mcs - I agree with what your saying in terms of building the squad and that Carew would be a useful signing
but the following quote jumped out at me
mcs said:
Currently, the equation is fairly simple. We can only compete on a financial level. If these big clubs make a similar offer to us, then for the large majority of players (>99% would be my guess), then there is only one place they will chose, and unfortunately it won't be City. The situation surrouding Robinho is hardly going to repeat itself in a way like it did to our advantage with any other players.
I was looking at this and the thing that struck me was there maybe more big name players availble than the big clubs can buy
when you think about it Valencia will sell as they need the money to pay loans ....... so if they sell Villa and Silva we may see them signing a couple of lower price replacement so in over simplified term we could be looking a 2 out 1 in so it's one extra big name player. If Kaka is sold for silly money they need to rebuild their aging team so they will spend the cash on players that are a level or two down from the big names. Any other big club that are feeling the credit crunch will be triming their squads but what will their owners do if all of a sudden a big money offer come through the fax machine for their star player.
I think we could be looking at some clubs selling big names and using some of the cash generated on other thing rather than big name replacements.
Madrid can't buy them all