Verbal Kint

I wouldn't sell Mane for less than 35m. If nobody wants to pay that then he stays for one more season and with his contract position we are able to do that. We'll get maybe 10 for wanyama and 7 or 8 for pelle. You can buy 6 good quality players for that sort of money, but I'd rather we stopped throwing 8-10 million fees around like it's nothing and actually did some more proper scouting. There will be some good players out of contract this summer as always and if our scouting set up is as good as we are told it is then we should be able to find a gem or two for cheap fees now and then. If other clubs can do it then why shouldn't we be able to? We could lose 6 first team squad players from the wage bill this summer (Kelvin, Stek, Caulker, Wanyama, Ramirez, Pelle) so I see no reason for us not to replace them with 6 players coming in. Reserve keeper, a right back, a wanyama replacement, 2 wide attacking players and a striker. If we sell mane we will need to replace him as well

It's only acceptable to me if it's for very big money and in order to fund the signing of 6 or 7 quality players. I'd rather we kept him and got our scouts to actually come up with some cheap players other than the best performing players in the 2nd tier of European leagues

I doubt the money saved on Cropper, Johns, Sinclair and Rowe goes further than paying Martina

Not sure what you mean there Players out: Lambert, Lallana, Chambers, Shaw, Lovren, Cork, Morgan, Clyne, (Toby) Players in: Mane, Long, Tadic, Bertrand, Forster, Pelle, Gardos, (Toby), VVD, Stek, Clasie, Juanmi, Romeu, Cedric, (Caulker) plus a new contract for Fonte and paying up Osvaldo's contract early I would have thought it's fairly obvious our wage bill is significantly higher now than it was 2 years ago. The board have used some of the funds to invest in the wage bill clearly, whether they needed to or not due to the increase in TV money is a more important question. This summer I expect Mane, Wanyama and possibly Pelle to go (and more we will get rid of Ramirez's wages) and 6 or 7 first team squad signings made, which would require the wage bill to grow again, hopefully this is where we will start to see the new TV deal at play

You think the combined wages of the major signings we've made in the last two summer windows are less than the sum of the wages of the major players we've sold?

Total nonsense. Wanyama got back to basics last night and our style of play suited him. Very little football played and we got the ball forward quickly at every opportunity. His passing is awful but when he's just thinking about smashing people he's very effective, and he helped crowd out Ozil well

Last night really showed up Koeman frankly. Why Long has very rarely been given a chance up front with Mane is baffling. His finishing isn't good enough to justify the 12 million we paid, but last night was a Vardy like performance. He ran them ragged

Just about every club in the league plays with either a second striker or a genuine no 10 except us. We have Steven Davis. Either we're doing something wrong or every other club in the league is

No, I don't believe Koeman knows the exact wage of every first team player at the club. He might have a rough idea but not the exact details. And I also don't believe he knows what the wage bills are at other clubs. He's seen/heard some of the stories about us having one of the lowest wage bills in 2013/14 and come out with a lazy comment. Player wages went up from 55 million to 70 million in 2014/15, which obviously is a huge jump. It's far more likely our wage bill is around the average for the league now

Total wages of Shaw, Chambers, Lallana, Lambert and Lovren would have been considerably less than the total for Pelle, Mane, Toby, Tadic, Forster, Bertand, Gardos and Long

Who will not know himself. I think it's people think the head coach has access to the wage bill as well as the wage bill of every other club. A lazy comment from RK which is far more likely to be referring to figures from 3 seasons ago, of which many of the papers wrote articles comparing the wage bills of every club for the 2013/14 season, which are now completely irrelevant and misleading to our current situation given the turnover of players since then.

After the big window 2 summers ago we made about a 25 million profit, although presumably we had a big increase in wages. Shaw and Chambers would not have been on big money, and we sold 5 but brought in 7 or 8. This summer just gone we sold about 35 million and spent roughly the same, so I'm not sure why people think there is money from transfer revenue to spend. It was quite clearly stated funds received would be invested in the squad in both fees AND wages. Has this been confirmed anywhere? I remember reading that in the 2013/14 season (before the big exodus) we had the 5th lowest wage bill in the league but haven't seen any figures since then. I'd be surprised if it were still true

All a matter of opinion but I don't think that first part is true, in fact I thought we were much more entertaining last season than we ever were under MP. Under MP we were great to watch without the ball but when we had it it was a different matter altogether. We were slow, ponderous team that was obsessed with possession for the sake of it, and one of the reasons I enjoyed us so much last season was we started to go at teams a bit more. That has completely gone this season and we've become once again a slow, possession based team who seem more interested in pass completion percentages than in goals scored and chances created. But the strange thing is that whilst that's how we look on the pitch, it doesn't really correlate with how Koeman speaks. Whenever he talks I find myself thinking he has the right mentality, but then his team goes out on the pitch and fails to deliver on what he says. As for the youngsters, there is no doubt in my mind that MP is more committed to developing young players, but we probably have to accept that we don't have many youngster currently good enough. Gallagher has never looked good enough when given chances and is now really struggling at MK Dons. Reed and possibly Seager are the only ones that can feel as though they should have got more chances this season

There were times with MP where we looked equally toothless playing that way, as we were regularly too narrow and congested. I don't mind wide players staying wide, as long as you have a midfielder capable of switching play quickly (Wanyama can't) and you have a second striker/no 10 who is prepared to drop off and take up space, which Mane can do but is played wide too often

For what though? I think people will be surprised at how little a club will pay for him. I'd be shocked if we got offered more than 8 million for him

Very good at Chelsea last season and also this season at City. So he hasn't been awful every time. Pelle is woefully out of form, we either stick with him and pray something changes or we're pro-active and try something different. Long would at least stretch teams a bit more and hopefully free up some room for Mane and Tadic. Might not work, but I don't think he'd do a worse job than Pelle is currently

Up front as a lone striker, that simply isn't true is it? I don't think he's the long term answer, but Pelle is out of form and needs taking out for a few games, and Rodriguez is injured. Having someone who is prepared to run in behind and into channels will give us a different approach in attack

Romeu or Reed deserve a chance. Long deserves a chance up front. He hasn't let us down when given that chance before

3 obvious changes to make I think. Wanyama dropped Pelle dropped Gaston given a chance in the squad, if not starting I won't hold my breath on any of them though

He's been an absolute disgrace all season

People will overreact on here about the performance I expect. I've slated Koeman recently but I thought we played really well in the first half. We pressed them high up the pitch, repeatedly won the ball in good areas and won most of the second balls. We created a couple of very good chances and didn't take them. Again. The 5 minutes before HT was some of the worst defending I've ever seen. Comical is the only word for it and once you go 2 goals down against good sides the reality of this league is that it's very difficult to get back in the game, particularly when you don't have the attacking options on the bench to change a lot. Positives: Gazza looked fine and his confidence must be growing Clasie is capable of actually passing the ball forwards and incresingly can do it first time, it helps us speed up our play. mane in the centre first half looked dangerous Negatives: The back 4 all made horrible individual errors Pelle is too wasteful with the ball and in front of goal And the main problem: Wanyama. Pathetic performance (again) from a player who simply does not want to be here. He needs to be dropped

Disagree. He's our only midfielder with the ability to pass the ball forwards to a saints player accurately and often first time, not slowing down our play. It's the waste of space next to him that needs replacing

I can't stand him as a player. A selfish one trick pony that got sussed out. Wingers playing on the wrong side doesn't work unless you've got special ability. Bale, Ronaldo, Robben can do it because they're good enough to shoot so accurately from distance, but when average players try it it just doesn't work. Feel as though it's probably inevitable we'll sign him. Been linked with him for so long that there must be some truth in it. Another Caulker-esque signing

The problem with Ramirez is he doesn't protect the ball very well when in possession. He regularly lost the ball in dangerous areas which led to teams breaking on us. Tadic is much better in that respect. I think Ramirez should be on the bench and giving us an option to change things, and if he plays high enough up the pitch then I think him losing possession is a price worth paying when he offers genuine creativity

kelvin, Stekelenburg, Caulker, Gaston are all out of contract as well. Mane and Wanyama will be sold and I wouldn't be surprised if Pelle goes as well for a decent fee while we can still get one. I don't see it negatively, just saying I think we have another opportunity to invest properly in the squad. Maybe get 60 million alone from those 3 sales and freeing up big money on the wage bill