Originally Posted by igor biscan
i have to laugh when i see some of the figures being thrown around on this board...there's no way in hell rafa will be given more than ~£25-£35M to spend this summer...you have to remember, he just spent £18.5M on mascherano and £6.5 on srktel this january...you can make the case that perhaps the skrtel money was already earmaked for heinze last last season, and that the mascherano fee includes wages, but regardless, it's money that has been spent that we won't have to spend this summer. i think both were fine purchases, btw, but given our current cashflow situation, it has to be taken into consideration.
anyways, my point is that you can figure out how much rafa will have to spend based on how much he can sell his squad players for...it's pretty safe to assume the likes of carson (£6M), riise (£4M), finnan (£2M) and crouch (£10M) are goners (total = £22M)...the variable is alonso (£15M)...the fact that we bid for barry makes me think he's a goner...let's assume that he is, and that once we pay off some of these players we're letting go, we have £35M to work with.
right away, £10-12M is gone on barry to take over xabi's role...we're left with about £25M to play with. insua should be able to take over for riise (plus aurelio, arbeloa, and barry can play there as well). carson was on loan, so he doesn't need to be replaced. so now it becomes a matter of replacing crouch, finnan, and probably signing another attacking midfielder. i would argue that a combination of babel, kuyt and nemeth could fill in for crouch, given his limited starts and the one striker system we favour. i would go for broke at this point, and put in a £25M bid on alves. he's a fullback and winger rolled in one, he's absolutely world class, and we know rafa has been obsessed with him for years. i think he's tailor made for this formation as well. we wouldn't be breaking our budget, and we'd be reasonably well covered at all positions.
GOALKEEPERS: reina, itandje
DEFENDERS: alves, arbeloa, carragher, agger, skrtel, hyypia, aurelio, insua
MIDFIELDERS: gerrard, mascherano, barry, lucas, benayoun, pennant, leto, plessis
STRIKERS: torres, babel, kuyt, nemeth
i'd be happy with that squad going into next year...i was very impressed with what i saw from the team in the latter half of the season.
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