Pearce hints at City sale bargains

Transfer windows must be a real frustration for Psycho. Every August and January he faces an uphill battle to fend off unwanted raids on our best players, whilst at the same time watching enviously as many other smaller clubs than City seem to be able to magically conjure up substantial transfer funds, whilst City embarrass themselves with pathetic beer-money spending.... and that's if we're lucky.

A quick reality check confirms that at the moment, we're just not able to compete financially with most of the other Premiership teams. It's an unpleasant reality to have to face up to, but why would an ambitious player want to come to Eastlands at the moment?

Faced once again with no transfer funds, Pearce has indicated that he may have to sell off a number of "fringe players" (his words, not mine), to raise a bit of cash, but he stopped short of naming names. His comments however, must cast some doubt on the futures of a number of young players such as Stephen Ireland, Ishmael Miller, Michael Johnson and Matthew Mills who look likely to face the same fate as Flood, Croft and BWP. But realistically, their combined transfer value won't amount to a whole lot.

I guess Danny Mills is another candidate and his departure would certainly help the wages bill, but I would argue that there are a number of players not on the fringes that are better candidates for a New Year exit. Without being vindictive, the likes of Reyna, Jihai Sun, Hamann and Sinclair are not adding much to the squad and are holding back the progress of younger players. We should recognise what they've done for the club in the past ( except for Hamann, who has just been an enormous disappointment) and move onwards and hopefully upwards.

Whatever happens in the transfer window, one thing is for sure - not enough money will be invested in quality players and we'll end up shuffling the pack and the outcome will be pretty much the same as it is now. I can almost guarantee that come the start of Feb, all the fans will still be saying that what we need is a creative midfielder and a 20 goal-a-season striker - some things in life never change.