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However, the injury is likely only anywhere near as bad as it is because the stupid bastards insisted on continuing to play him whilst he was carrying it last season. That's how you get a recurring injury.

You are making massive assumptions, including assuming massive wage demands, and are also trying to pull the debate off onto tangents about individual players. Again, the worry is that we havent got a new deal sorted for any key player in years. Its not one or two, its EVERYONE. So that suggests that even if its true that we would have to "break our wage structure" to get any to sign. Then our wage structure is too restrictive to begin with. And it wont help that we wait so long to offer deals in the first place. You are fixated by this Ismael throwing him under the bus situation. Yes, I still think the same but its not very important in the grand scheme of things, its not the problem. Ismael had question marks over man management at previous clubs and with incidents like that and also the Pears one, I can see why. Obviously you after a blip are fully in defence of everything he does, but in this case as I said its not a big deal and not the problem so dont fixate over it.

When me and Sonny leave in January this is what you'll be left with.

Im sure there'll be net savings on incidentals as well but Im not really bothered by that. I just can't get my head round anyone trying to spin a £2.5m trading surplus over the summer as a £4m - £5m overspend on a £5m transfer budget. To me that would mean purchases of £9m and sales of zero. Each to their own though.

It’s 4 games into the season and it’s got the feel of a disaster waiting to happen, I’ll be shocked if we are still with a fighting chance come April if I’m totally honest, cheers Suhail, Rudy and special mention to the owners for making the 150th year an absolute disaster. Will take league two at this point if it meant we get these lot out

I think it crucial as part of a tier 1 academy to be able to demonstrate that we are good for everyone’s career that signs for us, no matter what turns out to be their ultimate potential.

“Past mistakes” Gueye, Ohashi, Toth, McLoughlin, Ribeiro, Cantwell and Kargbo’s will all have a year left by next season

Ah, should we have broken our “wage budget”? Problem is no one on here knows what that was or is. In order to answer that question you need to know what the exiting players were on, what they wanted, what the overall salary budget was and what we are up to now at the end of the window. Only then can you ascertain what we could have offered Brittain or Travis. You can’t just say “we aren’t paying over X amount”. Maybe we could have kept Travis or Brittain if we used the wages we are wasting for Forshaw. What makes me suspicious is we had two players on, say, £12k a week and we supposedly made good offers to try and keep them, as well as making offers to Batth and Hyam (and Dolan). Therefore, if that is to believed then the money we were offering them must all have been “within budget”. I bet the salary costs now are far lower than had they all said yes. In which case, there should have been plenty of money in the budget. So it’s not a simple question at all.

Crediting them for getting us out of something they put us into by not recruiting experienced championship players like Alan Browne

Never been more disengaged with the club. Reckless transfer business in defence... going into an extremely physical 46 game Championship season. The only conclusion you can make is they don't care where we are in the league come January 1, and perhaps the beginning of May too. Selling Hyam without a replacement felt like a slap in the face to paying fans. A better centre back partner for him with quality is what was needed but we didn't take that seriously either.

that what rumours says Travis wanted wage wise? for whatever reasons we couldn't agree new contract cos they demands are too high for our wage budget, so I will ask this very simple question, should Rovers have broken their wage budget to get a Travis or Brittain to get a new contract? Well you said Ismael throw Travis under the bus cos he told the supporters that he wanted out. still stand by that opinion?

Nail on head. I think the reality is we've spent sweet feck all! Throw in the the bits and pieces from add ons for previous sales etc and I reckon we are in the black by about £5million so the reality is we will be running £10million favourable to budget plus huge savings on wages, getting on for £5million including employers' NI. We are not investing. Sadly, there are far too many gullible and naive in our fan base and they swallow, IMO, the substantially over-hyped transfer fees and subsequent bullsh1t from Ewood and LT hook, line and sinker.

The idea is to get the club running on its off its own back with minimal input from the owners, even if that means league one or league two. By championship standards there wasn’t a high wage ‘mess’, but the owners no longer want to fund the club at this level like all other non-parachute owners need to. So yes the plan is different in that we appear to want to cut salaries to even lower levels that we have operated at for the last 15 years.

It will work in reducing the wage bill. It wont help from a footballing perspective. Nothing has changed in terms of being able to sort out contracts. And I suspect you know that, even if you have now been trying to claim that Ismael just was happy to let them go anyway.

I've no idea if it's for the better, I'm just saying it as it is. it's you that keeps insisting nothing has changed , when you'd have to be blind not to see it's completely different. In their eyes, they're cleaning up the short term/high wage, low profit mess they inherited. Good idea if it works.

The quote from Rhodes in this article (also pasted below) seems to indicate that whilst the priority is preparing them for first team football with Rovers, they will also be looking to prepare them for first team football elsewhere if it won't happen here. "Ultimately, that's what the staff's there to do; to facilitate those players and give them the best opportunity to be able to thrive for the first team ideally, but ultimately for their development and what makes them be the player that they can become."

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers- Learning To Fly

That reminds me of a private school I worked at briefly. The PE teacher wanted to introduce rhythmic gymnastics and asked if she could buy Infian clubs. Yes, said the Head, you can have one.' "One pair?" she said. ' No, one club,' he said in all seriousness. 'Two would cost too much.' '

There is no way that he was happy to get rid of all of those players. Certainly if he has even a shred of competence. They are more than capable of signing players yes on really cheap wages from abroad. But again, we move away from the pattern. No one is signing contracts. Its not the odd player who has outgrown us or the odd one we want or are happy to discard. Its beyond that. You speak as if the club hae changed for the better.

Gueye is worse than Gallagher although I am not sure why he gets a mention. I would be pleased if I never saw Gueye in a Rovers shirt again because he weakens the team so much when he plays. Thats all my point was. I do sort of get the logic especially if its only a loan offer to keep temporarily due again to lack of recruitment but even if he stays I hope he isnt ever needed. Sort of get the point about potentially being short but its not comparable to losing Hyam who not only was a key player but we are genuinely ridicilously short in that position without him.

It isn't unable, they're more than capable of signing players as they've proved this summer , it's being unwilling. Something else you always dismiss is just how determined the manager is to keep certain players. Britain he definitely wanted, Travis I don't think he was that bothered , and Hyam they received an offer too good to turn down(understandable but timing terrible). Just because you'd keep them doesn't mean they fit the manager's plans.

Genuine question because I dont know, but would that be part of Rhodes' remit? If we've decided we're not keeping them on, is it our job to fix them up with a new Club? Sounds callous I know. They'd have been Ok if good old Uncle Tone was still here. He'd have kept them all on until they were 35.

You are just making figures up to defend the club. A club that cant get any of its current first team players to sign over such an extended period, that pattern suggests a huge problem and has massively undermined the whole summer as many expected it to do. We dont have time to wait for the potential replacement for our captain if hes out for ages. Travis was a box to box midfielder and a bloody effective one at this level. Lets not pretend his departure was part of a tactical overhaul.

I must be in a minority of one but I didn't think Radford was all that bad. Obviously well past his best by the time he joined us but you could see his quality in flashes.

I know what we received Rev. The transfer budget was £5m as said during the Fans Forum minutes yet we spent more and another £5m so did reinvest some money from sales. I have already discussed the Hyam situation and the lack of replacement. did you my posts?