DJS

No I'm not confusing anything. He IS one of our top players right now.

I get it entirely. You don't give it to all of them, obviously. There's a reason why the big clubs are likely to come in for Sterling. Sterling IS one of our top players.

So you don't think anyone else will pay him it then? We'll see.

As I said, it's the going rate. Would all those you've listed there command that kind of salary elsewhere? Doubtful. If/when Sterling goes, we'll most likely get the best part of £50m. Do you see that happening with the others? Coutinho is improving massively and will sooner or later probably want to be paid accordingly. When we say no, he'll leave too.

You're basically playing football manager. You can take a look at what's needed and then make a judgment on how much is required. Our net spend was £35m, the kind of amount (probably as a minimum) you'd need to try and replace Luis. Beyond that, we needed a sufficient amount to add squad depth. We spent that as a whole. You can clearly see we didn't replace Suarez and what it has cost us to have not done so. If the budget/amount that we spent was enough to replace Luis properly and also add depth, then his replacement would've had to be someone rubbish who doesn't even replace a fraction of what he gave us.......oh. As for being alright that we aren't one of those clubs who'd give Sterling the kind of wages he can command - that's fair enough but as a consequence, we're also one of the clubs who doesn't compete for league titles/top honours or get into the CL with any real consistency. The outcome is largely a consequence of the strategy. My argument is merely that we need to pay the going rates to compete. I'm not talking top earners here (those who get paid £250k-£300k wages), that would obviously be beyond our means. If £150k is beyond our means and would put the club in jeopardy, then either FSG are the wrong owners or we'll never compete regularly under their ownership. What with all these brilliant commercial deals we've secured. What else is the money for? FWIW, I don't think paying our top earning players £125-£150k a week would put the club in trouble. I'm not talking the whole squad or first XI here. I appreciate that it's a hard pill to swallow but it's what the top clubs are doing and will do. If you think we can't afford it then fair enough, I don't believe that's true. If we simply choose not to compete financially then we're accepting our position as also rans, which is a harder pill to swallow IMO.

Of course it's obscene, the whole of football is. But that's the reality of it, we either want to compete or we pack up. It's ridiculous but the going rate for a player like him isn't that far off the kind of figures touted. No chance whatsoever that his next club pays him less than £100k p/w and I'd be pretty confident that it'll most likely be something like £150k pw. That's the game we're in. I've no doubt others will pay him it. Spending more wisely is obviously great as a theory but I get the feeling you think £20m should buy us somebody top notch. Generally speaking, I don't think it does. And with the budget we had, it was a no win situation because the squad DID need to be strengthened. We needed depth, that's surely undisputable. What we also needed was the one top class player to fill the massive void Suarez left. We didn't get that. We got Balotelli for £16m, would we have gone for him if there was, say, £35m-£40m available for that signing?

Not just talking transfer budget, although in that example, I accept it was inferred. We're not willing to pay the kind of wages needed to usually get top/established players. Whether one thinks Sterling is worth £50k, £100k or £150k, his whole contract saga paints a picture of a club who are trying to do most things as cheaply as possible. Of course you keep costs down as much as you can, but if it gets detrimental to what you want to achieve, then something has gone wrong somewhere.

Whether or not money was spent wisely, the net spend wasn't enough. If you think 'net spend' is irrelevant, then there's little point in us even having a conversation. And therein lies our problem. You don't tend to get genuine quality players for £20m, unless they're players who have yet to reach their potential (may not) and/or they're not established, so you're taking a risk. You seem to think £20m-£25m is high-end. It's not, If the budget was nearer what it should've been, it helps bridge the gap between a £20m kid like Markovic and a £35m 'sure thing' like Sanchez.

I think Rodgers' hands are tied in terms of our transfer spending and wage structure. We spent £35m net last summer. Maybe £15m-£25m less than what was needed. Whether it's Klopp or Rodgers, we're going to keep finding it hard to sanction salaries of £150k or more for top quality players and we're still going to insist on virtually never signing established players, over young lads with potential. Any manager will find it hard under those circumstances.

Mourinho gets some players playing well. Other very good players, he has struggled to get a tune from. Mata, for example.

Sturridge was a one good game in 10 type, before he came to us and played for a manager who knew how to get more out of him. I wouldn't write Oscar off so easily.

It's a conservative/cynical estimate. I wouldn't expect the actual amount to be significantly higher. Maybe another £5m-£10m but I'd imagine anything more would need to come from sales. How much would you predict it to be? Just as a speculative guess. City obviously want Pep but I don't see it happening anytime soon. I don't think it'd be fair to sack Rodgers, he's made mistakes but his hands are tied. Any replacement will have the same constraints. No doubting Klopp's talent, I'd happily take him. Just don't think there'd be enough of an attraction to tempt him here above some other jobs.

Not sure why people are discussing Klopp in relation to us. With City & Madrid vacancies being imminent and the riches likely to be on offer, why would he come here? The £25m budget?

I agree that Bale isn't at the level of the other three but in fairness to him, he was consistently displaying the 'wow factor' during his run of single handedly winning Spurs game after game when he played over here.

Whoever set Suarez's release clause at a measly £75m wants sacking.... Elsewhere...why are Sky Sports advertising Man City v Sunderland on Sunday? It's City v West Ham.

There's generally a correlation between the two. Unless you think we can luck out with a Coutinho/Sturridge type of double signing for £20m every year. Fair point.

Defence is improving and goals from midfield has been better too. We haven't had anyone getting to double figures but all of Sterling, Coutinho, Gerrard, Henderson and Lallana have managed around 4, 5, 6 or more goals. Which is a good improvement. We're just missing the striker who gets 20 (or not even necessarily that many) goals.

You know what though Cam, I'd settle for just consistently qualifying for the CL for the next 2-3 seasons, to consolidate ourselves as a major player again. The consecutive years of revenue would put us in a good position to challenge seriously for titles going forward.

That's a key point too, any Suarez replacement didn't need to be anywhere near as good as him. That would've been next to impossible. But even just a 15 league goal striker would've most likely seen us getting top 4.

Like it or not Macca, it holds validity. You can't pride yourself at spending '£100m' when you had a £75m world class hole to fill, as a part of it.

If FSG went and got Lacazette this summer, that would shut me right up. Proper statement of intent, something which would make people sit up and take notice and, more importantly, a player who'd most likely make a massive difference. It wouldn't be radical, I don't think, to suggest that something like £30m ish would probably get him. So nothing that you'd call an 'obscene' fee. But I'd be staggered beyond any level of being staggered that I've ever experienced, if we got him. Yeah, fair enough.

Don't know about first or second option but I think we can do better than Ings/Milner as our 'main' signings. I'd be happy with those two if they were signed as squad players, along with a couple of proper first team quality players.

I think you might misunderstand me, I'm not saying FSG are s**** or anything, they're very well intentioned and want to win. I don't think they understand how football works sufficiently enough to do so and the lack of a high calibre football man running things as MD doesn't help bridge the gap. I'm not saying we can outspend City/Chelsea etc but I'm sure we can do better than a summer net of £30m and I'm sure most would agree that their policy of never signing established players and/or players of a certain extent, is naive at best. This is what I mean about them not knowing football well enough. You can have a mantra of wanting to sign mainly young & hungry players but not exclusively so. An average age of 24 isn't going to win you titles and that's just one basic fundamental which I dont think they grasp. We can't compete with the biggest spenders for £70m players on £250k per week but I'd like to think we can do better than having the likes of Milner (who I do rate btw) or Ings as our 'main' signings. Just like I think we could've had Sanchez if we'd gone a bit further but that's conjecture I suppose. All things combined though, all the little things they don't quite grasp, accumulate together to form the reason why the best we're likely to be is on the cusp, and no more. The fact is, whether we like it or not, we aren't going to seriously contest titles with any frequency, by relying on kids and mid-level, mid-range signings as our main targets/signings. Some will say wait until the summer window closes before judging but we've seen it all before and I'd love to be proved wrong but I expect it to be underwhelming yet again, as it was last summer, when we had the chance to get it right with CL football secured. And we didn't, You might disagree, but that's just my opinion. Would sincerely love for them to prove me wrong. Thing is though Leo, in terms of top four this season, despite having had such a s***e half of a season, we're not miles off it at all. I'm convinced that if we'd had Sturridge fit, we'd be there now easily. Or if we'd secured a proper top class replacement for Luis. It didn't have to be someone as good as him, just someone with quality, who we could consistently rely on to score goals for us and make the difference in games. Sturridge's injury situation isn't their fault at all but the latter could be partly levelled at them, to a point,

Not suggesting anything, just saying their level of contentment (or lack thereof) with our transfer activity doesn't seem to correlate with how they seem to feel about the ownership.

Does himself no favours with nonsense like that though. Defenders do wind you up Luis, that's part of the game, they wind up others too. The answer isn't to fecking well bite them. Ping in a hat trick, that tends to p*ss them off most.