and then it will be Forshaw signing up for another year 😉

Right back at ya 😉

One bad season is was it used to take, but this season has shown that the promoted three are often so bad it just isn’t the case anymore.

It'll be 1600 pages by the time this lot getting anything over the line.

Well on the way to 600 pages.

Derby who will no doubt surpass us next season on a similar budget just like Sunderland did. Meanwhile we have billionaire owners and have sold 40 million quids worth of talent whilst letting around half that walk for nothing in recent years. But yeah we get low gates so it's always that to blame obviously.

"what do they get out of this?". They get something out of it or they wouldn't still be here !

We don't offer competitive salaries when they go pro. Although not academy, look at Dolan. A pro deal when he signed, an improved deal 6 months later and then nothing for 4 years.

It doesn't end, at least for the foreseeable. Depending what happens with Brittain, Travis, Tronstad etc we might have one more competitive year at this level. After that I imagine we'll go down and have stability in the 3rd tier for a few years, without ever finishing in the top 6, then by the time we're into the 2030's we'll be looking at the bottom end of the 3rd tier or possibly even be in the 4th tier. All while the court case still rumbles on, fanbase dwindles even more, and folk asking "what do they get out of this?".

Sancho was class at dortmund. Joining utd was a big mistake

Gav - a quick google suggests that 5 BYD models have 5 star NCAP ratings? I haven't looked closely though. BYD have been around for a couple of years in the UK now - I remember coming across a BYD showroom when walking from Birmingham New St to St Andrews for a game. In Europe BYD sales have just passed Tesla. Range anxiety these days seems to be primarily in people who don't drive electric cars. In our case we charge nearly all the time at home but when we do venture far enough to need a charge away from home we haven't come across any real problem for years now and certainly not since we got our MG5 almost two years ago. Before that we had a first generation Renault Zoe for 6 years which had a lowish range and could only charge with a Type 2 charger. That was a problem on a long drive with slow charging and low range but those days are now well in the past. We have driven to London, Bristol, Glastonbury and Cornwall in the last two years. Every time we have charged en route and in the time we stop for a wee and a coffee the car is charged to 80%. The MG5 is a 2 year lease so we will be replacing it in the next couple of weeks. I might have had another had MG not stopped making them so I have a Polestar 2 arriving.

Forager’s Feast evening at Eight at Gazegill restaurant, Ribble Valley | Lancashire Telegraph You'll not find a full english breakfast at "Eight at Gazegill" restaurant but quality is outstanding set in Ribble Valley farm feilds.

I did mean to put getting lucky in quotation marks, which I have now done I would hazard a guess that Boro keep their youngsters for longer periods because their youngsters know that if they break through that they will be paid a decent wage for a couple of years until they are sold off, whereas at Rovers, they will be lowballed until they are shunted out of the door. Completely agree that the system is broken, as I stated yesterday, but Rovers (as well as every other club) also take advantage of it when they can

We got £2.5m plus contingencies for Phillips so hardly nothing. There will have been a settlement for Finneran as well. I think there is a degree of luck here in how fast players develop. Ideally you want a player through your academy to be very good indeed but not to have proven that until they are 18+ and so have been put on a long term contract rather than picked off earlier- as was the case with Adam Wharton who unlike Phillips, Tygon and Higgins didn't play for the England youth teams. Presumably that may be true of Boro players as well, certainly true of Spence.

And not a prawn sandwich in sight. 😂

The only one of the 'experienced players' we will miss in my opinion. Better terms should have been sorted by January. Can't imagine we can afford or will offer anywhere near what he'll get at other clubs on the back of the season he's had.

Last comment on the subject as I'm clearly in the minority - considering yourself as getting 'lucky' that a lad you've had at the club since he was 7/8 signs a scholarship deal absolutely stinks. The system is beyond broken. Phillips and Finneran were stolen for nothing - and those are just the higher profile ones we know about (I know City stole a winger of ours a few years ago). Boro are able to player trade partly because they actually sell their Academy products for good value. What are they doing that we're not? How do they get players to sign on and show some loyalty?

I assume eventually they'll fold the club, having taken us down to the non-leagues. They'll ultimately blame the fans for not backing the side.

$ome more $o than other$.

He's been worryingly poor so far (if you're a United fan). I understand that they strong-armed him into taking the job mid-season and I understand that he's wedded to a system, but bloody hell the results have been awful. His inability (or unwillingness) to adapt to the players on the books and get a tune out of them is startling.

We see won't we. I think Brittain and Tronstad will sign new contracts here Duru should be the back up as he should have been this season Eustace last summer wanted signings sooner than he got but we made a number of them at the end of July in Gueye, Ohashi, Weimann, Batth, Macfaz. What is wrong with bring through our young players whilst making a number of signings that fit the profile wants like pace wide or Box to Box midfielder? Who says Ismael will be less forceful when it comes to signings?

So how does venkys reign end then? Or does it not end? They're gradually whittling away at the club, if that continues, and why wouldn't it, well be fourth tier or worse

If we have these targets of x thousand minutes for Academy graduates (i.e. generally filling the back end of the squad with Academy players to keep costs down) then Duru has to be lined up as the #2 RB, surely? You've always got the fallback option of Carter at RB (I know he's much better at CB, but he can play RB in the Championship) if the Duru experiment fails and you need someone to hold down the fort before strengthening in January (try typing that with a straight face!).

1000%

Very true. Its been long situation of this happening.