If we actually have made a bid for Davies, I ave a piece of advice for BMJ and DC:

Please DON'T go higher!

Can't imagine for a split second he's worth more than £5mill.

Thank god for that please do not increase the offer, Davenport is a better player.

Well I have finally had some transfer news from my mate - apparently we have indeed made bids for Davies, Ferdinand and Young. I don't know whether the bid for Ferdinand was made after the bid for Davies was rejected, or if we bid for both in the expectation that we were unlikely to succeed with both anyway, or if Gardner/Davenport have been offered in exchange.

He also tells me that the club have once more enquired about Downing..... Sigh.

Davies would be ok... but nor more than 6mil... Forget Downing

Why not £3mil + Gardener?

£5million is a lot of money to them, they must really think someone will come in for more if they're willing to turn that down

I would not start ferdinand or davies above davenport. The only way I can see that we need another CB is if we are going to swap gardner for someone or the club feel that ledley needs a good long rest.

Why not just pay the 8mil and have done with it, Chimbonda wasnt worth 2 mil to most people on here but even at the 5 we paid its looking cheap now huh.

I would be very happy if we paid a little over the odds for Downing, Davies and Young. These are all very good players with the potential to be internationals in less than 2 years time.

At the time it seemed we paid more for Chimbonda than many fans (including myself) thought we should spend but any players who can improve our first team if worth spending the money on.

Imagine our team if we signed all 3 of these players, we could then shed a few players like Murphy, Gardner and Routledge and our squad and first team would be stronger.

If we want to turn the elite top four into an elite top five we have to sign these kinds of players when we get the chance.