Over the last 24 hours the usual ****e in the papers and on social media suggests that Rafa has asked for £20M in the January transfer window. With this he will target a striker, a LB and a no. 10. Would this be enough to get any sort of quality in or are we going after like for like quality players but who will fit our system?
Fulham wanted £25m for Tom Cairney and he would have been a risk in that he hasn't played at that level. You don't have to pay through the nose for every quality player as there are contracts ending and loan deals to be had in theory but it's unlikely we'd be buying 3 decent players for that kind of money.
If the club remains unsold I suspect there will be no transfer kitty unless Rafa generates it with player sales or the club has cash in the bank.
I feel like we will have to do something or we could really be struggling to stay up. Someone will have to get us some goals.
There's Merino, so there's hope. There is talent out there, I just don't know we have the infrastructure to find it. What I don't want to see is more known **** turn up. Diame, Manquillo, Joselu, Gamez even Gayle to a certain extent were known to be either unreliable at best, or just plain crap at worst. Lejeune has tapered off as the demands of the league and lack of leadership have taken their toll, but he started nicely and has some ability for sure. Merino is arguably our best player. So we can find the right players without needing to get caught up in the lunacy of modern transfer values. Cenk Tosun is another example - should have paid the money in the Summer, by all accounts, now out of reach for us - but we could have had him. Caballero same, Abraham same. Wouldn't have cost the earth, all would have improved the squad. Ashley's tight, but he's made that clear, Rafa should be aware. Charnley's a fcking moron, but Rafa should be aware. The worst thing we did was settled for utter, utter crap to make up numbers and fill squad places. We didn't even need Joselu. We certainly don't need Diame. I'd have much rather seen Heardman, Mitrovic or Barlaser getting into the team, nobody could argue results would be worse playing those lads.
I think Ashley will let us spend the money the club has available on account of his ring piece falling out over not selling the club for a fortune if we went down. I reckon there could be £20-30m there although it's really hard to say as when EPL money comes in seems to be a bit of a mystery. We could offload a couple of players too. Mitrovic seems like the most obvious candidate - maybe £10m. I would expect Colback to finally go and free up some of the wage budget. Having said all that, Rafa being very vocal about spending limitations in recent press conferences suggests Ashley is not wanting to spend. Hell, I guess we know about as much as the journos on this one.
I agree.................. but our owner was more than willing to take a punt on John Carver keeping us up............ I suspect that by his reckoning Rafa will be a sure thing for us, regardless of how ****e the squad is. If we have no ready cash or cant generate funds we will have **** all. Ashley will not pump any more money into the club. He will gamble, he always does.
20million is nowhere near enough. I actually think the club sale will go through this month so its a moot point anyway. This is just a gut feel - no Chippyesque mate in the finance department or Windys man close to the board. Just think Ashley wants out and wont run the risk of us going down for a few more millions. Reckon Rafa should have said he needed 50mill to put more pressure on him. I am with Seabass - spend the 20million on a No 10 and use any left over to see whether we can get Shaw on loan until Summer.
Obviously it is nowhere near enough. Of course you could be really cute and pick up three cheap gems, or three players with contracts running down. But then I could be ****ing Liza Soberano due to her turning up at my door in nothing but her crotchless knickers and asking me to ride her like sea biscuit. I'd try to get a loan for the left back and striker, and spend the 20m on a No.10.
Never got the point of crotchless knickers myself... Do a bird in her thong slightly moved to the side or whip them off...
He wants a loan deal to get into the French world cup team and we currently play with a Joselu when a Giroud would have us in the top 10
Would love to see Giroud on loan, apparently Chelski are open to a loan move for Batashyi too. Which would you prefer?