I honestly think this year, and probably this year alone with the minus 13mil spent in the summer when 'funds were available already', and the TV money incoming, and the extra revenue from finishing 4th, and the sale of a few fringe players.. the answer to that could actually be yes..
Im just not sure mate. Likes of Elstone said we had money available before the sale of Felli and McCarthy wasn't dependable on his sale but it's funny how Wigan laughed off are bid for McCarthy before we sold Fellaini and then we sell Felli, make a new bid and it's totally acceptable?!.
We may of had a couple of mill which we was putting down upfront and the rest on the never never but we didn't have much more than that I doubt. It's just funny how after selling Felli we could give Wigan the deal they were after.
But we got £27.5m for Fellaini, £4m upfront for Vic, rising to £6m with performance related add ons, so really we got £31.5m plus what little we already had, £2-3m at a push possibly?. So say we had £33-34m nearly, £1.5-2m of that went to Standard as they had a percentage off any profits agreement in his deal. From what ive read weve paid in the region of £5-6m in fees and wages combined for Barry and paid £13m for McCarthy, so if we go for the top amounts, £2m to Standard, £6m on Barry & £13m for McCarthy, that adds upto £21m so take that away from the money we already had and from sales, that would leave us with either £12-13m I work it out.
p.s. - I didn't add to that the apparent £3m loan fee on Lukaku either, so we could have only £10m or less next month to spend?!.
But I think Martinez will use some of that next month, unless he gets good deals for Heitinga & Jelavic and just uses that cash, but if he sells them he'll need to bring in 4 players as he already wants to replace Kone & Gibson short term with loans by the sounds of his press conference.
So say he spends half of that, gets left with £6m or so, come the summer with more TV money, the board puts up another £10m say, and IF we did qualify for the CL, I don't think the board will put up mega bucks to spend but say he as £15m or more already and weve got CL, I think our board would only put up an extra £20-25m on top?!. I know it's some years ago but when we last made the top four, Kenwright said he would put up £25m for signings if we got through the qualifying stages and I don't think he'd change this time round, but that could possibly leave us with £40m to spend, so yeah, after all that you might be right, we could possibly be able to afford Lukaku and some more depending on how we do at the end of the season, but it's all very hypothetical right now!.