Stoney79

Cheers for the info Quaresma. Still not sure whether to believe it but I guess we'll find out soon............

If Babel had come through the youth ranks we would probably be willing to give him another year. His attitude seemed to be improving towards the end of last season and if no-one is willing to pay a decent fee for him then it may be best to keep him. If someone does come in with a big bid though I think we should sell or use him in exchange for someone else.

Quaresma fella do you know much about the young lad Castaignos and is there any chance he'll choose us over Arsenal? I thought he was brilliant in the euro u17 tournament. One of the best young players I've ever seen. Love your description of Vincken's work rate. :whatever:

MARCA are reporting Ronaldo to Real is a done deal for €96m. Someone on .tv forum who claims to be a spaniard living in Barcelona working for MARCA (sounds crazy but I actually 95% believe him) backs it up and says it will be announced before the end of the month. That will give us a big advantage imo. As much as I hate him I don't think they can replace him and his goals even with €96m.

FootyLatest.com today had quotes from his agent saying that he's probably joining Arsenal or staying at Feyernoord. We weren't mentioned.

That's an old report from Goal and I think it was nonesense. Keirrison's agent was saying a few days ago that Juve are the club showing the most interest in signing him this summer.

If Alonso did leave who would we replace him with? We've missed Barry, Martinez has said he doesn't want to leave Bilbao, de Rossi won't leave Roma and Pirlo is too old. I think I would go for the Brazilian Hernanes. Anyone else got any ideas?

Why does a player's transfer value decrease if he hands in a transfer request? I always thought the transfer value stayed the same but the selling club received more as they don't have to pay the player the remainder of his contract as he has broken it. Am I wrong?

On skysports.com there is an article saying Valencia have decided that they are only going to sell Villa and they are going to keep Silva. They were quoting an AS article. Get Turan signed now!!!!

Arsenal look set to beat Liverpool to Feyenoord starlet | Footylatest.com Looks like Luc Castiagnos might be joining Arsenal. That's disappointing if true as he was excellent in the recent euro u17 tournament. Going by what his agent said we may not even be interested.

I might even take him ahead of Silva for €9m, although I think he'd cost closer to €12-15m. Perhaps we could give them babel in exchange now that Rijkard is manager. Hope we get a yes/no from Silva soon as players like Turan will be snapped up pretty quickly. Spurs are apparently interested.

Goal.com have got quotes of Mascherano's agent saying that he couldn't turn down Barca if they bid for him. I felt sick and angry reading it. Hope neither him nor Alonso goes. They are one of the best CM partnerships in the world.

True. Rafa may just be trying to put man city off the scent. If Rafa says no then Hughes will probably copy. Also, if Rafa told the English media why aren't they reporting it? Hopefully it will mean his agent finally shuts up.

Goal.com are also saying that the Italian media are quoting Rafa saying he's not intersted in Lavezzi and he wants the rumours to stop.

There's an article on SoloNapoli and I think it might be saying Rafa isn't interested but I can't get it to translate. Perhaps someone else will have a go. Cheers.

Have not played a football manager game for about 15 years but saw quite a bit of Castiagnos in the recent u17 euro championships and he was very impressive. Going by those games (which is slightly limited) he's got more to offer than either Nemeth or LDV in my opinion. Basically what I was saying is if we can't sign the top players we need to improve our squad then we may as well buy some quality youngsters who could potentially become top class rather than average players like downing, o'neil, bent, etc.

Wouldn't mind if Lavezzi was our only major signing plus a collection of youngsters like Adam Johnson, Kyle Naughton, Luc Castiagnos, Oscar Sielva, Fabian Delph, Zezinho, etc. If we can't afford the best established players this summer we may as well try to sign the best youngsters.

In today's Gazzetta dello Sport Lavezzi's agent is talking about our bid for him. It talks about it on IMScouting - Every player, anywhere | e-Scouting for professionals | Professionals Player information and sounds it could genuine. Sorry can't post link as on iPhone, perhaps someone will do the honours.

Wouldn't be surprised if Man City made a move for Glen Johnson. Daily Mail seem to think Micah Richards is up for sale for as little as £6m. I don't really like Richards but for £6m he'd provide great cover at CB/RB. Doubt if he'd be that cheap though. Anyone heard anything about Keirison? I still think we might be interested in him.

We've also been linked with Pandev the Lazio forward/winger. From what I've heard he's a decent player but prehaps not good enough for us.

He was poor in the UEFA cup final but he's had a good season in general. I also quite like the look of di Maria. Basically if we do miss out on Silva there are plenty of other options out there. The Napoli owner also seems to think that Lavezzi has agreed to stay.

Squad player at most. He can't even get in the boro team and Riera is probably better than him at the moment. However, he is very gifted and potentially a very good player. He's quick and skillfull and a bit like Duff when he was on form. If we sign a new first choice left winger, eg Silva, I'd be tempted to trade in Riera for Johnson. Within 12-18 months I think he'd be better than Riera, he's English and would probably be more content with being a squad player than Riera. Wouldn't be surprised if Sunderland we're in for him though as he's a mackem.

Anyone seen much of Santi Cazorla of Villareal? From what I've seen he might be a good alternative to Silva. There's also Sneijder, Rakitic and Mesut Ozil who are similarish. Would any of the above be a good alternative to Silva?

That "financial expert" on SSN who I think is called Tom Cannon was speaking about our debt this morning. He said we may not have much to spend in the transfer market this summer but intimated that we've already signed a defender from Portsmouth for £2m. Not sure if he got his words wrong or would he have inside knowledge?

Daily Mail seem to think there's been some takeover discussions with representatives from Indian based GMR infrastrucutre company who also run IPL team Delhi Daredevils. Think we've heard about this lot before. Probably shite but there may be something in it.