Gaz Baz

[Cormack74]

I'm not saying never buy anyone, but i certainly wouldnt sacrifice one of our best players, who we KNOW delivers for us, in order to buy a player who may or may not flop.

I didnt say it was the same - it was suggested that one reason why we should apparently sell one of our best players, was to buy other teams' best players - which Keane was. So i never said that we'd sold one of our best players to sign Keane. Although now you mention it, Crouch was one of our best strikers.

As for the last point - yes we should if that's what we're replacing him with. But Barry isnt that.

Alonso has been terrific this season, but pretty poor for the previous two.

He hasn't been consistently top drawer in the way that for example Gerrard or Reina have for the last few years and we have no way of knowing whether he will "deliver" next season.

As such I do not see that we should refuse point blank to sell him if an attractive offer came our way and enabled us to afford Silva or Villa or whoever.

I don't know whether or not Keane was one of Spurs best players since I rarely watch them. He was not the type of "best player" that I envisaged when I made the comment. The point is if we get quality money we can sign quality players.

Regarding Barry, he's not a name I've referred to intentionally or otherwise in this thread so far as I'm aware.

[Cormack74]

let's not start a discussion about what best means.

I'm worried about you, you've started to mellow. Did you win the euromillions or something?

[Craig_H]

Alonso has been terrific this season, but pretty poor for the previous two.

He hasn't been consistently top drawer in the way that for example Gerrard or Reina have for the last few years and we have no way of knowing whether he will "deliver" next season.

As such I do not see that we should refuse point blank to sell him if an attractive offer came our way and enabled us to afford Silva or Villa or whoever.

I don't know whether or not Keane was one of Spurs best players since I rarely watch them. He was not the type of "best player" that I envisaged when I made the comment. The point is if we get quality money we can sign quality players.

Regarding Barry, he's not a name I've referred to intentionally or otherwise in this thread so far as I'm aware.

I think Alonso's established himself as a top drawer player now and i see no reason why he'd go backwards. Equally so, we have no idea if Silva or Villa would succeed in the PL and whilst every signing is a gamble, i wouldnt want to sacrifice Alonso in order to take that gamble.

I mentioned Barry as he's widely regarded as the player who'd be Alonso's replacement. It's like replacing a Rolls Royce with a Renault Clio.

[kingfunk]

Alonso is ten times the player Barry will ever be. I would like to see stats for the amount of goals we have scored this season that started from alonso`s passing ability. Pure Magic he is, and if he goes who is going to get all them oppisition players sent off next season??

[red g]

I think Alonso's established himself as a top drawer player now and i see no reason why he'd go backwards. Equally so, we have no idea if Silva or Villa would succeed in the PL and whilst every signing is a gamble, i wouldnt want to sacrifice Alonso in order to take that gamble.

I mentioned Barry as he's widely regarded as the player who'd be Alonso's replacement. It's like replacing a Rolls Royce with a Renault Clio.

Alonso established himself as top drawer first season he was here, then he went backwards.....go figure.

[Exiled_red]

I wouldn't accept an offer of 30m euros, it sounds like alot but we'd probably have to pay £20m to replace him and there's no guarentee his replacement would be as effective. For an extra £10m on another player I don't think it's worth it. Xabi more than any other player has been the one that has made us tick this season. If we want to win the league we shouldn't be sellig our best players

[Craig_H]

Alonso established himself as top drawer first season he was here, then he went backwards.....go figure.

You might think so. I dont.

[Craig_H]

I wouldn't accept an offer of 30m euros, it sounds like alot but we'd probably have to pay £20m to replace him and there's no guarentee his replacement would be as effective. For an extra £10m on another player I don't think it's worth it. Xabi more than any other player has been the one that has made us tick this season. If we want to win the league we shouldn't be sellig our best players

[Cormack74]

You might think so. I dont.

Personally I agree with Red G but as you infer above, we all have our opinions and some of us are more entrenched in those views than others.

I'm not saying Alonso is a bad player, indeed this year he's been excellent as I've already stated.

In an ideal world we would keep Alonso and lash out big money to strengthen in other areas.

Sadly until the Kuwaiti's or anyone else puts substantial funds into the club, we probably need to sell before we can buy more top drawer players.

The fact that Xabi has had a good year should not preclude us from considering ways to improve the overall quality of the team. If that meant selling him then that option has to be considered.

[Craig_H]

Certainly, if it did mean selling him was best for the team, but i dont think it'd be the case.

We'll have a certain amount of budget, which can be swelled by selling the likes of dossena, babel and lucas.

[Pacman]

I wouldn't sell Alonso no ****ing way.

I would sell Lucas and Voronin to buy Barry as I think Barry would be a great player for us but not at the expense of Xabi.

[Cormack74]

Certainly, if it did mean selling him was best for the team, but i dont think it'd be the case.

We'll have a certain amount of budget, which can be swelled by selling the likes of dossena, babel and lucas.

I agree we'd all like to think so, but once contracts have been paid up and agents remunerated I'm never sure that it necessarily works out that way.

[Craig_H]

We'd have to pay up Alonso's contract too and pay his agent.

Oh - and add Voronin to the previous list, for about £3m.

£8m for Babel, £6m for Dossena, £4m for Lucas. Total £21m. Plus £10m-£15m budget.

That's enough to do good business IMO.

[Pacman]

We'd have to pay up Alonso's contract too and pay his agent.

Oh - and add Voronin to the previous list, for about £3m.

£8m for Babel, £6m for Dossena, £4m for Lucas. Total £21m. Plus £10m-£15m budget.

That's enough to do good business IMO.

I personally think we'll get more for him.

[barnes10]

I dont think we should bother selling alonso unless he genuinely wants to go back to spain or we make about 15 mill profit once we've replaced him with barry.

we should get rid of the likes of babel, voronin, dossena and even riera to raise funds to enable us to buy villa and silva - i.e. upgrade the left wing and get another top striker to support torres.