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What is a loans manager judged on though? Genuine question by the way.

I'm trying to see it as they are. They're obviously not going to give everyone a 4 and 5 year deal. The players you mentioned, I'm guessing, will be on the lower scale and should be easier/cheaper to renew if they're still wanted. Some players are also just allowed to run out of contract at every club.

Sure, it's a possibility that VI was happy to let Hyam, Brittain, Trav and Dolan go. It's slimmer than a gnats pube, but it's a possibility.

Or they go and trot about in a Mickey mouse league overseas for a couple of years picking up a fortune. Fair play to them, make the most of it I say. Unfortunately this trend has had an immeasurably detrimental effect on the game as a whole. The skill and experience that was once spread about teams in the lower leagues by top level pros dropping down to keep playing is now all but gone.

Offer better terms and also offer deals earlier. I know it is obvious that its not happening. We clearly arent offering competitive Championship wages hence why only Ribeiro has signed a deal in 2 years from our first team. And believe it or not, thats my grievance.

The errors continue and they feel like they can blame previous coaches it’s ridiculous we all know the real issue at the club

By "sort out contracts", you mean give them better terms. It's obvious that wasn't going to happen. I've never claimed Ismael was happy to let any players go, I just said it's a possibility. You didn't even think to consider it an option.

🤣🤣

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