as long as it stops with Lovren and no one else - schneiderlin etc then I think we've weathered the exodus ok. I don't think Lallana will do well at Liverpool - find himself on the sub bench come Xmas. Luke Shaw is quality but we had no chance of keeping him. Lovren is a prick so good riddance. Lambert is great! We must have more spending power than virtually any club in Europe at the moment. Be good fun next season and I say Top 6 is possible. + there are other young lads coming through as always. I think we have found our niche!
Dammit..! Just noticed you said virtually, as I was thinking we could outbid Barca for Suarez. Or nick Neymar off them. He can't be worth much at present.
I think he has his heart set on Barcelona to be honest. Also, we shouldn't spend for the sake of it. It reminds me a bit of going to the amusement arcades as a boy and feeling bad after ramming my 15 quid in the stenders fruit machine and regretting it. Should have played double or nothing. The money lasts longer.
It's not just spending £100m though, is it? Could we afford the wages of some of these superstars? If we under-perform, will we be trapped with a large wage bill and a diminishing pot of income? Will the new players gel (See QPR)? The hidden advantage of Lala, Lambo and Shaw is that they'd know each other for five years. Sure, we'll get this advantage if we field the nippers, and we all hope that their superstars in the making, but are they ready for the big time?
Good business if we stay up, not so much if we get relegated. Saying that, not much more we can do other than get the right price. When a player wants to go, he's going to go.
You're right HR and it makes no sense keeping hold of a player who's heart is not in it, better to cash in, it's just the transitory nature of modern football unfortunately.
Would be nice if we could convince some of our players that they didn't need to go, but that is apparently magical thinking so ever onwards, ever selling we go.
Does anyone have any idea how much the club are looking to spend exactly? I've heard from 60m to 100m and everything in between. If the figures from the sales are correct that would make (52m; 30m shaw, 18m lallana, 4m lambert.) I know we're getting money from the FA and Broadcast sponsors (Was it 68m?) and we also have some debt including outstanding transfer fees (27m) and the remaining cost of the staplewood shed (15m if i recall correctly). So after all that the club have 78m but im certain there hundreds of other things that would need to be calculated in. Does anyone have a more exact idea or is just speculation from all sides?
An interesting point....is a human being a commodity you can make a profit on. If so, there would still be a few things we could offset against it....wouldn't pay the full tax on the difference between what we paid for Lallana and what we got for him. As for the money available, Reed said Ron would get the money from the sales...this was so important to RK that he retweeted it (the modern way of creating a contract). There is also supposed to be the figure we first thought of (30 million was suggested). However, I don't expect Ron to spend all that...mainly because of the time scale...we will struggle to get a large number of quality players over the line in the time available. I'm expecting some activity in the January window....not ideal, but we may have to.
