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Boom!

You're just being argumentative for the sake of it here. I dont KNOW for certain, it's my opinion. Also hasn't the suggestion come recently from either Nixon or Suhail they want £200m ish or have I completely imagined that?

We're a more attractive proposition now in the Championship, if the owners would agree to sell us for our actual worth.

Owning a football club unless you're one of about five, that actually makes loads of money, is effectively an exercise in philanthropy. I.E.- you're gonna lose a lot of money if it's your plaything. If that doesn't sound good to someone, it's probably not for them.

Seems he's a slave to the data.

If they're insisting on owning the club, then surely we can insist on them funding it? If not, then they should sell. Straightforward. really!

There are many problems with the ownership, however IF they were suddenly able and/or willing to fund the Club in the same way as they did prior to the Court Case, it would be one less thing to worry about. (I don't actually think the outcome of the Court proceedings will make any difference to us, they've lost interest - we'll still get the subsistence level funding but it'll cost them less if they're successful)

Fair enough but the other option is that they put some of their massive wealth towards a promotion push while the FFP situation allows it. I imagine Rovers would be a much more attractive proposition to potential new owners if we were in the Premiership.

Did anyone notice sesko was 10th penalty taker last night? Either the guy has has put himself there or the coaching staff put him last. Either way not a ringing endorsement of your big money striker.

Re the part in bold - that is the crux. We don’t have people who care, we don’t have a high level of expertise at the top. Doesn’t matter what “projects” (including the current Rudy / VI one) you’re running, if the people running the club from the top don’t have that expertise and care, you end up with people like Steve Waggott. Re the second paragraph - when they’re not putting money in, they’re not involved. That’s an immediate improvement for me. I don’t want their money. I don’t want my club to get further and further into “gift loan” debt with a set of cunts who don’t have that “care and expertise” that we both agree is needed. I also think that rovers are surely a more attractive proposition for alternative investment IF we are doing what we did in the 80s that you reference, aka punching above our financial weight, and being ambitious despite not having the backing or the crowds.

I'm actually quite excited about our transfer activity - and this is coming from a dyed in the wool Venky hater who isn't fond of Gestede at all. We're targeting big, athletic players - ones who are hungry (having come from smaller leagues so this is a pay rise). They're gambles and inexperienced in this league, but at least they're not jaded by ongoing contract talks. Loans are a literal waste of money unless you're desperately fighting against relegation or pushing for promotion e.g. Hull set fire to £1m + wages for 6 months of Louis Barry sat in their treatment room last year.

Not really a priority in relative terms. Many would argue we only have one guy up front and one you only want to see come off the bench. (Although I quite like Gueye myself)

I've always said the way loans should work is that they shouldn't form the core of your transfer business but maybe be limited to one or two and one of them should be a real hum dinger like Elliott who is the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake and the sort of player you'd never be able to afford permanently. So I basically agree with VI regarding loans but it might be we bring in one or two through necessity given that forward players in general, and decent strikers in particular, tend to be a lot more expensive.

I think that's 3 starters and then 2 guys you only want to see come off the bench. We need another.

I would be happy to be self sustainable as long as the ambition was still there. For example in the 80s - I loved those times when we constantly pushed for promotion or the playoffs without any real cash behind us. We managed to do this because we were well run by people who cared about the club. However, we have billionaire owners who take no interest and yet you are happy for them to put no money in and admit we are not aiming to achieve promotion ? What is the point in a football club with no ambition?

You sure? Explain to me how you know how much they want for it? How do you know they have an arbitrary figure in mind? What about if they just see it as a trinket or line in their P&L?

Cunha and Mbuemo should be good signings as they are proven Prem quality. Sesko is somewhat unknown but came in on a big fee so will have the expectations to match. However, it remains to be seen if any of them can score 20 league goals in a season. Ultimately I think they won't. The club is rotten (nowhere near as rotten as Rovers, mind). I have so sympathy for them, their fans, Ratcliffe, the Glazers, or Amorim. Amorim is puzzling. 12 months ago Mainoo was coming off playing for England at the Euros. Now he can't get a kick. Strange. His adherence to 3-4-3 will be the undoing of him. He doesn't have the players to play it, nor is it a formation that breeds success. Off the top of my head I think that the only Prem winning team playing 3 at the back was Conte's Chelsea, and they had Diego Costa banging them in. In summary give him a 5 year extension with hope that the UK government dig their heels in on the rail hub and make them pay for their new stadium

Because someone understands a position, they’re not condoning anything. Also “at any normal club” the manager banging on the owners door for money isn’t the usual anymore. Maybe in the days of Clough, but most managers aren’t even called managers anymore, they’re coaches. Tony even criticised himself, suggested perhaps this is why he never managed more in the top flight, his words not mine. don’t like “chaddying” a post however I had a response specific to this - you show me where Tony has said he told the owners to put their money away? It’s how it always was, they meet and decide an annual budget. Part of the reason they’re shite owners, they’re absent for 364 days a year. And he does in his “tippy tappy” he said they “just didn’t get over the line”. Sometimes in sport, football, tiddlywinks… it happens!

Realistically, the only way they're ever going to VOLUNTARILY sell the Club is if we get promoted and another party offers them something approaching the figure they want for it.

First window in how long that we won't be loaning players? Truly a change in strategy this summer. Proof will be in the pudding, but it certainly isn't dull.....

I just can’t get my head round the juxtaposition of knowing that all our problems go back to the Rao’s, but then wanting them to send money. Might just be me, but I find it odd!

With Tronstad, Tavares, Baradji, Forshaw, and Montgomery for two positions, I don't see us spending money on the midfield. The only obvious deficiency now is up front. I don't think we have the funds to buy a guaranteed improvement. A last minute loan perhaps when clubs get desperate to offload?

I don’t think you realise how rich they are - their businesses could be putting a few million a year into us, well after we’re all in the ground and it wouldn’t touch the sides. I don’t disagree with you regarding the competitive cost element, we’d be in serious trouble with our revenues against our costs / facilities if we went into the third tier again without that backup. The problem is though, I don’t want this cycle to continue. I’d rather be a mid table championship club that has a budget decided by revenue, not investment. There are other reasons, for example (we’ve had this discussion before) the potential future sale of the club being easier with less debt / constant losses.

Pretty sure the source of a lot of our transfer leaks has now left the club (the one who's so glad to 'get out') discussed on this thread, hence our recent signings have been kept under wraps a lot more.....

But if the club wipes its own face then we get the worst of both worlds IMO. We have a miniscule budget, which is uncompetitive in the modern day Championship, and highly likely to result in relegation at some stage or another from which we will never come back if sustainability is the aim And at the same time of this little to no pressure on the bastards in India to take steps to offload the club. No financial pressure just means they can leave us to rot for longer with zero pressure on them. At least if the club continues to drain them of millions of pounds a year, money they HAVE to find from either sales or their own pockets, this maintains a degree of pressure on them. If they reach a stage where the cupboard of players to sell is bare and they haven't got the ability at the Indian end to shovel the cash in then a default beckons which brings the whole thing crashing down. I see it a bit like when Hitler talked about the Soviet Union - need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. The trouble is kicking in the door - the best and probably only way of doing that with this lot is financially - a pressure on them to transfer cash - we have seen first hand that in the last 4 years they have been actively cutting this in any way they can. They are under pressure, clearly, the more this can be maintained the nearer breaking point is.