Mikey

Where does this come from, many of us have said that Torres would be our first choice for over a year now? As for 'not good enough' bloody hell have you actually seen him. He looked the best forward at the last WC when playing in a decent side, scores enough playing on his own for Athletico and will kick on to the very top level within the next 12 months mate. If we get him I, and many others, will be bloody ecstatic!!!!! I also think we will get one of Malouda/Mancini FWIW.

Is that including sales? Bellamy £9M Garcia £6-8M Cisse £6M Gonzaelz £4M FSP £3.5M etc We are gonna raise around £30M from selling players with the CL money on top, there is no way the Yanks would come in and add £0 to the transfer budget is there? Lucas £6M Yossi £4.5M Torres £25M Mancini £13M Simao/Malouda/Quaresma £12M GK to replace Carson £??? FWIW I'd buy Babel the Dutch kid, everyone raves about Drenthe(sp?) who is easily worth the £4M quoted by the way, but babel is head and shoulders the best attacking player at the U-21's.

This is why we are still looking to sign the quality of player to move us on a level isn't it? And I'm 100% certain our value of players has been down to economics rather that shrewdness. If we'd bought Simao, Alves etc over the last couple of seasons for just a couple of extra million rather than spending weeks trying to haggle their clubs down the last couple of quid we would have been much closer to the eventual winners these last 2 years. All this 'we won't over pay for players' is rubbish for me, it would have been much more accurate to say 'we can't afford any more for players'. I also think you will find the valuation for Torres has come from people who have seen him play and realise what an awesome talent he will be, and the Eto'o for £40M, Villa for £35M etc. The market determines the value and his value will be over £25M because thats what someone will pay for him. FFS Charlton want and will get very close to £17M for Bent! FWIW I hope we sign Torres, and if we throw in Garcia and save £10M along the way then its a double win for me as I couldn't care less if he leaves. Garcia is not first choice in any position and isn't even 2nd choice in many, he won't start many games if he stays and its time to take a brutal look at facts. Many of our 'I hope X,Y,Z doesn't go because he scored a great goal/made a great save/got a good cross in in 2005' are not good enough and never will be!

Utter B0ll0cks mate, his scoring record is far better than Eto's was before he went to Barca. Torres has far more to his game than Bent, its who we can afford that counts though.

Tevez is being ridiculously over-priced, no way is he worth anywhere near £30M+ as is being touted round - try to remember what he's actually done and not just believe the hype. Torres is the one if we can get him for £25M, for me anyway. And Quaresma if the £17M for Malouda is not negotiable.

No he hasn't has he, never scored unless it was through on goal one on one with the keeper. I know.....£25M and under and I didn't bloody notice!!!!!

The really top strikers, who have shown over a period of time that they can do all that(and some who have only had a good couple of years - Villa) , will cost upwards of £40M this Summer, and we haven't got that amount. Torres is class, if we don't sign him I have no doubt he will be a success if he ends up at another top club, and regarding age and ability he seems the best bit out of the '325M and under' strikers out there. I wouldn't be suicidal if we got Bent either, as long as he didn't cost too much more than we got for Bellamy.

I have to say so would I mate! Got murdered on here a while back for suggesting he was our best bet!

Pires's poor first season is an internet myth ranking alongside Henry's. He took a couple of months to settle but generally played well in the 2nd half of his first season over here as did TH, although posters keep trotting out this cr@p to try and support bogus "lets keep X,Y,Z because RP and TH were s**** in their 1st season as well" rubbish. There are many more players who were poor in their first season and also poor in their second, than players who improved remarkably. You have listed Gonzalez's only good game as a reason to keep him, he actually played quite well against PSV at home in the group game until he went off injured after 30 minutes as well, an extremely poor return over a season, and why would his fitness improve next season? Moro couldn't do it over here, nor could Forlan and Kanoute was no great shakes either, and they are banging them in for fun in Spain. Either they couldn't cope with the pressure over here or the Spanish league is easier to score in. I still want Torres though.

Hope you're right.

Right, I see it like this. In a normal close season we can expect to spend around £25M net, on top of this we have the extra money from our CL run and cash generated by player sales. CL run must be worth an extra £8-10M with the TV money and we can easily expect to get in between £20M and £30M in sales. Cisse £6-8M Bellamy £9-10M Gonzo £3-5M A few more for a couple of million here and there. Also am I right in thinking that we currently have £0 debt, we owe nothing on outstanding transfers?? Anyway, even in my hungover state this means that we easily have well in excess of £50M to spend on players this Summer and we don't actually need that many do we. We could conceivably buy Torres £20M Malouda £10M Simao £12M Milito £8M without breaking sweat. Calm down folks the money is there, it has to be.

So Mancini, anyone seen anything apart from the stepover goal? I can't get my lad to check out his stats on CM until he gets in from school and I'd never heard of him 6 months ago.

If Bolton are going to sell Anelka for £8M we should buy him and give them Cisse and some £££££'s. And I'm being serious as well.

So when did Alves sign then? And your two statements directly contradict each other mate.

Get a grip they p1ss all over us out wide with Giggs and Ronaldo, which is where they do all their damage. Only plus points about this is that they are now basically out of the frame and we were unlikely to be interested in either of those players. Sign Torres, Malouda, Simao, Quaresma!

My lad says he's "Big, fast, scores goals and works hard" - sounds alright for the money.

I never saw one statement from him in the whole article!

Owen on one leg is worth more than £9M. Some of the stuff on here about him is scandalous and you should be bloody ashamed of yourselves - and you know who you are. Watch The Premiership years on Sky, he was genuine World class for us and the only question for me is over his recovery from the bad knee. Any decent fitness test and scan will detect any weakness remaining, Owen for £9M - say it again because its a sodding steal.

I think Tevez will go for under £20M, not much under admittedley, and Mancini will cost around £10m so that looks fine to me. I might have missed his statement on this? HK has been injured since we signed him, just missed a whole season and is likely to be a bit part player if we buy Malouda/Simao/A.N.Other, Gerrard is our captain and best player, recently courted by Chelsea and has signed a 4 year extension to his contract - your point is???

No way will we spend over £10M on a back up CB so it can't be Milito.

So for between £14M and £18M you can list better players than Torres? Go on then. He's worth around £20M and we should snap him up for that as well! Wherever he goes he will score plenty, mark my words.

I think the young Brazilian lad will be seen as his long term replacement - not in styles exactly but in the first team squad. If he goes to Barca who would we want apart from Eto'o or Ronnie? All their midfielders are tiny!

He was cr@p and directly influenced the outcome by awarding them a freekick that never was from which they scored the first goal!

I said that at the time He was brilliant last night, truly world class display of how to play that position and he can pass the ball as well.

Pennant did well I thought, final ball could have been better at times but he's a young lad playing in his first major final and I think he was nowhere near poor. He played well against Cole in the semi until he went off injured and he did well again tonight, how anyone can say Jankolowski(sp?) is a poor fullback is ridiculous as well, he didn't look poor against Ronaldo. How this thread even got started when Zenden and Kuyt were complete gash is beyond me, our right side is so much better than our left side its a joke. Pennant = scapegoat.