Your "Falcao-is-he-coming-is-he-not" thread and Poll! (UPDATED: He's a rag now.)

I'll be updating this frequently. In the meantime, check out kmoney's wrap up  of the Stoke debacle/nothing-to-worry-about loss and shudder's usual yeoman work with the tables and comment king Marc L has some great stuff in the Five Thoughts thread re: Falcao. Here's some transfer analysis from Reddit which appears reasonable, meaning I've got a better source than your average Daily Mail article (WARNING: clicking on link can and will compromise your journalistic integrity, even if you're not a journalist, such is the power of the Daily Mail).

"Let's assume (Falcao's cost) is €40m. 

So far City have spent £12m on Fernando, £30m on Mangala, £1.5m on Zuculini and £4m on Caballero. 

They sold Garcia for £13m, Rodwell for £10m.They are also about to sell Guidetti for £2.5m

So a total spend so far is £25m, likely to drop to £22.5m in the next day or two. 

They will only buy Falcao if Negredo leaves, and I doubt they will sell him for less than £15m - basically what they paid for him and a cheap price for a guy who scored 25 goals last year. 

So assuming that happened it would mean they had a net spend of £7.5m before Falcao. 

FFP allows the £50m, meaning they can easily afford the £31/€40m for Falcao and could even spend up to €53m on him. 

As for wages, the FFP sanctions mean they have to have the same wages as 11/12 - a joke because they actually reduced their wage budget by over 500k/week last summer by getting rid of Balotelli, Adebayor, Kolo, Roque Santa Cruz, Wayne Bridge and others, as well as Mancini's huge wages. On top I that this season they cut off Lescott and Barry's big wages. I doubt City will pay him what Monaco are - but neither will Real- so that doesn't matter, City will probably pay him the same as Aguero and Yaya ~200k an they can afford that"

That all makes sense to yours truly.

Additionally,  if Negredo stays, is he going to be ticked off about being so close to sold away? In the NBA (Lakers fan, forgive me), Pau Gasol was mentioned in trade nearly every month for the last two seasons and he said it adversely affected his play. I get the sense in our sport, that doesn't happen--a team does everything they can to make essentially what amounts to a trade, it falls through and the guy says, "whatever, it's back to work." True?

UPDATE #1: According to Guillem Balague of Sky Sports, Negredo to Valencia has been agreed upon (Daily Mirror claiming Negredo's family deeply unsettled in England; he wants to move back to Spain). The deal is a one year loan with Valencia having an option to buy at the end of the season for 25 million.

UPDATE #2: According to the Guardian, it's down to us and Arsenal. I always suspected Wenger here; every season for the last four (including this one), Arsenal gets grief from fans for a slow start and a lack of buying and every season, Wenger comes up with a big name. Last year it was Ozil and this time, I suspect he does what it takes to get Falcao. City would have have this done already if not for FFP.

UPDATE #3: Our friends and colleagues in these here parts, The Busby Babe, are claiming via RMC that United is definitely in the hunt for Falcao. I'm of two minds about this. First, United seem to be having an extraordinarily difficult time grasping the fact their defense sucks. Di Maria played wonderfully in a 0-0 draw against Burnley. Read that last sentence again to tell you all you need to know about United's misplaced priorities. There's a reason we spent a boatload on Mangala and not, say, Luka Modric. Additionally, if you're Falcao--and I say this with all due respect--if you're going to move from Monaco, wouldn't you want to go to a side that will be competing in European football?

UPDATE #4: A man can't sleep on these things! Overnight during my time in nod in the Los Angeles time zone, we find that Falcao is going to Man United after all on a loan deal with an option to buy. Congratulations to our friends from The Busby Babe.