By several accounts, O'Riordan was man of the match for Doncaster in last weeks 1-0 win Connor O'Riordan – an excellent start at centre-back 8 Connor O'Riordan shone at centre-back Connor O'Riordan - 7 - An impressive debut for the giant loanee, with some calm passes out of defence. Steady start Now one swallow doesn't make a summer, but maybe the 21 year old centre back should not be written off as a dud just yet?

Or it could have been that JDT didn't rate him, but others at the club did, which is why he was loaned rather than sold so that he was still here for when JDT (who was unhappy & had already apparently offered to resign at least once at this point) left The main issue for me was once JDT did leave & once Championship football was secured on the last day of the season, that contracts were not immediately offered (at decent Championship pay rates) for Travis, Tronstad & Brittain in the summer of 2024. But as ever, Rovers tried to kick the can down the road for an extra year to save a few quid. That is what will have told those players that they were not valued as highly as perhaps they should be

Could you beam Trav for not signing a new contract? Sure he’s our captain and came up through our academy, but it was just 2 years ago we sent him out on loan to save on wages. Basically telling him he’s not good enough, then a year later he started nearly every match and was our captain. Doesn’t exactly make you feel like the club truly values him

Thank you. It was the 4th and still early enough here, morning I think, to be the 4th on your side of the pond still. I was wondering if I missed something in the verbage, things are usually thru a certain time. One could read "until" differantly, least I could. Anyway thanks for the contact and let's see if anything comes of it. Not had luck getting refunds here.

FWIW I think the plan is to sign / have two senior or first team standard players for each position. Then back up with the academy where they have one ready: GK - Toth, Pears (Michalski) RB - Miller, Alebiosu (Montgomery) Lcb - Wharton, McLauchlan Rcb - Hyam, Carter LB - Ribeiro, Pickering DM - Sonny, Forshaw, (Montgomery) CM - Trav, Tavares AM - Cantwell, Henriksson (Tyjon) RAM - NEW, Hedges LAM - De Neve, Kargbo ST - Ohashi, Gueye, (Leonard) (Tyjon) Based on this, the only glaring need is RAM, which is aligned to what Rudy / VI are saying. The rest will come down to any sales and replacements. I reckon after the RAM, you’re looking at a loan to cover Carter, a keeper if / when Pears leaves, and Baradji if / when Trav leaves. Fully expect Buckley and probably Garrett to leave permanently, with the likes of Duru and Batty to go out on loan. Will likely be a question of which of the other academy grads they believe are good enough to play out of Pratt? Edmondson? Mularkey Matthews? Let’s see. Also - I personally like the idea of Myoshi, who would be a great addition, but I just don’t see it, unless it’s much cheaper than £2m. We wouldn’t drop that money on a 28yr old with no resell potential. I have no doubt, he’s ’on The list’ but it wouldn’t surprise me if the story has been leaked from his camp to flush out buyers. The only way I see it happening is for a much reduced fee. I’m also dubious about the way this has come out, because players we sign don’t tend to come out like this. We don’t seem to court them publicly, it usually goes from 0-100 fast.

I've been more thinking he looks like Bill Skarsgaard.

Completely agree. On the basis that actions speak louder than words that's become patently obvious since the Court case hasnt it? Let's not pretend though that anything has changed due to Waggott leaving, His MO was always to discourage increasing bums on seats but instead maintain revenue levels by exploiting the loyalty of the hard-core fan base to the limit. "Squeeze 'em until the pips squeak" as Denis Healey once infamously said about the "rich". Seems like nothing whatsoever has changed in that respect.

Thanks for this Glen. It's wonderful to see someone finally giving the bastards a genuinely hard time. Absolutely jaw dropping stuff. You could drive a double decker bus through the holes in most of what Suhail said. I dont think the situation has necessarily suddenly got better or worse, it's just that Waggott was considerably more adept at lying through his teeth. Even amongst all the nonsense, one or two things leapt out at me: I find it astonishing that Suhail would claim that the owners were solely responsible for appointing the next CEO when it seems to be common knowledge that they never even spoke to Eustace and I was led to believe that years ago Suhail was solely responsible for the appointment of Lambert and he never spoke to them either. I know football is a business but even so that smacks of ignoring the organ grinder and wanting to speak to the monkey. Wrong way round. The manager is by far the most important appointment at any Club. Without success on the pitch everything else fails. Secondly if the owners ever get to read the minutes Im guessing they won't appreciate Suhail throwing them under the bus as regards the women's team.

Suhail really comes across even worse than anyone could have possibly imagined. To think, he is the most senior person at our football club. Carries himself in a way which disgraces the club. Unprofessional, sarcastic and bitter. Numerous jibes at Glen (the one about asking Venkys himself was a real low) but also throwing other employees past and present under the bus. He clearly has no interest in the clubs success. Clearly not one to push for more funding or even reinvestment, will just blindly defend. The stuff about Lowe, about Waggott, about funding, about the womens team, about Jones, all totally bizarre. And so evasive about contracts. Making out like its the fault mainly of people that have left, no comment on what will be done to change things. For so long, Waggott took the brunt of the stick and I maintain that I am glad that he is gone. (Or whatever the situation is) But he at least carried himself in the main as a board member would be expected to act. Yasir also comes across terribly. Surely he doesnt genuinely believe the stuff about prices not being a major factor in poor sales.

Again, you are fixated with numbers as if each of those "11" is equal. Are there enough goals? No. Is there enough creativity? No. Is there enough pace? No. Our attack is nowhere near good enough. It shouldnt be a case of have we enough warm bodies, it should be do we have the necessary quality. For the positions up to the attacking ones, roughly 2 for 1 position is sufficient. In attack, especially if we want to play a high press. Especially now you can name 5 subs from 9, so you are likely going through 7 or 8 a game, and more often than not at least 1 or 2 will be missing through injury. We never want to get to the stage where you dont have enough options on the bench to bring on fresh legs. If we get a right winger and a striker that are good enough, fine. I fear that we wont even get 2, just 1. That wouldnt be enough, either bodies or crucially quality. For what its worth, we have lost Dolan, Weimann, ACD, Dennis and Woodrow from last season. Obviously 3 of those 5 were crap, 2 are big losses. But even if we did sign 3 more attackers, we would only be back to where we were numerically, and even then at times with injuries we were light on the bench.

I really do not think this is going to happen.

As has repeatedly been pointed out though, Gestede has said outgoing sales make no impact on the budget. Whilst I find that hard to believe (surely it at least affects next year's budget), it does mean there's little reason being happy or even content with any sales of decent players. By the same token as 'we've never made the playoffs with him', we've also been on the verge in 3 of the last 4 seasons where he has been playing. The one he played the least games in, where we loaned him out to Ipswich for half the season after sidelining him here, we nearly got relegated.

I think you’re dead right. There has been no ambition at this club for many years now. From the owners their whole approach seems to be “here’s some cash, it’s all you’re getting and we don’t care what you do with it” .

A couple of points I’ll add… The April fans forum was the first I’d ever attended, and the level of professionalism on show was very different this time round for number 2. In that meeting I’d pressed Suhail and Waggott on whether they would be requesting significant transfer funds given we had headroom under P&S rules given the profit we posted in 23/24, but that opportunity to spend would disappear. Waggott stated that he hoped so and that transfer funds and an increase in wage budget would be forthcoming, and he acknowledged that there was a window of opportunity to spend. Suhail repeatedly claimed the squad had been reinvested in (mentioning the spend on Sam Gallagher at one point) - I argued that we’d only really replaced outgoing players (I used the term backfill), usually with cheaper options and there appeared to be no desire to progress and improve. He eventually stated he’d be requesting the maximum budget available given our FFP position. Which in the July meeting he admits he didn’t do. When asked about the owners aspirations he simply stated “A sustainable club.” Given that Waggott had always previously said “A sustainable Premier League club” I asked him “Sustainable regardless of what division we are in?” He responded by accusing me of putting words into his mouth. I pointed out I was asking the question - I redirected to Adam Owen given he has some football knowledge and background. As you can see above he wasn’t wholly convinced on the idea of breaking even. He mentioned different models we could go down and cited Brentford, Brighton and Ajax as examples. I stated each of these models relied on reinvestment of fees and presently we were more like Crewe circa 1998. Suhail stated that expenditure doesn’t guarantee success. Despite this Yasir later used the term “Punching above our weight” in a way which contradicted Suhail’s claims. At one point Suhail’s repeated attempts to absolve himself of any blame and put it in Waggott led to very audible widespread groans and comments such as “He’s passing the buck again”, “of course it’s not your fault”, and “That’s convenient”. Aside from my personal opinions on suitability, professionalism and competence, my key takeaways were: - Priority one is cutting losses. - Priority 2 is dumbing down expectations. - Suhail is feared by some employees - There is no desire to see Rovers promoted - Fans are an inconvenience, and any expectations we have are viewed as unreasonable

The problem is not that he "wants out" it's that we either wont offer him any deal at all or one which reflects anything like his true value. It's correct in a purely commercial sense to say that under those circumstances it's the pragmatic option to take the money if anyone comes in for him. It's clear where the true blame lies however and it ain't with the player.

Surely the reply to ‘Stuart Jones was only at the club for 10 years and how do we know he was good?’ is: 10 years is a long time, if he wasn’t any good why didn’t you get rid sooner?

Harsh take which no doubt I'll get thumbs down bombed for... They're commodities, if we can get 3-4 million for a player who wants out that we will get nothing for in a year... No brainer. Also, let's cut the shit, we've never made the playoffs with him in all this time either. New(ish) manager, time to move on and get some new blood in, see what they can do. I'll be pissed off if they don't use the at least some of the cash to reinvest though.... And you know what these bastards are like.

What's wrong with being stuck at "a Club like Derby?" If it was Rotherham United or something I could see your point.

Or some of the recent contributions on here from Mike Graham who was previously publicly supportive of them when he was still trying to get into bed with them. Figuratively speaking I hasten to add!

The funniest part of all these ex-Rovers joining Eustace is, once he fucks off the moment another club shows the slightest bit of interest in him, they'll all be stuck at a club like Derby. Unless his entire managerial career plan is to just copy & paste the same squad of players at every job he lands.

Eustace was desperate to get the core key players tied down to new contracts. They and their agents were probably asking him regularly whilst they were loving life sat in the top 6 playing under him. He couldn't tell them anything because he was working for shysters, liars and bullshitters. And eventually, after another fiasco of a January transfer window, he gave it up as a bad job because it was impossible to sustain what he had on and off the pitch without clarity and some backing, neither of which anyone is ever getting here - see the Fans Forum page if you want to know what I mean by a lack of clarity - if a simple Forum meeting ends up such a fiasco just imagine what it must be like dealing with them on a daily basis and trying to get answers and commitment out of them. Or if you believe in fairies it was all because he wanted to save a 30 minute commute whilst risking a year in League One.

In that probable starting X1 for Saturday that chaddy posted I think there were 16 Championship goals goals in that side last season. Draw your own conclusions.

some absolute comedy in there I’ve underlined. Particularly like the wordplay that Yasir uses to state Hull were the only team to have cheaper season tickets ‘in all age groups’ cheers pal, our adults were some of the most expensive in the league in one of the most deprived areas of the country. As for Suhail, well I expected nothing less

Don't be contradictory for the sake of it. That's what gets people's backs up. It was widely reported in the LT for one.