Zippy

A good book in full.

Great example as it shows how you can re-structure a whole attack with this kind of money if spent right. I'm hoping that IF he goes that we sign two very good pacy wide players with the money and then we would hopefully have an attack that whilst lacking the genius and star quality of Suarez would overall be much more effective.

Didn't say he was better but the Zidane money helped them buy Nedved, Thuram and Buffon and create arguably a better team.

Think the Nedved team won Serie A twice and got to another Champions League final in the years after Zidane had left.

You can improve if you replace a world class player with two or three very good ones. Obviously it depends on the fee you receive and how you spend it though. If we had spent the Torres money a lot better we could easily have been a much better team the season after he left. Sadly we squandered much of it.

True but the decline of those teams IMO is due to mistakes further down the line rather than anything to do with selling their best players.

and have become better afterwards. In an attempt to be positive in light of Suarez's likely departure I thought it would be good to try and think of some examples of teams that improved straight after selling their best player or one of their best players. These are from memory so please excuse any mistakes: Us after selling Keegan. Us after selling Rush. Everton after selling Lineker. Everton after selling Rooney. Arguably Juventus after selling Zidane. Valencia after selling Mendieta. Dortmund after selling firstly Sahin and secondly Kagawa (Obviously whether they were their best players is open to some debate). Sure there must be some others? (PS I recognise that almost all of those teams listed above were in a much stronger position in every way than ourselves but I am just trying to illustrate that hopefully if it does happen and we respond effectively we can still progress.)

Good thread - I think a good example of this is General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) from The Rock. I particularly like this as his cause is one which resonates with the people who are trying to stop him although they obviously disagree with how he is going about it.

Pearce has consistently said 20-25 mill plus sales. Hope that is just the figure they are putting out to try and keep prices down.

What a great interview that is - funny, honest, insightful - have still got the fanzine but had forgotten how good an interview it was.

Could be wrong but pretty sure that the board stopped Roy Evans buying Sheringham for exactly that reason.

Why would a brilliant one touch passer with a very high pass completion rate and a great engine be second to Carroll in vulnerability? Henderson's skillset is made for Rodgers' approach I would think.

Who would win out of Kenny's team towards the end of last season and this one? I reckon that team ( team not player for player) would have a very good chance against this seasons team.

I agree with what you say about it being a big rebuilding programme but it is extremely disappointing for me that we probably wont spend the same amount again as we have in the last 12 months and much of it was squandered. Due to the massive rebuilding job we needed to be very shrewd in the transfer market bringing in players of real quality and yet for the most part we have bought quite poorly. I think Rory Smith said it best on the Anfield Wrap saying something like "if you sign average players you get an average team".

Of course its hindsight - I am not a football expert paid millions to have foresight. All I am saying is the owners cannot take the blame for so many of our attacking signings looking to be poor or average signings.