Rayvin

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, I'm just saying that looking at his behaviour over the past couple of years, he's actually backed the right outcome each time so far. And you have to assume that his only interest is financial - and there's a decent case for keeping Rafa, and keeping him fairly happy, being a good financial decision.

Yeah but it depends on to what extent you consider it a gamble anyway. Ok so Ashley could have taken out £100m to pay for players, and loaded more debt onto the club - a gamble in itself. Or he could have done what he did, trusted the team that was promoted, trusted that it could perform better than much of the dross in the PL with Rafa at the helm, and moved forward from there. If that's the decision he came to after full analysis of the information at his disposal, keeping in mind that the club can 'only spend what it generates', then I'm happy that this is a good business decision. Benefit of hindsight for sure, but it's hard to argue that a midtable finish on a minimal outlay is anything other than a success story for both Rafa and Ashley.

Not hugely convinced that Stavely was serious, as I said at the time. Her offer was derisory compared to what was being asked for. Yeah you could argue that Ashley coulda just taken it and run but I don't think he's that desperate to be out tbh. If the club lives within its means then it's not a headache to him. He has gambled on Rafa several times now and it has paid off each time. Maybe he has more faith in the guy than you do?

I thought our January business was fine, on the grounds that we have pulled clear (more or less) of relegation. At the time I was worried, but apparently the management structure at the club were capable of making a better decision than I would have been from the outside looking in The summer's business was frustrating for sure, and I think you can clearly point to the failure to spend pulling us into a relegation fight but on the other side of things, if not for a late capitulation against Bournemouth we'd be 10th. And yeah the margins are so fine that my argument looks stronger at the moment because it ignores the fact that we're only 7 points about the drop zone but honestly, if we're saying that Ashley gambled on the club staying up by virtue of having a really good manager, and used this as a reason not to end up paying over the odds in the last window, then really, you have to say that his gamble has paid off. There is no other way of looking at it in the short term. We will not go down, and honestly we look like fairly good shouts for midtable. As for the January window in the Championship - yep, frustrating again, but we went up top of the table. So again, another Ashley gamble that paid off. And yeah it's down to Rafa, but he did hire Rafa at the end of the day.

You think we need to sign those two players, a striker, left and right backs and another first teamer in the centre, plus youth investment, to hit what? Top 10? We're already within touching distance of that with the loanees. If we had them for a full season you would think we would be 8th to 10th. With the additional players you're talking about I suspect we could be pushing into 7th but... is that really what we should be aiming for next season? I reckon Rafa would be satisfied with the ability to go top 10 and a decent cup run personally.

I think if you consider that he thought McClaren was probably a good appointment, backed with £80m, and that we've had Rafa since then - you could look at just the past couple of years and consider that he may have learned his lesson. Ok so it's qualified - he wouldn't invest to make sure we would go up but actually we did so anyway so his gamble paid off. He wouldn't invest to make sure we would stay up this season but again, his gamble looks like it will pay off. So yeah, considering his full tenure - lots of mistakes. The past couple of years? I'm not convinced he's made one to be honest. You could point to the relationship with Rafa breaking down but we only have papertalk to support that, and idk, Rafa is still here. He forked out for Rafa (he could have gotten rid of him when we went down remember) so I'm prepared to consider that a 'good' decision. In fact, that decision alone makes me think that he can actually see the value and long term cost savings of having someone like Rafa here, and happy. If the club generates its own money so he doesn't have to invest, I don't see at all why he would have a problem with us spending.

Assuming we pick up Dubravka and Kennedy for something like £25m (I know the latter is less likely), and spend about £30m on a striker... what else do we even need? Another couple of loans, maybe one or two younger players for the future but... It's not like he needs to spend £100m. Or even £80m. Probably around £50m would cover the main issues in the squad. I can see us spending that if it is required for Benitez to stay. Especially if we get that extra £10m from finishing 10th instead of 15th

Ok, and why do you think Ashley wouldn't be aware of that?

I'm not worried ultimately because I can't do anything about it. Ashley isn't stupid IMO, he's just a gambler. With Rafa here he's in pretty safe hands so I can see the argument that he will keep things tight on the spending front. But then he would surely lose his manager after another year and end up having to give £80m to someone like McClaren. Ultimately, what is the point in all of this for Ashley if not to maximise the value of his asset. He doesn't seem that arsed about selling, and if he can run the club at a profit and still compete, why wouldn't he?

I love that we have close ups of the M&S logo and BHS, presumably to prove that civilisation has indeed reached Sunderland.

Yeah but if we end up buying these loan players you could argue it's just 'try before you buy'. Which, as I've said previously, I'm actually ok with. EDIT - sorry, to answer the main question - based on the fact that it'd be stupid not to and I don't see where the money goes if we don't, really.

I actually think Ashley will let the club spend whatever it makes, I don't see why he wouldn't. Unless he's eager to pay off that loan of his I suppose.

So, I see where you're coming from with that but at the same time we have brought in loan players who are all a level above anyone they have IMO. Plus we have Rafa, and his ability to train up and improve on an existing team would appear to be superior (as you would expect) to Hughton and Wagner. So I think it's fair for us to mark our progress, given our manager if nothing else, against those two...?

I'm guessing we can't play Slimani in this one? We should, I think, be good for at least a draw - based on our recent form. Can't see any reason why we couldn't talk all the points if we play as well as we have been.

I think Gareth Barry, irrespective of how shit Pardew is, should be above that kind of thing tbh. I imagine he intends to retire at the end of the year and just doesn't give a shit anymore. Pardew just sounds like he's been found out IMO. If the mackems love him so much though, they're welcome to him. Wasn't he in League One when we picked him up anyway?

I'll be satisfied that we've done as well as we should have if we end up above both Brighton and Huddersfield. The rest are a bit of an unknown but we can peg our progress against those two quite comfortably.

Fair enough then, I guess being 5 places higher gets us another £10m in the transfer fund at the end of the day.

I was under the impression that it didn't really make that much difference where the club finishes but I suppose an extra few million probably counts all the more for a club like ours given how tight Ashley appears to be on these matters.

They're down now, right? Like we're in "would take a miracle" territory now? They seem incapable of playing well at home. The result against Derby should, in theory, have given them the boost they needed to fight their way out. Hard to say it's not at least partially the fans' fault at this point...

I'm not concerned about where we end up as long as we don't go down, but I'd actually be pretty surprised if the team simply switch off. Rafa doesn't seem like the kind of manager who will allow that to happen, and I don't really think the players have shown that this is something that they might do anyway. I guess on that basis it would be disappointing if they did, but the final league position isn't too important.

So... you guys have had an eventful afternoon...

He definitely did though - they're down. No question. And I agree in general, too little far too late.

I would love that to happen. But it won't.

You and I both know, that the leader of the opposition not raising it, is not why nothing will happen. It would be dismissed by May probably with some biteback about anti-semitism, the whole house would erupt in juvenile roaring, the Guardian and the Independent would report it as a 'major victory' for Corbyn and then.... fuck all.

I agree.