It didn't happen overnight for Scholes=CM. Started out as a striker/forward in his first season, and I guess only in his 3rd/4th season he played regularly in the middle.

I think we need to go Spanish finding that CM. Comfortable on the ball, good passer, but don't have to be an AM/DM. As we saw with Barca, none of their 3 CMs are what you call a pure DM, but we hardly trouble them. They showed us we don't have to go tackling everything in sight or rough teams up. They just work hard at closing spaces and defending as a team. And all of them are comfortable on the ball. Even if our players close them down, they always can find space to turn around and make a pass. Why oh why Hargreaves and Fletcher not available/fit enough at the same time twice now in different finals! Arrghh. Would have been interesting to see how SAF would have played if we got at least one of those guys fit and in form. Nobody else better at pressing aside from those two in the middle.

I wonder who we are targeting. I wish we know what SAF is thinking right now because honestly outside of Wilshere, Fabregas, those guys at Barca, not sure anybody else fits the description, aside from Modric probably. Sneijder got question mark in whether he would excel playing centrally having to defend as well. If he can do that, he'll be perfect.

It will be as hard as back then. Bosnich was okay for a while considering he was on a free shit kicking though, after that we spent big on Barthez.. and later on potential in Howard.. all didn't work out until we got VDS. Failure at Juve, and join the mini-rich club in Fulham and stayed under the radar for a while. Thank god that time he was available. 6 great seasons. I'd take another signing like that even for 5 years only.

If SAF thought he's the #1, SAF will said so from the beginning. He's been brought in to be a backup sadly for him. Although if we end up with De Gea he has a chance since De Gea will likely make some mistakes at some point.

Blackburn said potentially their record deal in terms of player sold.
17.5m was the record for Santa Cruz. So it's safe to say the base level is below that. But you add add ons if we won a cup or two, he played 2.5 games with us or so, it could take the deal to over that. How much nobody knows yet.

Bit small time for them to be happy that they didn't get the player in the end but bumped the price a bit. But considering where they've been(under the shade) last 20 years or so, they'd do anything against us to make themselves feel good. Pity.