Good to be back mate, real life being busy made me take a bit of a break from the net
All fair points from you, and my own personal opinion is Mourinho won't give a flying one about where United are in relation to us, he won't now and will never see us as a rival to a team he manages, thats just his mentality, i doubt when he loks at a league table he sees more than 5 clubs names as relevant to him. Selling Mata to united kind of proves that point when he was at Cheslea he didnt deem them a rival, sellign Lukaku to us, Sturridge to Liverpool (bvelieve that was him) etc all show he doesn't care if he doesn't deem a player god enough for him where they end up really
As for buying from Liverpool and vise versa, not for a whilst ofc (think Barmby was the last to make that move) but i remember when it wasn't like that and see no reason why we shouldn't if we want him, and we badly need someone who is clinical as we have one genuine scorer in the entire squad - also Sturridge being a blert with that dance - but he's apparently a pretty sound bloke that aside, he made the move and started slotting for us i honestly wouldn't care he played for them once.
Rooney on loan makes sense in regards to us and STCC and not wasting a lot of potential, rather not buy him though as ya never know if he will end up a Gascoigne/Ginola/Eto'o mark 2, loan and then buy if he shows us moving here rolls the clock back
as for the likes of VVD, Heaton etc, then yeah may be very difficult/impossible, but rather try for those than play pie in the sky going after Koulibaly in the sumer when we knew Cheslea wanted him and that Napoli didnt need to sell after sellign there striker to Juve, that was an unrealistic and stupid waste of time as was never ever going to end up a good outcome for us.
probably right about Ramsay, under a different manager i think we could do though, but Wenger is a massive fan of his so he probably will come back into the team at the first chance (not neccesarily a smart move as they have played better with him out the team)
As i said to Goat though, i was just throwing some names that came to the top of my head rather than trying to think in detail about exactly who we could target in january that is a realistic buy - and can guarantee that should we do that then the list will be a lot longer than people would think - the January a difficult month to do any deals is just wrong, it's a good excuse though to not do deals - and lets face it very few clubs by January are in a position that they need to bring in multiple playes like we seem to be - and owners dont sanction it usually because - by January the difference they will make for 'that' season will likely not change things more than a few league spots and less at the very top.