Sure, if we sold Lescott and got money enough to buy Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka, Ferdinand & Eto´o then I'd be fine with it. If you go to extremes go the whole distance. Thinking like that is ridiculous, since it won't happen.
Err....obviously. I think you might have missed my point.
I was refuting the point that selling Lescott was a bad thing no matter who we signed, which a couple of people had stated. I was pointing out that obviously there is a point where we would have to sell - once we all accept that, we can get on with talking about how much we'd need, rather than get stuck in the "you should never ever ever sell a good player - ever" rut.
More realistic would be a scenario where we get £20M for Lescott, We need to splash £10-14M of that for funding the transfer of a new CD and another LB of decent enough quality to function as backups
I think for £10m you'd be getting players of first team quality. £14m is what we paid for Baines, Lescott and Jagielka combined. Don't forget the current recession, which effects some teams more than others. A lot of teams are just not in a position to play hardball, and hold out for the extortionate fees you suggest. For example, the fee being talked about for M'Bia is £4m - last year they were talking £12m. Some teams are having to just accept what players are worth, not what they want.
On the other side you have teams like City and Chelsea, who are willing to pay well over market value for players they want. There's clearly an possibility of taking advantage of the conditions - profit off from the rich clubs, and spend on the poor clubs.
What is being suggested is that you have cheaper backups, in the £2m-£3m bracket, or loans (for example, Mancienne from Chelsea was rumoured wasn't he?), or Bosmans (e.g. Lucas Neill). In addition, they wouldn't be £40k a week (well Neill would be, but they'd be no transfer fee), freeing most of the Lescott money to be spent on one or two top class players (that would significantly improve the first XI)
Having said that, you might be right that £20m is too low. But it's the number that's wrong, not the concept. In my head I had a number of around £23m, which City may or may not be willing to pay.
