Louis van Gaal

Does anyone know for certain that we haven't already signed Falcao? Is it possible that we only payed £6m for him so it didn't affect our FFP (Marc??) giving Monaco a guarantee that we will pay the outstanding balance in the summer? In other words, he's already ours.

That was the rumour doing the rounds on the night he signed.  Guillem Balague said that Jorge Mendes was already telling people privately it was a permanent deal, the loan to buy was to benefit Monaco's books.  

However I haven't seen any journalist or even Balague himself make any reference to that since.  

I guess we'll find out in the summer.  

As a matter of interest though, from looking through the past few years of accounts I have us spending £307.8m since 1st July 2012, transferleague.co.uk says £276.2m - what's the difference?  The accounts show all costs related to buying a player so agents and solicitors fees and so on will go into that but £31.6m is a big gap between reality and the publicly accepted numbers.  Make of that what you will. 

Pogba. They'll go all out for him but Raiola will use them to jack the price up and he'll go to Madrid. The kid is already learning Spanish by all accounts.

A conservative but decent option would be Schneiderlin and I dare say Vidal will be an option.

Vidal would be like a dream if Pogba is out of range for whatever reason. He turns 28 in May but i feel he could be on a top level 4 more seasons and in the same tempo as of now. Player who is a missing piece in our puzzle in that area.

Edit: But where this leaves Juve if they sell both of them the following summer?

edwood and Eric - I'll hold you accountable for these statements. Also, I want video proof

I think the deal might have been done, as for the wages I don't think he'll be getting more than Rooney but somewhere around that. I'm not that concerned with it though

How much of that is also down to Falcao though?

Not just him but having so little pace up front in general is the cause of a lot of our problems. We're not moving the ball quickly enough, but we know we have players with the capacity to move it quick but no matter how good you are you need the space to move it quicker. Space is made by your attackers, no matter where the ball is it all loops back to your forwards. Playing with so little pace up front means teams can push their defensive line so high up the pitch that the midfield just becomes a battle royale, full of bodies and nobody with the space to do anything useful.

So you're forced backwards and sideways until someone is either forced long or can pull something out of their arse to buy them self some space and can move forward. And even then, if we're forced long it isn't sticking with Falcao so he can't bring others into play.

Someone needs to stretch the play, someone needs to get centre backs worried because if they're worried they'll play 5 yards deeper and the midfield with play 5 yards deeper with them. We have midfielders than can drop the ball anywhere they like with that extra 5 yards. A striker with pace would have us playing so much better.

You're making all good points but the pitch must be stretched by the midfielders and a wide players also, which is much more important. van Nistelrooy wasn't a speed demon but he had those next to him and he was incredibly productive. Space should be made in central midfield and on the wings primarily and that's not Falcao's job. His work rate is very good, you can't deny him that. I'm not saying he couldn't do much more, of course he could, I just hate when almost all of the blame is put on one person because we expecting him to score every 30 minutes for the money he's paid, because he is the big name and should be doing it by default. It just doesn't work like that.

Give him Depay, Vidal with di Maria and Herrera on a different duties suited to their attributes and you'll see a different story.