Match Reaction v Valencia (away) - Baku bound!

[SMatthews]

I don't know, I can't really fathom how any of us could consider breaking up a partnership we've been yearning for more than a decade.

Yes, we need to invest in the squad but do we really need to sell our best players to do so? Isn't that just creating more gaps that need to be filled?

I think we fans should be putting pressure on our model to change; Man U, Chelsea and City don't need to sell before taking advantage of the market- in fact let's not forget that Liverpool bought Van Dyke even before they sold Coutinho.

I honestly don't think it would take that much money to sort our defence if we had a coach or TD who knew how to spot talent, then I could see us getting 4 really good defenders for under 80m total. Oh and we've not even talked about replacing Ramsey, as a like for like alone would cost us nothing less than 50m (and that's being conservative). Van der Beek is being mentioned. Plus we still need to get Torrierra someone good to play with. Ah, and what if Auba or Laca gets injured, or both at the same time.........

In short we have a lot of gaps in this squad, selling any player that's actually performing means creating another gap that will need to be filled. You don't want us to drop out of the top 6 but that's exactly what will happen if we keep on with this silly model of selling or letting performing players go because we want to bring in new ones; while keeping the likes of Xhaka and Mustafi to stink up the place and cost us more and more points.

It has to at least be considered if we don’t get a CL cash boost and transfer funds are paltry. I’ll stress again I don’t see it as the only the answer, but it’s one to be mulled over if we get a big offer. You went through a list of players above - and I don’t think we need to spend hundreds of millions to be even more competitive - but the noise we’re hearing is a transfer kitty of £50m or below (hopefully higher with CL money). That alone is not enough to play with to make a real change during the summer - especially when Sanllehi doesn’t want anything to do with the winter transfer window.

Given the ever increasing size of transfer fees we might need more money and it will have to come from somewhere, as it won’t be doled out by our owner. Hopefully all the speculation is wrong and we have more to spend, but we really don’t have a clue how we’ll operate now that Kroenke has all the marbles.

When it comes to putting pressure on the club to change our model that’s a bit hard to do when the owner is never over here. City can’t even be compared to, aside from PSG, while Utd have mega commercial deals and even the Chavs have changed their approach in recent years (and they should be worried about their owner being kept out the country). I don’t think the complaints from fans (voiced less at games, more online) about Wenger pushed the owner to get rid. He’s made it clear he will do as he pleases and couldn’t give a shit.

The reason I mentioned Liverpool and Countinho (whose sale was announced days before Van Dyke’s so they knew the money was there to spend) Is because Liverpool had to remodel their team after his departure. Most people thought it was a big step back selling him - but it’s the best bit of business they’ve done in years.

Of course, you need a good management set-up (including the Technical Director) to make the most of it. Are Emery (and potentially Edu) those guys? I don’t know, but I’m willing to give a new manager 18-24 months and a chance to spend to find out. I’m not sure Emery is the long-term answer, but I think he has enough to get us back into the top four consistently - although with the competition around the top six it is incredibly tough to do every single year now unless you are one of the top two sides.

I won’t go into the whole top six thing because we’ll continue to disagree about that point. Yes I want us to succeed and challenge more. And to do so I think we need to be creative as a club in how we source and use our money. If that means making sacrifices that will help us along, I’m all for that. If we don’t have much to spend I don’t think there are any ideal options available to us if we want to move on.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

Cannot stand Herrera. I'd actually rather just keep Xhaka.