Window Cleaner

Well yes, it was "promised" before any sales were reality. It was supposed to be available for team strengthening this summer and did not depend on sales. WE could have strengthened the side with just that money but it didn't happen. All we've spent is the eventual result of the transfers of Lallana and Shaw, preseume the rest is a kitty for the future but I think we can wave goodbye to the famous 35 million £ "warchest". It never existed, it never will.

But we did need money for transfers, for a CB,for a keeper, for a striker to replace JRod in at least the short term. In fact we probably needed to spend the 35 million £ transfer kitty that Guan informed us was in place. Right now instead of a net transfer spend of that 35 million we have a net transfer excedent of at least that. So the 35 million £ + sales was always bullsh*t, notice it's purveyor has disappeared.

No need, a quick fix of CM2014 should get the job done.

But then where would the money for the incoming transfers have come from ? From various speeches about core players and the like ou just have to assume that keeping those who have left wasn't top of the agenda. We can only judge the result of that decision from this year's games. For the moment the result is not probing but it's early days as of yet. Back in May Reed and Krueger said we didn't need to sell, the fact that we then did tends to suggest that we actually wanted to do that. I feel sure that Morgan has only fallen into line because of his desire to play for France, if he was a regular international with 15 or so caps to his name already we might have seen a different face of him. He wants to be picked against Spain and Albania next week, DD doesn't select players who don't play for their clubs.

Well absolutely, stronger to me means obtaining more points than last season, it's the only real yardstick in football. You cannot possibily be stronger if you lose more matches. You can only be judged in relation to your competition. As of now, for me anyway, we're way way off of last season's quality, that's why we're 5 points down from the 2 same matches as last season. Still there's plenty of room for improvement against sides like Sunderland and West Ham. If we fail to beat West Ham on Saturday then questions will be asked. If we don't get say 12 points from say the first 10 games then Koeman may well not make a long career at SFC.

Perhaps the train is cheaper...difficult financial situation and all that.

Looks like he's been dropped anyway, not in the 29 man preselection apparently.

Anyway Uruguay play Japan next week, interesting to see if Gaston is selected again, if he is you have to assume he's sort of basically fit and that we're not playing him because of some negligible niggle or that Koeman doesn't fancy him.

Which reports ?

Ghibli's aren't all that expensive as Maseratis go, think you can get a bottom of the range model for about 50000£, well you can for 65000 € anyway.

Either I think, Barca are desperately keen to be shot of him, probably available for a bag of smarties and a new lawn mower. He's no better than Capoué or Dembelé anyway, neither is Rabiot ..yet. Anyway that's another case of the FFF sticking their oar in, he's not playing at PSG so they want him to move somewhere where he'll get a game, won't at Tottenham though.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for Gaston to become what he should in theory be but he's so fragile that I don't think he ever will under the intensity of PL football, won't be the first, won't be the last. As for the WC well it doesn't really seem to have harmed many players, Morgan looks fit although his mindset might not be the best just now, some Dutch lads look OK and Aguero scored with his first touch last night. Gaston is just too fragile that's all, needs to go back to Italy and make a decent career from his great talent, if he stays here he'll regret it for ever, be rich though, won't get that sort of money in Italy.

I really don't think it makes much difference whether he was off this summer or not, he hardly played for Uruguay at all and would probably have gone to South America for his holidays anyway. I think that after 2 years you just have to accept that he's not suited to English football in any way and cut your losses. Osvaldo in his initial Milan interview said he just couldn't get to grips with English football although he tried desperately hard (whether you want to believe that is up to you),he just couldn't hack the intensity and the physical level required to play 90 minutes every 5 days or so.

And Liverpool's brand spanking new Spanish left back really didn't help him either. When you have Gerrard and Henderson on sentry duty in front of the defence you're going to get caught out as likely as not. Why they didn't play Lucas there last night beggars belief, unless he's injured of course or that they have a HG/NHG problem for the CL because there the rules are different, it's not just 8HG it's 8 including 4 from the clubs development centre.

Gaston ? Hardly ever is so probably not, you just have to accept that Gaston is a 15 game a season player at best, well in the PL anyway, he's not robust enough for 90 minutes 1 and a half times a week from August to May.

Why may it have become almost impossible, can't see anything has changed in the last 7 days or so. If we're desperate for Townsend (why that would be I couldn't say) then we may have to let MS go, he certainly still wants to of course. There are other wingers, probably better or at least as good as Townsend so you'd have to think that if we do eventually engage in a MS/AT+Cash deal then it's because we wanted it that way.

Apparently we've joined the posse of clubs after Alessio Cerci, striker from Torino. Can't see that happening, probably just Italian newspaper crap. Trade off for Gaston perhaps, weren't they interested in him this summer ?

And why not, amazing things lilies. LILIA SOLA REGUNT UNDAS, LUNAM, CASTRA ET LEONEM motto of the ancient house of aquitaine, though exactly how you can rule a lion with a lily is a question metaphycisists must ponder over endlessly.

Steady there Neddy, Bearsy is the court jester around these parts, doubles occasionally as village idiot as well. It's just a role he plays though, highly educated no doubt.

The Premier League gives them money, lots of it, they sell tickets to supporters as well. There is no reason for them not to be able to afford their salary mass. The PL gave us 80 million £ as well, take into accout ticket sales that gives us about 100 million £ in annual revenues and yet we're fund transfers and apparently consequent salaries from player sales. Our player salary mass is about 48 million £ so the PL central fund easily covers it.

Perhaps but you might ask yourself why he was participating in 36 aerial duels of which he lost 20 apparently. Saints play on the deck don't they ?

In the 3rd division, it really isn't the same thing. That said Pelle needs to up his game very soon because up to now he looks a bit of a liabilty, seems to encourage us to hoof a bit.

Highly likely so that reduces their HG quota even more, they really do have too many imports, probably why Morgan and JRod seem so important to them actually. They could probably get equal and for less but with their armada of imports they couldn't use them without shipping out a few of the ones that they have.

Depends how they're fixed on home grown players I expect. Don't know enough about their squad to say really. They have a lot of imports that's for sure. They can only name 25 and if they do at least 8 have to be HG. Let's see, Walker,Naughton,Rose,Dawson,Lennon,Davies all certainly count as home grown as does Townsend of course, Dier might still be on the U21 list not certain of his exact age, same with Kane but most of the rest aren't HG and they can only name 17 of those if they're over 21 last January (I think)