With all due respect, none of you are thinking long term. We could lash out a lot of money on Gayle, and what are we going to get in return? His goals do not guarantee promotion if the rest of the team isn't up to it, we saw that last season. And if we don't go back up we can't afford to keep him, so we'd have to take a loss to get him off the books.
Simply put, we can't afford to pay his wages if we don't go up and don't get parachute payments. We can't mortgage the future of the club based on signing one player, when we may be able to find cheaper alternatives.
1)
What would we get in return: the best striker in the championship, a goal machine who is 29 this year not 34 as some of the posters imply.
2)
If we don't go back up we can't afford fro keep him / we can't afford his wages if we don't go up: Not true, no reason why the sale of Rondon can't fund his wages over 2/3 years. We have already removed Barry, Morrison, Hoolahan, Mears & Myhill from the wages.
3)
We can't mortgage the sale of the club based on signing one player - agreed but that's not the case, scare mongering. If Newcastle will compromise by paying us circa £6m plus Gayle for Rondon (or another club buys him at his clause and Newcastle accept £10m for Gayle) then no reason why we can't try to resign him. We have the flexibility with all parachute money, player sales, squad size.
£10m on Gayle over three years is a good investment, you get what you pay for with him. Bear in mind every chance of J-Rod going as well so that would be £26m in him and Rondon alone. The idea that the club would be risking it's financial future doesn't add up when you look at the income, player assets and wages.