Makis

Or maybe we shouldn't believe every rumour in the media?

I follow NHL and they have the exact same system there as well. In fact the way managers work in English football is rare in any sports.

Manager is almost an archaic term these days. In Continental Europe the term they use is coach or trainer rather than manager as there traditionally manager did not sign the players.

Club can give permission to discuss a contract. It's not a rule a deal must be in place first.

He gets 400kpw so even if he only plays half the games, that's still way too much. With his injury record there's no way we should sign him.

That rumour was started by none other than Chico the great troll.

Iwobi's price was probably high simply because club couldn't get the deal with Zaha through so there wasn't much time to negotiate. If his price had been 20-23 million instead of 28 I think there would be a lot less moaning. Gbamin's price at the time felt about right. He has lots of potential and has all the ingredients to be a really good DM.

Remember how much people moaned about Dithering Dave?

Pienaar, indeed. He was sold because he wasn't playing very well.

Sokratis was really good in Germany.

How much would he Kostas?

Two players from the Championship and a flop? Imagine the fume.

Because they have AWB in the same position. He's still only 21 and was highly rated when they bought him. Haven't worked out for him so far, but I've read fans still rate him.

Or move. Or tackle.

No, that argument is not relevant because that argument alone doesn't make him a good signing.

I don't think this is a very relevant question. I could probably list a hundred midfielders who would improve our midfield that you wouldn't like to sign. Just because someone is better than what we have doesn't mean we should sign him. And this is not a comment on whether we should sign Gana or not.

Usmanov's money is nowhere near enough and even if he bought the club outright he couldn't pump insane amounts of money into it.

That doesn't really change anything. Annual payments will end up totaling 150 million no matter how you slice it. Contracts would be around 4 years, 5 max.

How do the finances work? We'd need to win the CL about three times in a row to justify the fees.

So, 150 million on players with no resale value?

You seriously think Immobile will make us a top four side? If not then your whole example is just a red herring. Can't think of many examples where one signing had such a huge impact for a team. And almost always on hindsight the squad was much better than what it looked like (e.g. Cantona to ManU).

I just don't believe this rumour until he's holding the scarf above his head. Makes no sense. Bombed in Germany. 3 goals in 24 matches before being loaned to Sevilla where he managed 2 goals in 8 matches. Sevilla had to buy him as per the loan deal but they loaned him next season back to Italy. Selling assets is hardly a unique concept. The idea is to sell when the value of the asset is high with the plan of using the money to buy better assets (in normal business terms better would mean more profitable). If you buy someone at age 24 for 30 million and sell him for 60 million three years later you can buy two 30 million players. For most clubs this would mean a better team than holding on to that 60 million player. For instance that other lot sold Coutinho to Barca and practically bought Allison and VVD with that money. Would they have been better off sticking with Coutinho instead?

Walsh likes this. He tried this with Sigurdsson, Walcott, Tosun, Bolasie etc. So we have tried what you want the club to do. I'm not exactly happy about the results. Of course you will say we should buy better but Walsh and Koeman didn't buy shite on purpose. I'm in the opinion we should be clever in the market. That means maximising the value of the money spent. There are several clubs that are pulling above their weight in major European leagues by doing just this. Note that transfer fees are not the only thing that matters, wages need to be considered as well. Younger players tend to have smaller wages so we can have more of quality players that way.

And how do you think we can sign similar players to, say, Manchester United whose revenue is three times bigger than ours? How do you overspend them? City can spend what the fuck they want and the other four also have a revenue of at least twice ours.

Yes, it is completely ridiculous to compare us to City. They could spend half a billion this month and a billion next summer on players and their owners wouldn't even blink. You will only lose if you try to play with their rules.