angelman

It's much the best position to take.

How?

Maybe Ighalo had no desire to go to Shanghai. Have you even factored that in to things?

I couldn't stand it if he left. Having taken over from Grazziano as being the best looking player we have, not sure where else we would have turned to.

Well given that Sevilla want £30m for their CB and Arsenal seem unwilling to go more than £20m, I guess the press look around and see what's what. "Sources" as ESPN put it. Brilliantly meaningless. Is Mendes a tough one to work with?

There are rumours of Mahrez to Arsenal for £37m. Now if that is true (and ignoring any add ons and sell ons that no one knows about), would that still make Mane be too cheap? "Only" £2.5m more for the PL's player of the season.

Sure, but you don't address how you keep players here (against their will) nor how we attract them in the first place.

It was that idiot Moose chap at 9:30 They out did themselves recently with those two chaps called Mike who just shout at each other and bicker the whole time. Usually they keep them to the graveyeard shift but they got bumped up to mid morning. The adverts were a welcome distraction. Anyway, not sure why I bother listening to it anymore.

talkShîte saying that he might leave.

Fans aspirations and financial reality are not natural bedfellows.

Cups are nice to win, but surely the big one is the league. I know that LCFC won it last season, so shows that anyone can do it, but I think most are in agreement that that is the exception rather than the rule and that it is the traditional big boys, who as you say, have the strongest squads that win it. Top 6 this season - Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Man C, Man U. Liverpool. Top 6 next season the same. It is a prediction that hopefully won't come to be, but I don't think anyone would say that it is an unreasonable one, even if it does omit LCFC. WHU might fancy their chances, as might Everton. As we might. So we are in a competition that we have little chance of winning or even breaking into the top 3rd. I realise football is different, but in most walks of life, if you found yourself in that position, would you really put so much passion into the thing? So yes I guess we have taken the moral high ground in the fact that we have tried to do things differently. But that is more out of necessity than choice. We have to as we cannot spend hundreds of millions to bridge the gap to the top 3rd. Fans expectations always tend to be a tad unrealistic (understandably so), and I can imagine that a large swathe are disgruntled but quiet. If you take the clubs that I say will finish top 6, their income, the wages they pay, their squad and add your assertion (which I agree with) that the team with the strongest squad tends to win, then that should temper the expectations of our fan base into something more realistic and pragmatic about the whole thing.

A gentleman's agreement tends to work best between gentlemen. Football is (and I am going out on a bit of a limb with this one) completely devoid of gentlemen and those who know how to act as a gentleman should.

Just because one club is prepared to seemingly overspend (at least in your eyes re Bolasie) does not mean all teams are willing to do so.

Talking about instalments, I am sure that I read somewhere that it was cash up front.

It's one of those murky figures where the buying club likes to go on the low side and round down. I think that the most bandied about figure is £34.5m with a potential to rise to £38.5m and those add-ons are team related rather than player related. I imagine that they aren't going to be too stringent either and might revolve around CL qualification (pure conjecture on my part).

If you say so pal. But maybe you can tell me what constitutes ambition.

It was a question - the use of a question mark should have given the game away. And please, don't want to be pompous, but this "pal" business really isn't necessary.

Is ambition purely down to spending money? It seems that it is, which is why my love of football is very much diminished.

If I could just voice my opinion, best to just leave him to his levels.

What's all this ballox about levels? Level 4 is League 2 or is this your own level system?

Fire sale....

You're very intelligent.

Spine of team....Forster, VVD, Davis, Tadic, Long

Yup, the seat in front of me never used to have a ST holder in, so I could sometimes buy it, but now has been taken. Apart from that, all the usual lot who must get really bored of me.

Everton & Charlie Austin http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/700102/Chelsea-Romelu-Lukaku-Everton-Southampton-Charlie-Austin-transfer-news-gossip