spacemonkey

Couldn't find any mention in german news. Sounds made up to me.

Sport Bild saying that Can has asked for time to think it over. Apparently Bayern's agreement with Leverkusen is that they can buy him back next summer for just €5m and Völler has spoken to Rumnenigge about it and Rummenigge apparently wants him to stay at Leverkusen for another year. No mention of wage demands being a problem, sounds more like he's having to weigh up whether he waits for a possible move to Bayern next summer or goes to Liverpool this summer. Suppose a higher salary offer might help of course. Anyway, they're saying no decision expected from the player until mid-June.

He was asked, "Can you live with being no.3?" and responds, "No, I can't. I'm not going to be no. 3". The comments about the manager presumably not thinking he is good enough (in the context of him not having been picked for the City and Chelsea games) were, according to the article, said "with a smile on his lips". He is asked whether he will stay and he says it's entirely up to the coach. I'd say these comments are pretty simar to the sort of thing he's been saying in Danish interviews for years. He doesn't seem massively keen on giving interviews at the best of times and just seems to take the view that nothing is ever certain in football so if he is asked about his future his stock reply for a while seems to have been to say that he doesn't know or that it isn't up to him. He has been quoted before saying that he doesn't really enjoy watching football, just playing it, so wouldn't expect him to be happy sitting on the bench but don't think this is him agitating for a move either.

I make it a ca. 7.5% reduction in wage costs if you project the last year's 10 month figures up to 12 months. Could be wrong though.

Another cracker against Dortmund at the weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4q6kqRYQyM And here from his time at Karlsruhe. He was being linked with Arsenal and Liverpool recently but suspect that might just have been agent talk to help the new contract negotiations along.

If that's elsewhere on the pitch and he's just made a pass rather than got a shot off, I think the defender's getting a yellow. Weird one.

Net spend over past five years as of end of this last window according to transfermarkt: Man City: £395m Real Madrid: £325m Chelsea: £315m PSG: £295m (£284.5m over last 3 years alone) Bayern: £175m Barcelona: £170m Juventus: £170m Monaco: £155m (£140m this summer) Zenit: £140m Napoli: £105m Liverpool: £99.5m Dynamo Kyiv: £76m (£65m over last two years) Man Utd: £62.5m Dortmund: £1.5m Arsenal: -£1.5m Spurs: -£1.6m Lille: -£82m Valencia: -£92.5m Udinese: -£105m FC Porto: -£145m Without doing too much analysis, seems to me that anything too much over Bayern is unlikely to be in accordance with the spirit of FFP. Real Madrid could possibly outspend them fairly but not to the extent that they are and Man City, Chelsea, PSG and Monaco are just totally taking the piss. Can't see how Man City and Chelsea could be argued to be "making an effort" when they've averaged £55m and £66.5m per season respectively over the last three years and must both be paying out sky high wages too.

I won't even categorically rule out punishment that might hurt you but that would be an absolute last resort.

Not sure about top notch but Maxime Lestienne from Bruges seems a decent prospect and they just got dumped out of the Europa league. Only just turned 21, 17 goals and 13 assists in 38 domestic games last season. Plays mostly on the left wing but can certainly also do the Downing thing from the right (he's predominantly left-footed). Heavily linked with Schalke with a fee of 10m euros being quoted in the press over here. Perhaps he'd fancy teaming up with Mignolet instead.

Was just thinking myself that it looks like he's just posing for a laugh during the stadium tour. All contract signings are at the round table with Ayre now aren't they? Or has that gone the way of the medical photos?

So, who's the next target then? Lamela? And when that fails too? Lestienne? Ince?

Agree that last summer was a f*** up but if we'd bought Coutinho & Sturridge in the summer rather than January, they'd still have cost money, probably not less money either. As it is, we apparently spent in the region of £50m net last season. It's certainly crossed my mind that some of that might have been taken out of this summer's budget because that kind of spending doesn't seem sustainable for a club outside the CL. Not saying that there isn't still money to spend but maybe the additional funds from the new TV deal are already effectively spent for this season.

Well no, the figures are net so transfer fees received minus paid.

Transfers '09-'13 incl. this summer (according to transfermarkt - limited to teams that have been in the premiership throughout this period) Man City -£392,101,600 Chelsea -£288,591,600 Liverpool -£74,562,400 Stoke -£73,334,800 Tottenham -£44,140,800 Aston Villa -£39,089,600 Sunderland -£38,825,600 Man Utd -£33,985,600 Fulham £1,931,600 Everton £13,763,200 Arsenal £46,389,200 Our net spend alone would seem to put us comfortably in the CL places so not sure that's really our problem. Arsenal are consistently in the CL places and are absolute bottom of the league in terms of transfer spending.

Doing business early presumably also means managing to shift players early. Lots of talk of a big defensive signing but not sure that'll happen without Skrtel or Agger going. Downing must also be high on the list of priorities. Not to mention the smaller savings and transfer fees to be made off Coates, Spearing, Shelvey, Pacheco, Assaidi. The only departure really being talked about is Suarez to Real. Apart from that, either there isn't a lot happening yet or those involved are doing a better job of keeping quiet about it than with the incoming transfers.

What was our net spend for last season in the end? Was worried that Sturridge and Coutinho had been bought in the belief that we would be getting money thus summer for Carroll. Happy if that is not the case but thought we were at 16m after the summer, plus 20.5m for Coutinho and Sturridge. Saved a bit on wages with Cole of course and that is in general the hope, that enough is being saved on wages to allow a higher transfer spend to still be possible.

Carlos Zambrano of Frankfurt being linked again in the German press. Sevilla the other team mentioned. Neither in Europe and Frankfurt are. Has promise but not sure that he would be ready to start and yet why would he come just to sit on the bench. Seemed more the quiet type when I saw him for St. Pauli so another reason to doubt it.

Agree it's not just a personnel thing at the back. Not sure if it's Clarke we're missing or if it's also the protection from the rest of the team, bit of both probably. I remember looking at the teamsheet a couple of times this season and being worried about the ability to regain possession in midfield and in general protect the back four. It's been better with Gerrard, Lucas and Henderson in that middle three but drop any of those and it starts looking a bit lightweight. Not sure we should be settling for Hendo starting every game and can't expect Gerrard to either if not next year then the one after that when we're back in Europe (!). Would love to see Alonso back for starters but probably not realistic.

Bit surprised at the focus on more attacking players for next season really. We have scored loads and only added Phil and Sturridge in January so you have to fancy our chances of matching or improving on our attacking performance over the season next year. Sure, Downing isn't the best we can do but we also have Assaidi not getting minutes and Sterling to return and mature, hopefully, so hard to see how any new player up front would be brought in without someone else leaving first (on top of Carroll). Meanwhile, we're one goal conceded short of our worst defensive total since 1998-99 and are about to lose Carra. Think we probably need 2 centre backs, a left back and another centre midfielder so that we aren't quite so reliant on Lucas playing every game. Another window like the last one would be handy.

Stevie coming on yesterday helped firstly because he's a fantastic leader by example but also just because it added an extra body in midfield. Brendan might not have needed to resort to bringing Stevie on if he'd started with Lucas or Shelvey, even Coady, rather than one of the four forwards. Bizarre selection, particularly against a side that was, as could reasonably have been expected, repeatedly pushing the limits of the rules on the physical side. Freak results happen of course but they made us look ordinary for much of the match and even resting Gerrard and Agger, our squad isn't that poor that the manager couldn't have found an eleven that would have beaten Oldham. Do agree though that for the league we're very much reliant on Gerrard staying fit in terms of the more physical, high energy aspect. Momo on loan until the summer perhaps.

We've lost Kuyt, Bellamy and Maxi and they chipped in with 12 league goals of 47. We probably need to be scoring 20 more goals next season to challenge for 4th so while the midfield definitely looks like it's being upgraded this summer, I hope we'll manage to add another player or two to finish the chances created or it'll risk looking pretty but ultimately achieving little.

No idea how reliable they are, thought it was just a trashy tabloid. Looking at their site now, they have an article from this morning stating that Liverpool have turned down a bid and that it looks like Agger is staying. The whole article just refers to reports in the British media, don't see anything to indicate that they have any kind of inside track.

So far then we've sold players for roughly 6.5m (Kuyt 1m, Aquilani 5.5m) and bought Borini for 11m so 4.5m net. On the wages side, even with the contribution to Aquilani's wages continuing for a bit yet, we must have cut the payroll by something like 11m (close to 10m on Kuyt, Aurelio and Maxi, plus another 2.5m or so for Aquilani, less the 1.5m or so we're supposed to be spending on Borini). That seems to put us roughly 6-7m ahead of where we were at the beginning of the summer. When Rodgers talks of it maybe taking one or two deals to spark everything off, I imagine he's probably talking about one or two sales to free up additional funds to bring in genuine first team improvements for center mid and the front three. The club clearly believes in FFP and in view of the owners not being in the same league as Chelsea's or Man City's, I just have to hope it ends up being properly enforced and that we're now going to do a better job than in the recent past of spending the funds generated by sales and the seemingly pretty decent commercial deals. No point not having the interest payments weighing us down anymore if we don't then spend the money that's been freed up effectively.

Unless the point here is just that they can't afford to pay the transfer fee this summer but could do next summer with a season back in the premier league behind them and increased TV money ahead of them.

Just brought up that site fine and it still had the Dempsey coming soon thing but it's just a retailer in Boston that also sells Chelsea and Real Madrid gear - they've probably just fallen for yesterday's NESN story rather than them having the inside track on our transfer activity.