alias75

Tom Ince off to Fulham for £250k

If its that much then it clearly comes under the bracket of being over market value. As someone else said this is Man City we're talking about not a really big club, If we're also looking at naming rights then UEFA will have another example to compare their deal with and see what the true market value is. If its around £100 million over 10 years thats probably close enough but that alone won't stop them breaking the rules, their wage bill compared to their income is massively out of whack.

He has to say that because hes so unpopular with the Villa fans, it boils down to whether he wants to keep a player that wants to leave and how far Downing's prepared to push for a move.

was a really interesting guy on talksport yesterday talking about pre-season training and how outdated we are in the UK. He talked about how football is a short burst game yet still teams slog their players in pre-season and get them running loads. It was good to see in that footage a lot of short sharp work and lots of stuff with the ball too. Of course players need to be physically fit but being match sharp over those short distances is much more important. Most runs in a game are over very short distances so that's the type of training that is beneficial.

Dann's pretty good in possession and a solid defender, defending often comes down to organisation and Clarke definitely had us defending better last season, the players we already have are good enough if we're organised properly and know what we're doing. It also helps that under Kenny we've been taking the game to opponents more so we're inviting less pressure onto us.

Insua suffered because of the injuries to Aurellio and he had to play every week when he wasn't ready. Before then he looked good but he didn't play every week, maybe his last season here proved he's not good enough for us, maybe it proved he needs time to develop into a player that can play at a high level week in week out. But ive spoken to a few football people that say Robinson is the real deal and is in the top 1 or 2 prospects we have in terms of having a career in the 1st team, so we have to be careful not to block his way.

lets not forget that GJ played pretty well from left back and Jack Robinson is probably one of he best if not the best young players we have, we don't want to block his route into the first team. When you look at the signings that RH made he really couldn't have done a much worse job if he was trying to stitch us up. Signing players like Konchesky, Jones, Poulson on long term contracts was just lunacy.

thats true we haven't signed a midfielder for a good 15min!!

I don't think £20 million is a million miles off a fair value anyway when you see what Young went for and he was in the last year of his contract. It might be 1-2 million more than we'd like but if hes the player we want we should pay it.

You pay more cos Downing is proven in this league over a number of seasons. Plus of course Villa don't have to sell him and given the managerial situation they have to be seen to be trying to keep him because he's already very unpopular.

theres no way chelsea or man city can stay within the new rules, their wages compared to their incomes are massive.

Think we might even see Gerrard in the Meireles position right side but tucked in a bit especially if we sign Adam cos Lucas has to be in there for his defensive skills and covering, and given the quality of Gerrard's crossing from the right it would be great for Carroll too. I agree that Henderson will play in that right side position more than centrally initially. I think part of the reason Spearing was given a new contract was to protect his re-sale value.

I noticed him when he played for Hull in the PL 2 years ago, looked a quality player. Not sure how he went last season in the championship, another central midfielder though so a little confusing.

Would like to see Sterling play on the right a bit more, i know he switches a bit when he plays for the U18's but when he's on the left its easier for him to be double teamed, although hes very good at cutting inside and getting a shot off as we saw many times for the U18's last season and England yesterday. Physical advantage always has to be taken into account at this age as it can make a huge difference, it was quite telling in the youth cup game against Man Utd and when the U18's played Everton that physically they were bigger and stronger than us. But i see that as a positive, these kids are still competing despite not being developed physically, that will come with time but its much more difficult to improve those technical aspects of a player, and in those games despite being physically smaller i thought our players were technically better which is much more important. Morgan looked really good when he came on, he could have scored a couple with chances he created for himself and he created a great chance in the last minute that should have been taken.

morgan was excellent in the 10min he was on, playing wide left too...

is Sterling a year younger than most of these guys?? i think the age usually starts from when qualifying starts so im guessing most of these are closer to 18 than 17.

Smith and Sterling start for the U17's against Argentina kicking off soon i think....

Think if we'd have sold Ngog we might have gone the extra mile for Wickham, much like the statement about getting £15 million plus Carroll for Torres.

Think thats a good point, whatever we think about the fee for Henderson he has had 2 seasons in the PL so our scouts have been able to watch him at the top level and they've been able to make their judgements based on that. With someone like Wickham you have to base your judgements on how he's done in the Championship which is a pretty big step below the PL. He's not exactly been prolific at that level so when your talking about £8 million up front and £13million in total its a lot of money for someone that is a complete unknown at this level.

If we sign the right players elsewhere Kuyt is like having a new striker and we all saw what he can offer there towards the end of last season, Wickham would have been a good signing but for the money he's still very raw and unproven at the top level, whatever we think about the fee for Henderson at least he has 2 seasons behind him in the PL, so we've seen what he can do at this level. I think we'll end up getting someone like Roux as a backup striker, we have Carroll, Suarez and Kuyt so realistically unless we sign someone world class whoever we get is going to be on the bench most of the time, for that type of striker you're probably better off signing someone that's quick who can make an impact when players are tiring, rather than someone like Wickham, we already have Carroll that offers what he can and age wise there's not a lot of difference between them. Think we all need to relax a bit, Adam will happen and Downing is very likely, if we can add a left back and maybe 1 more attacking player we're in much better shape than we were last season. Lets not forget how we finished the season minus Gerrard and also Carroll for lots of games. Without Europe this season we can probably operate with a smaller squad and i do agree with a previous poster that said if we can get our strongest 11 on the pitch for most PL games next season we already have a very strong team without signing anyone, what we need to do is improve the quality in the depth of the squad but without european football next year if we get 3 or 4 players we'll be in pretty good shape with a solid core of 16-17 players plus some very good young players coming through.

he won't start 15-20 games here though. It'll be 20min cameo's usually out of position and the odd Carling or FA Cup game. Not sure how that helps his development.

Hows he going to get into our team?? If its going to be more 20min cameos out of position i wonder how that will help his development. He needs to be playing 90min week in week out in centre midfield and thats not going to happen next season. I agree it would be better if he stayed in the PL but is it better for the type of player he is to be playing in a struggling PL team or in a team that sets up to play good attacking football and should be challenging for promotion? We've seen it before with our young players on loan, the last thing we need is to loan him to a lower level PL team and then find him on the bench cos they can't afford the luxury of the type of midfielder he is.

Think Beckham went out on loan, Terry also, i said it on here last month i think it would be best for Shelvey to get a full season on loan, even though he figured regularly for us it was usually 20 min cameo's and usually out of position. He needs experience playing central midfield and playing week in week out, he's not going to get that here.

Yeah i agree in terms of quality delivery from the right id much rather have Gerrard out there or even Henderson. Also Kelly and GJ can probably deliver a better ball than Lennon.

Not saying we should sign him just that i understand why coaches might go for him, he already does a lot of things well that suit the league if you can improve his final ball you have potentially a top player. Just think its paper talk anyway, think Spurs will be looking for a fee we wouldn't pay. But if he is gettable on the cheap then maybe we'd take a gamble.