below zero (Carver, near relegation) any change no matter how small will feel like an improvement but dear me, they have a hell of a lot of proving to do before I get back on the happy clappers band wagon.

That column

Please be true

I would die for (a player like) Cabaye at Newcastle next season.

WTF

We decided against bringing in any new players because there was just too much uncertainty about a possible Grexit. Wonder how that will go down with the happy clappers who have renewed based on those hollow pledges by the fat man.

It works in retail, that is why.

It's finally happened http://cdn.niketalk.com/b/b3/900x900px-LL-b3b9c6b1_Denzel-Orbis.gif

As if Ashley is waiting for the Euro to drop before starting to invest