David Kelly

Genuine strength in depth? We have Tiote, Sissoko and Colback who are premierleague quality players and more often than not have had to play one (or more) of Jonas, Abeid or Anita. That's not strength in depth in my book.

He's not that good a player though that's how he's avoided all the hype. It became obvious as soon as he arrived here he was never going to set the world alight. Consumate professional though so fair play to him for that but he comes accross as a bit of a boring twat.

I still don't believe Ashleys interested in any of that. It's all about Sports Direct for him.

The argument is that they want to get a great deal on every signing they make. Of course this is impossible when you ignore the needs of the team. We might be able to hang on and get someone cheap but chances are it'll end up not being the player we need so they won't perform well so it won't even be a good deal when we sell him because other teams will have seen how he's performed.

Watched the first one the other night and enjoyed it. Not at all like your usual tv show. I'll watch the second ep over the weekend.

At least we got the confirmation of the coaches from it. Nothing they say matters at all until the sign some players. This may well be just the start of an improved level of communication with the fans but no one (other than CT) will take it remotely serious until we see action on the transfer front. No one cares how difficult it actually is to sign players when they see pretty much every other club managing it and they see the squad (minus the player who saved us on the last day (and Raylor)) who almost got us relegated. Trust has to be earned and Ashley and co have no credit at the moment.

I can't believe anyone would refer to our attacking players as a strike force!

Make the fullback a backup for Janmaat and turn the other one into a winger and I think you're about there,it would be closer to £80m but there's no way we'll spend that and the increased wages.

Well we can agree to disagree on that point. I'm sure we both doubt that whatever we have put aside or get in will actually be enough to get all our targets or that what we have targed enough to turn us into a good team.

That gets mentioned every time esembe or mako posts doesn't it.

I thought there'd been a post quota that we had to fill that I'd not been told about.

No I never meant that what we get or don't get from a sale impacts on what we're willing to pay, it only impacts on what we can pay. If we don't sell Cisse it doesn't mean our valuation of Austin (for example) changes, it only means we no longer have enough in the budget to bid for him.

Of course which means you drop down to the reduced budget you have without their sale. My whole point is that we have a certain amount to spend without any additional sales. We will then try to sell players on top of that and use some of the proceeds to supliment the budget. If we don't sell or don't get as much as we think we will for those players then the budget doesn't get suplimented.

The first season of True Detective was right up there with the Wire and GOT as my favourite TV. The second season so far has been good but a slower burn and a bit confusing at times. The ending last night was good though.

We've been spending the Carroll money ever since! As I said earlier though he wasn't a sale we were looking to make, he was also on the last day of the january transfer window when we were comfortable in the league. As was Cabaye. We sold Debuchy then brought in Janmaat and other players last summer. We all know we don't want to do our business in January and instead prefer a planned summer window. As part of that I think we'll be including the sales that we expect to make.

In which case we done sell and therefore don't get any money in and the budget is again smaller. Either way selling a play impacts on buying others.

I'm not saying that getting a load of extra cash we weren't expecting will mean our budget will increase by the same amount. I'm saying our budget will be based upon what we have already and what we expect to get in on top of that from sales we are trying to do. I believe Cisse is a sale we're trying to push through so whatever money we are expecting to get from him will form part of the budget we've already set. If we get less than what we expect there's less to go into that budget. We'd then have to either supplement what's left from somewhere else or we'll spend less.

So we shouldn't bid for anyone until they no longer have any options then maybe we can put in an offer? That must be how Bournmouth have signed players already is it?

Is your point now that players will sign for bigger clubs than us early but we've not won the league since Noelie was knee high to a grasshopper and aren't in Europe so we should expect to have to wait til August to sign someone?

Of course they're happy enough selling anyone if a good bid comes in. My point was more that they are most likely actively trying to get shot of cisse now. There's a difference between dealing with a bid that comes in an encouraging one. And I'm not talking about Pardew's efforts to encourage bids, I mean speaking to agents/clubs to let them know he's available. Fair enough with the valuation bit but whatever their valuation is they will be factoring getting that much into whatever budget they are working on for buying players (they will also factor in his wages no longer having to be paid). If we don't sell him or get less than what they are expecting we will spend the corresponding amount less.

On that we all agree.

I disagree tbh. I know they like to think of themselves as difficult sellers but that's when it's someone coming in for the likes of Carroll and Cabaye who they were happy to hang on to (mind you I think JFK fucked up somewhat with the Cabaye sale and paid the price with his job). I think they'll be more than happy to get Cisse off the payrol at this stage of his career and his fitness problems the last two seasons. I doubt we'll get £10m for Cisse.

But if we are looking to sell Cisse for example, and our asking price is £10m but we can only get £5m, do you not think that will reduce our budget for incoming players? I'm quite certain that what have to spend is partially dependant on what we can bring in. I agree that we won't suddenly increase our value of a player we're trying to buy because we have a bit more money, they're obsessed with value for money. But having less clearly means spending less.

Really? You don't think that if we can't get what we want for a player that doesn't impact on what we can spend on someone else? I also think they won't want to be paying wages for what they see as too big a squad (even if that squad is totally lacking in quality).

We're currently among the favourites for relegation and with the current squad you can easily understand why. When you're in as much need of new blood as we are then there is no excuse for not bringing players in by now. Chances are most if not all of the new arrivals will come from abroad so it would make sense to most people to not only get them in for the start of pre season but actually before that so they can get themselves and any family moved over and all settled so that they can concentrate on football. But as always our main consideration is clearly not football. Anyone who believed Ashley really does want their head examining.