BigWalrus

The list of transfer spends needs to be used very carefully. It doesn't include wages for a start, which are a huge, huge part of the cost nowadays. For instance, Man Utd's spend looks quite modest, but when you consider they spend £12m a year just on paying Wayne Rooney, the figures quickly start to shift. Conversely, for all of Sunderland's £50m+, they don't have any players earning silly money. Everton, too, have not really made any big signings - but they have ploughed a small fortune into tying up their players on fairly lucrative long term contracts, so they've invested in other ways. A "net spend" on transfers is practically impossible to draw any decent conclusions from. The only definitive thing you could say here is that Man City and Chelsea have spent a ridiculous amount, but then we all knew that already.

What has Blair done to offend you, specifically?

Nice of him to include an entire line of text without mentioning his beloved Liverpool: "Newcastle looked a very good side in their win at West Brom. They picked the Baggies off easily and I was very impressed." Tosser.

Lawrenson has posted his usual shite: If you took the Carling Cup out of Liverpool's results in 2012, then they are very average to say the least. Their league form has been extremely poor and in the last three games, defensively, they have not been very good. They are clearly missing Daniel Agger's presence at the back. Generally, the Reds create lots of chances whoever they are playing. That is still the case, apart from in last week's defeat by Wigan, but I think they will probably go to Newcastle and play a little bit tighter than usual because they need to stop the rot. Newcastle looked a very good side in their win at West Brom. They picked the Baggies off easily and I was very impressed. In the summer, the Magpies will be able to look back at this season with some satisfaction, but I'm not sure Liverpool can do the same. One of the problems for the Reds lies with some of their signings in the last 18 months. Has Jose Enrique improved them? Yes. Have Craig Bellamy and Luis Suarez? Of course they have. But have Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam done the same? I would say that, at the moment, probably not. At the end of the season you can evaluate what your players have done for you over the course of the campaign. Who has had a good season, and who hasn't. Downing did well in the Carling Cup final but that was against a Championship team and he is yet to score a Premier League goal for Liverpool, which I find amazing. In terms of goals, players like him, Adam (two league goals) and Henderson (one) should be chipping in to compliment Luis Suarez and Craig Bellamy's output and, along with Carroll (three), I think they should have 30 league goals between them by now. Those goals would make a massive difference. The total for me from those sort of players in a good team is 30. Even when you count Steven Gerrard [five] and Dirk Kuyt [two], they don't make it halfway to that amount, which is quite conservative. The midfield players should have five each, and Carroll should be on at least 10. Therein lies the story of Liverpool's season. They have started to get more men forward since Jay Spearing has come in, allowing Steven Gerrard to join the attack but as can be seen from their goal tallies, Henderson and Downing just don't get into the box. It is not like those two are missing loads of chances every week. Maybe the best thing Liverpool can do is give former Newcastle striker Andy Carroll a start against his old club. Carroll has only started 21 of Liverpool's games this season but, when he has done, they have a 62% win percentage compared to a 38% win percentage without him. Prediction: 1-1

Haha, go on... Chelsea winning the Champions League and NUFC finishing 4th (Europa League) 5th would not apply for Europa if Chelsea finished in 6th, won the Champions League and Everton won the FA Cup.

It's very much worse than Blair.

You've written on the RAWK site, you got a very hostile reception on here. The only person you had any crossed words with was Danny B who's a Tottenham fan. So what specifically did you mean by that? Victim mentality! Something's gone wrong in the world if the scousers aren't feeling hard done to!

Wigan away usually sells quite well and I imagine it will again this time as it's Saturday 3pm and not a million miles away. Probably will be a few left for members though

Carroll got quite a bit of abuse at Anfield (mostly relating to Steven Taylor shagging his girlfriend). Personally I have nowt against him. I would love to see him cheered massively, then he demands to be substituted and climbs into the Gallowgate End to watch the match

They could always scrap the minute's silence / applause, and just have a limited edition Thatcher football. That way we can have 90 minutes of watching her face get kicked in.

Aye - I think we had several centre backs on our radar, but couldn't tie up the final details. We have developed a reputation as a club that doesn't pay over the odds for a player - in transfer fees or wages. We also seem to be signing players who not only seem like decent blokes but seem to want to come to us. The days of convincing Albert Luque to sign for us by doubling the wage offer (after he openly admitted he wasn't really arsed about coming here) are thankfully over. I too would have loved another centre back - but it has to be a decent one. Which decent centre back would have signed for us, knowing full well that when Steven Taylor returns, they'll be sat on the bench with Williamson? Buying an unproven youngster can backfire massively, as we end up giving them too much responsibility too soon. As for Samba - the fee might have been £12m, but the wages are more than triple what our highest earner at the club is on. It was a non starter as soon as we have a mega rich outfit like Anzhi Makhachkala (is that how you spell it?) involved.

Ba hasn't been poor at all. He was all over the pitch against Norwich and caused them all sort of problems in the first half. Similarly in the game at West Brom. It's not all about scoring goals.

Europe is overrated anyway. A mackem told me.

If Simpson plays at centre back, kittens will die instantly all around the world. It's equivalent to me using a sponge to mow the lawn.

If Cisse scores twice, and Suarez doesn't Cisse will have matched Suarez's league haul too.

Stamps always seemed to be really expensive abroad, but cheap here. I still think, all things considered, 60p to send a letter to the other end of the country in a day, is decent value. It probably should have gone up gradually over the years, but as has been said already above, they were restricted in how quickly they could increase the price, so have had to whack it all on in one massive lump.

Have you heard James McClean try to speak? He is perfectly at home in Sunderland, where at least O'Neill can translate. He's a good player though, one footed or otherwise.

Possibly irrelevant, but I had a dream about 3 weeks ago that we'd be 3-1 up with 5 minutes left, and Perch would score a 35 yard screamer. Just putting that out there.

Perch looked shite away at Norwich because he was alongside Danny Simpson. Two short-arse players as centre backs. One lacking in confidence (Perch) and the other not even aware he is on a football pitch. Perch can do a very decent job in a sweeper role - it's pretty much what he does when he plays in the middle of the park. Williamson can deal with the aerial stuff against Carroll. Bellamy will no doubt be a pain in the arse if he plays (many seem to think he's injured). We'll just have to hope we can score more than them!

There's no impact until 2014/15, in terms of disqualification, is there?

I know some Liverpool fans who are a great laugh and love their club to bits. But even they admit that a club with such an international following as Liverpool tends to attracts a lot of pricks.

If Chelsea win the Champions League, but finish 6th in the Premiership, and Everton win the cup, we'd need to finish 4th to qualify for the Europa League. CL places to top 3 plus Chelsea Europa League places to Everton and Liverpool for winning the two cups. Europa place to 4th place in the league. 5th may not be good enough, although that's quite an unlikely scenario.

Are you arguing against yourself? Let's take Liverpool as an example. £150m spent, yet they're below us and are building their team around an ageing captain with dodgy groins and hamstrings. Would you like us to follow their approach?

The potential 11 point gap would have been unthinkable at the start of the season. My target for us at the start was to finish at the top of the also-rans. I wasn't sure whether to include Liverpool in the also-ran category, as they were spending ridiculous sums. But to be 11 points clear of the also-rans would be brilliant. Any further up the table and we're in dreamland.

The income tax / pensioner argument has absolutely nothing to do with the football industry! Usually, rich people invest in companies because they want to make money out of them. Rich people don't like to waste money. And eventually, they'll want to make money from football. Spending £250k a week on the wages of one player and failing to win a single trophy (just like Man City may manage this season) looks like a waste of money to me, and the rich Arabs will take their toys home. Like I explained above, the cash hasn't been withheld - 75% of the Carroll sale and associated saving in wages has gone on paying for Ba and Cisse and associated wages. How can you disagree with logic?