OK, many a time on this forum, and in the media, I have heard the phrase that 'Rafa must sell in order to buy'. I think this is a complete and utter myth, this situation is in fact much graver than this.
He made a small profit in the summer due to the sale of Xabi Alonso, and has made a clean profit of £6.5M this window, with only a free transfer coming in, albeit a potentially top quality one, now, if Rafa were to able to 'sell to buy' then he would be allowed to get around 3/4 loan signings, or buy a player for around £7m, don't forget we also sold Robbie Keane for £15M in January of last year.
Bearing this in mind, if Rafa we under a 'sell to buy policy' as we have been told he is 'to balance the books, to attract investors' then he should have had £22M to spend this January, now that is roughly the price of a Turan/Mata/Silva/Jones/Chamakh (some there a combination of a few) plus a loan move for Huntelaar. Just think of the quality we could have brought in with £22M and to no cost of the owners, at present they have basically robbed us, the club of £22M.
Now, even if we do get this 'big' transfer window in the summer, we could possibly be out of the Champions League places, meaning big names will be put off from coming, Chamakh would choose Arsenal over Liverpool, Silva and Mata will stay at Valencia, Turan would move to a champions league club, and we may just end up signing Jones
I just feel that it wasn't to much to ask to be given that £22M (or at least a chunk of it!!) if he wanted it, to strengthen the squad in the here and now, the present, I can't see Rafa turning down that money seeing as he is being constantly judged despite lack of funds.
I feel that this £22M may well be what we have to spend in our 'big' summer window. The thing is though, that wouldn't be a big summer window, it would just be correcting the myth that Rafa must 'sell to buy', and that is on the unlikely premise that none of our players are sold on, in which case we should be looking at around spending of £35-40M in the summer for Rafa to be truly allowed to 'sell to buy'.
If the owners decide that Rafa is not under this 'sell to buy policy' we should be looking at £50-60M in the summer.
Predictions?