Top 4 Next Year?

[BobTheCharmer]

I think regardless of who the manager is we're in trouble, the key factor for me is how much money we have to spend. The reason we are in the position we find ourselves in is because of a lack of sustained investment. How can we realistically be expected to improve the squad with a net spend of zero? We've been standing still whilst other teams have been moving forward. Our lack of strength in depth and the injury problems have allowed the other clubs to catch up. Without investment in the playing squad we will only fall further behind whoever the manager is!

Depends what you mean by investment. Reina has just signed a 6 year contract, that must be at least £5M with signing on fees? We've spent a lot of money on contract renewals including giving the gaffer a 5 year contract. Plus he has about 30 staff he's brought in.

A lot of the players we've sold on have been average reserve/or squad fillers, Voronin, Kronkamp, Guthrie, Pennant, Hobbs etc we've made money on all these. That money has partly helped to make Rafa's Transfer Spend 'Net' over the period. Without this money coming back in the figures would look an awful lot worse. Surely there's nothing wrong in doing this? Balancing the books by selling on players of little use.

Now this probably couldn't/wouldn't happen but if we were to sell off 10 reserve players a year out of the hundreds we seemingly have on the books, this could bring in say £20m. If Rafa was given that £20m to spend each year would that be acceptable? Or as its a zero net spend would he still have to be given more on top before people stop staying he has no money?

The £30m figure we got from Alonso also heavily sways the transfer spend to the mythical zero net figure that is bandied around. If he was still here and we hadn't cashed in due to him wanting out, the only net we'd be talking about is the one we hopefully put the ****ing ball in on a regular basis against inferior opposition.

[Darth Marty]

no ****ing chance, thats us done.

[wiw]

**** top 4. Next year we're winning the title!

[Exiled_red]

Depends what you mean by investment. Reina has just signed a 6 year contract, that must be at least £5M with signing on fees? We've spent a lot of money on contract renewals including giving the gaffer a 5 year contract. Plus he has about 30 staff he's brought in.

A lot of the players we've sold on have been average reserve/or squad fillers, Voronin, Kronkamp, Guthrie, Pennant, Hobbs etc we've made money on all these. That money has partly helped to make Rafa's Transfer Spend 'Net' over the period. Without this money coming back in the figures would look an awful lot worse. Surely there's nothing wrong in doing this? Balancing the books by selling on players of little use.

Now this probably couldn't/wouldn't happen but if we were to sell off 10 reserve players a year out of the hundreds we seemingly have on the books, this could bring in say £20m. If Rafa was given that £20m to spend each year would that be acceptable? Or as its a zero net spend would he still have to be given more on top before people stop staying he has no money?

The £30m figure we got from Alonso also heavily sways the transfer spend to the mythical zero net figure that is bandied around. If he was still here and we hadn't cashed in due to him wanting out, the only net we'd be talking about is the one we hopefully put the ****ing ball in on a regular basis against inferior opposition.

Well the contracts have to keep coming, this isn't really what I'd class as investing in the squad, it's necessary. I mean by making funds available for new signings. There's nothing wrong with balancing the books, but we need additional funds if we are to improve! Also if we have to sell 3 players to buy 1 then while quaility doesn't decrease squad depth does and that causes problems when there are injuries.

If Alonso hadn't been sold there's no way we'd have signed Aquilani, so our net spend would have been £5m rather than -£5m (assuming we hadn't been forced to sell other players). So that wouldn't have affected things by as much as you suggest.

[Rafa Justice]

no ****ing chance, thats us done.

This. It's back to the Souness days for us.

[Vermilion]

Anything is possible with new owners, and that's the only thing that will turn us into regular Challengers...more money for better players.