When Buckley first broke through I thought "God he's a poor athlete, but there's a football player in there". Sadly he's never pushed on - unfortunately I don't think he's professional enough. JRC is in a similar boat - poor athlete, good football player. He is professional enough, but unfortunately his body has let him down. A ruthless manager / ambitious club would push them both out the door this summer. Especially if we want to employ a high tempo / high press.

On a tangent, surely any of: Buckley, JRC or Garrett would be a better option than Foreshaw? Talk of bombing one of those out for a 33 year old is ludicrous.. For what it's worth I used to hate Buckley, however last season in the couple of cameos he had I thought he looked okay, carried it, can ping a pass and likes a tackle.. Much rather keep Buckley than Foreshaw.

Classic Rovers fan mentality root around and pick ONE game from ages ago to form your own narrative. Nobody said he's a hard man but he's competitive it makes up about 75% of his game and to be fair he wasn't in good form at that point and struggled with the then head coaches style most of the season after a promising start. Don't think he downed tools but he did let his head go down and deserved a bit of stick however he's made up for it since and we were set up wrong in that first half anyway it wasn't all down to him most of em were shite.

I would imagine AI is a tool being used to identify targets.

Players identified from far afield. I am a bit confused who is really driving the transfer strategy at Rovers. Is it Adam Owen? And Rudy Gestede? Neither of their job titles (Head of Technical Development, Head of Football Ops) really make it sound like they own transfers....? In trying to figure out what Adam Owen does I had a look at his wiki... crickey he's got around the clubs. Worked at 12 clubs in his post playing career despite only being 44 as everything from assistant, coach, manager. Got clubs promoted in Switzerland etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Owen Looking at his pedigree compared to Gestede's I would guess he is the one really driving the transfer strategy? It's obvious that he's written his own wiki page (kind of like a CV really!), but seems he has a lot of very good experience. Anyone know what he is like? Rated / not rated?

Tavares is a Cape Verde international. Started in 15 of the 29 appearances last season.

Ha, just going off the pecking order of last season I could see it being that. VI comments about Montgomery certainly seem to suggest he will be in and around the squad this season. But if pre season is genuinely a clean slate then who knows Garrett might nudge above him again, I don't think there's much between either of them really from what I have seen.

Time will tell but looked a better bet than Garrett all be it at a lower level.

The £1.7m will definitely be the total amount, should certain clauses be hit. The club will be over egging it to the likes of Nixon, so its probably closer to £1.25m - £1.5m total. A small upfront fee and the rest spread over a 4 year contract, no more than £1m in total. We absolutely won't be spluffing £2m on 1 player.

Could turn out like the Ohashi fee, where the number we were paying was continually revised down until it was peanuts. We haven't paid that sort of money for years...I think Hyam was the last time? I doubt we are paying it when we can't even afford numerous contracts for players already here.

Has to be. Wouldn't be surprised if Gestede has been using just missing out on the playoffs as a bargaining chip. Then dressing up to the press that it cost us 1.7m as if we're spending big money.

You've sacked Garrett off and replaced him with a bloke from Chorley FC. Poor lad.

And Blackpool

I imagine the 1.7m is made up of adds on that will never happen, like promotion etc. It will be low fee up front like 400-800k, going off history of the last couple of years.

Agreed. To me it seems like a cheap signing in the thousands not the millions. On top of that they're trying to dress it up as some sort of coup for us. He was a squad player in a team that would probably struggle in the championship.

England V India started earlier today in Leeds, England won the toss and elected to field. Should be a good test series, England can bat with anyone in the world, but the bowling is the issue for me. Looking forward to it. India 36-0

Costs nothing to get Nixon and Jackson to propagate suggestions that we are paying millions for a player. Doesn't mean we are doing it. Whatever it is will go down as 'undisclosed' and we will never know the truth, but in the meantime the shysters running the club can convince some that we are serious and investing properly.

I personally think the fee quoted is absolutely bollocks

I can't wrap my head around signing this lad for this quoted fee. He played half the games for a small club in Portugal last season... I know inflation has driven the price of players up but 1.7 million for a lad who only started 15(?) games last season. Something feels off.

Absolutely nailed it there my friend...this is the project. Our shit future under these Goons.

The pattern is obvious, we're following the declared business model. It's not about football and winning games/promotions. The two new signings are young and presumably their data shows that they have a shot at developing and therefore becoming more valuable. On the other hand they may not. It's a roulette game, take a spin. Sign another one and you've a reasonable chance that 1 in 3 will work out then we sell and bank the money somewhere offshore. Who cares if we win matches, what's important is that we pick well as will be evidenced by the fees we receive further down the line. You get promoted by ADDING proven, respected players to your squad. Our signings are business (likely replacement) deals/gambles only. Venky's don't want promotion or relegation, they want Championship status so we can generate self sustaining income by getting lucky on picking up prospects who develop. To paraphrase Tina Turner "What's football got to do with it? What this about winning a promotion".

Chuck Berry - Too Much Monkey Business

Getting subbed off at half time at Millwall and not getting stuck in will always stick in my mind. Pretend hard man

And that is where the departure of Travis will leave us exposed and i don't want to see a return to the Bowyer days where teams regularly strolled through our midfield. People can say what they like about Travis but having a ball winner and tackler in there when he first emerged was like a breath of fresh air. Pansy he isn't.

Travis will be sold and so will any of the others if offers come in that are tempting. The name of the game is doing this under the charade of 'rebuilding' or 'revitalising' the squad - i.e. bringing in a couple of cheaper alternatives whilst ushering the established players out the back door. Most of us with sense can see what the real game is - it's the same they've been playing for 2-3 years now and will continue until there's nothing left.