Cant really see Schurrle sold for 25m when Isco and prolly bunch of others in Spain have lower RCs

Any chance Lampard goes somewhere in the PL?

Arry was attending Marseille cup game yesterday for Remy,from what i've read Remy do not want

Italian media saying we have bid 10m euro for Countinho.

Southampton linked w him too I think

i mean it'd be awesome, but £10mill+ would be so much better improving our back 5

Yeah, seen that as well.

Coutinho is pretty great in fifa tho!

Do you guys have a set budget?

David Sullivan must have given Nigel Adkins some tips on squad building.

That would be really desperate of Inter but of course they do seem pretty desperate these days.

Very short-sighted though. Coutinho is still a pretty good bet to become a star and somewhat of a Brazil regular down the line I think. He is still only 20! At the very least, say a Ben-Arfa with an actual brain. He was really good on loan in Spain last season and that seems a much better destination-path for him (and his development as well) but I guess no one can even afford the very modest 10mill there. If that price is really true some of the very good clubs should jump on it imo. One of the Russian or Ukrainian big teams could easily do so as well and if he doesn't want to go there, a Brazilian team can match that price also (though probably not the wages).

Finances seem to be held pretty close to the chest but as far as I know we've got money to spend, it's just if we're just slight favs to stay up punting with £25+ mill may not be the smartest idea

We've been linked with Davide Astori, anyone know much about him?

edit, in fact we're 'set to sign him', obviously it's goal.com so let's take it with a huge fist of salt

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2892/...-davide-astori

2nd edit: it appears both Ramirez and Astori (if signed) have relegation release clauses so maybe it's not the hugest punt in the world, we've got quite a lot of money stockpiled up from players like Theo/Oxlade/Bale

I like what Southampton is doing.

There is so much value in staying up this year that it is worth taking big calculated risks as long as you can survive the fall.

Astori has been linked with clubs like roma and some Russian club that's about all I know.

To be honest, I know it sounds a little absurd and maybe almost even homer-ish but I wouldn't mind us finding £80k/week or however much it is to get Beckham or Fat Frank for 6 or 18 months. We play nice passing football as it is and we need someone with experience to sit in the middle and dictate it

Given that there is that much value in staying up then they should have been doing all this stuff back in the summer.

I agree with JoeJoe, they'd be better off signing some defenders. I know that someone with a vowel at the end of their name is much sexier and appears better in football manager, but their problem isn't being without an attacking midfielder or whatever, it is shipping too many goals.

Astori has been one of the better defenders in Serie A for the last 2-3 years. He is left-footed and has been flirting with being Chiellini's left-central backup on the national team.

He was heavily linked to Juventus this window but in the choice between these left-footed centrebacks: Bochetti, Astori and Peluso they went with the latter.

I haven't seen Cagliari a whole lot this season or even last year but I remember him as a good man-marker with good instincts/anticaption and strength in and around the penalty area, while exactly how well he handles himself defending more open space is more unclear. I don't think I remember him moving all that well but maybe he has improved further.

With the ball his stats actually look pretty good so maybe that left foot of his can do some things moving the ball out of defense but it's not something I remember seeing from him either. Then again it's a team that has seen lots of change in style and coaches and this season (looking at numbers) it seems in midfield son of Bruno, Daniele Conti, is channeling Giannini or something, and seeing TONS of the ball, so maybe Astori plays his part there as well.

That was back when Gerrard had some legs.

Our recent three of Lucas Gerrard and Henderson with Henderson pressing high up has really clicked in our last two albeit against poorer opposition.

There was a great post on lolRawk where a poster gave a really good analysis of our tactics against Sunderland and how he sees Rodgers vision. Unlikely anyone will read it but if youre bored.
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/...29#msg11243329

Starting the season with fox and hoiveld then spunking 15m on Gaston was great work.

I hope they go back down tbh, probably just because joejoe was full of himself during the summer

We've signed Rami Gerson from somewhere in Israel, another CB.

Any good??

I wasn't thaaaaaaaaaaaat bad was I? I'm pretty sure the best I said we could do was comfortably avoid relegation IF we spend wel, which is obviously not the case on either side

JoeJoe, I don't remember you being close to bad. And you definitely weren't worse than GKA last year when he proclaimed qpr a mid-table side because they signed swp

Southampton is really lucky theres also QPR, Villa and Reading in PL this year

Just joking, you weren't that bad.

Still like to see you relegated

David Villa off to take medical at Arsenal...can this be real?

If its from Twitter then it must be real

No its not.. I don't really follow twitter(I know I'm missing out)...but still a shady source