spacemonkey

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.

Have to agree that his record at Spurs and Chelsea didn't live up to his PSV days but Hamburg started a pretty serious savings drive immediately when he arrived. Net transfer profit of about 6.5m euros and a reduction of the wage bill by more than 20% in one transfer window. They're still losing money so it's being further reduced this summer. Interesting to see a club with an average attendance considerably higher than ours (and some of the most expensive tickets in the Bundesliga) struggling financially even with a wage bill that's maybe 40-45% of ours.

Did get 6 assists from wide midfield (mostly right side) in the first half of the season though (16 games played) - think that was the league's best at the time. Then missed a couple of months with injury and didn't find his form again after that. There's talent there, though not the hardest trainer and would need to adapt somewhat with regard to pressing. Hamburg seem to be continuing their approach of selling anyone who'll get them a bit of money in so he's bound to leave during the summer. Could be worth a punt at £4m. As an aside, it sounds like Arnesen could be getting frustrated with the total lack of funds in Hamburg (was quoted in connection with their main scouts, including his son, leaving for Man City recently - perhaps to replace the guys coming to us - saying that he couldn't blame them for leaving as they'd been finding good talent but the club wasn't in a financial position to act on their recommendations which was disappointing given what they'd been promised when they all moved from Chelsea last summer). Anyway, I remember someone close to Rodgers suggesting that if he'd been asked the DoF question about Arnesen, the response would have been very different. Maybe one to watch.

If he can improve his movement, he could potentially score 20. He's certainly a physical presence and is pretty good at getting shots on target when he gets himself in the position to shoot. He just doesn't manage to do that often enough for me.

Broughton stated clearly at the time that NESV weren't promising a new stadium didn't he? I think they were making the decision more on the basis of leverage (or lack thereof) and how confident they were that the prospective buyer would genuinely remove the debt burden. There too, I seem to recall Broughton saying there could be no absolute guarantee but it was felt that their track record was a strong indication that they would stick to their word. They have. Have to agree with NYR - who are these other owners that would have been so much better? Grass is always greener on the other side, but you still have to mow it.

A year ago, Charlie Adam had a virtually identical scoring rate in the Premiership to Sigurdsson now, albeit across a full season rather than just 6 months. Also a Man Utd fan, also playing in midfield for a newly promoted team. On that occasion, the rumoured interest by Man Utd and the resistance by Blackpool seemed to result in our fans reacting more positively when the transfer was finally completed than they might have otherwise. If Sigurdsson comes, great. If not, hopefully we find someone else who has more of an impact than an Adam.

Van der Vaart doesn't exactly seem to be discouraging interest from Hamburg and while it'd be a struggle for them to afford him, I wouldn't be surprised if neither Modric nor Van der Vaart were still at Spurs come the start of the season. Can certainly see why they'd be looking to add goals to their squad just like us.

With regard to stadium capacity having a dramatic impact on finances, there's talk in Germany now of removing the standing areas after the disruption surrounding the play-off game at Dusseldorf' (against Hertha Berlin). The general consensus is that it won't have much financial impact on the clubs if it happens as although the capacity of the current standing areas would be halved, the ticket prices for the seats would be double. There's maybe an emotional desire to provide as many fans as possible with the opportunity to watch the game, including those who can only afford to go currently because of the cheap cost of standing, but as over here it's ultimately just as important to look at how much the club makes off every ticket. Hopefully there's still a way to increase capacity at Anfield, if only to further increase the aura of playing for Liverpool. I reckon stadium capacity has played its part in attracting emerging talents to Newcastle who wouldn't have considered it otherwise. That and good scouting of course.