I wish I shared your optimism but the writing is on the wall….whether it’s Dolans possible comp fee or the sale of Travis/tronstad I just don’t see a world when it comes august 9th where we still have all the untied players along with new recruits. Bare in mind we still need 2/3 more

Plus Powell coming through who looks to be really good.

Tbh, despite all the hype, Batty has hardly been a sensation at Accrington. Bit disappointed he hasn't signed a new contract, but if he's going to be like that let him go.. Anyone remember Adam Henley?

Rodwell was consistently injured played less than 50 games in 3 seasons (which was played out publicly) and was frozen out - granted he actually did well for us but it’s not the same Carmo signed for forest and they immediately sent him on loan how/why not sure but he went to a team in Europa league so if you deem that move more relevant it’s still a million miles away from rovers status

Relatively excited at the prospect of spending a reasonable amount of money on a player .. absolutely terrified of the thought that Travis now likely to be leaving

The 2m must be heavily weighted in add-ons, can't imagine we have paid more than about 800k for the transfer, which itself would be spread across the 3 years.

Now we've got Ribeiro, Pickering and now De Neve for the left hand side, Batty is probably thinking his chances will be very limited.

Absolute madness, wasn’t it? They’ve a mountain to climb now, too.

Ok, I’ll address the elephant in the room….we’ve just spent (upto) £2m on a player!? Wow, was not expecting that! I don’t believe that it’s because we’re selling Travis either, not because I trust them, but because that’s not the way they / we work. We don’t spend money that comes in (as shown by the Wharton, Szmodics sales). We certainly don’t buy a player ‘in anticipation’ of selling a player either. Based on everything that’s been made public, my belief is that they’re pushing ahead with plans as per VI’s wishes. It’s been documented that we were after a box to box number 8 and they’ve gone and got one.

Out of contract guys not expected back for preseason, no surprise there and don't expect we resign them anyway. Interesting that Batty hasn't resigned though, assume he wants to go get1st team football somewhere.

Tony Parkes - Tugay - Tim Sherwood

His family moved to England when he was a couple of months old, where he lived for 20 years

In what world do you win the toss and field first in those conditions?

The Human League - Don’t You Want Me?

The holy T-rinity.

The point was values can deteriorate rapidly, and there have been plenty others. I just used an easy to understand Rovers example. Another one might be Rodwell, had about 25 mill of fees he had moved for, probably equivalent to 50 mill now. Came here for free, and not because he had forced his club's hand but cos they didn't want him. I already agreed this guy is out of our reach, I'm just saying his move last summer is considerably more relevant.

It will be interesting to see if there is a piece with a Portugese journalist in the Telegraph to give us more detail about what we are getting. It was Tavares' first full season from what I can see of his senior career and he only started 15 and completed 2 games which is a bit surprising as a central midfielder. Ability aside, it would surely be a big ask to expect him to play week in week out in the Championship all of a sudden. It has the feel of a project signing, they both do. Tavares has played very little senior football really and couldnt maintain a regular spot, and De Neve often played at full back and it seemingly was a bit of a surprise that we signed him. Hopefully they will be accompanied by more proven players and we have seen some attributes that suit what we want to do and allow then to really kick on.

I hope he's good with languages if he goes to Poland. Polish is hard to comprehend, read or speak.

Batth off to derby??

Would love to try a midfield trio of the three Ts but do think Travis gone is more than likely a done deal

Which of Travis or Tronstad is going now Tavares has signed? We know we don't do squad depth.

I’m quite happy with the Tavares signing. Good age and has played in England for the majority of his life so knows the English leagues. Not played many games as a pro but hopefully he just needs to push on. Stature wise he looks a perfect championship midfielder.

Birmingham will be at the upper end of the table. They had a championship quality squad last season with a £15m striker to boot!

Kean really does have one of those faces

It should be a bannable offence posting a picture of that detestable cretin (no, not Robbie Cotton) Have some decency and blur his fucking face or something