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Man, I remember when we signed this guy. I was on holiday with the mrs, perched up on a bar stool to grab a drink and they had sky sports news on, saw that we'd signed him and I was absolutely buzzing. Luckily the mrs doesn't follow football at all, so I don't think she remembers/cares that I old her he was going to be a class signing.

Nothing posted on court website yet. Usually takes a day or two to catch up.

I think he was referring to the season when in January we were up in the top 2. We was never close to promotion at any other point so it wouldnt fit otherwise. And for your "insider information," seems a bit of a convenient mystery bit of gossip to me. When we got promoted, he did willingly spend a big chunk of money. But it all comes back to this ridiculous idea that he actively moved away from trying to get promoted, even though he would have got a big pay rise, bonuses, a huge raise to his reputation/CV and most likely a further increase through a new deal. Im not trying to defend him. He is a good but limited manager, limited by his own principles and lack of ruthlessness. If he didnt chase up more funds by his own admission then he made a mistake. But I am not so blinded by hate that I start escalating that to nonsense about him purposely not getting us promoted, pretending that he turned down massive war chests etc. None of it makes sense.

He only went to Stuttgart on a free as he didn’t manage to score in his 23 top flight games the season before, he actually left Bremen with 2 league goals in 51 games. Kind of similar to this lad tbf as he had a great season on loan in the lower leagues and then couldn’t make the step up, left on a free after a poor season and then smashed it at the U21 euros and got a decent return for Stuttgart. Im sure if we’d got Woltamade free last season people would have been concerned as he’d come off the back of a bad season and had only scored in the lower German leagues (think Telelovic).

No it wasn't - it was immediately after we got promoted from League 1. Stop trying to twist the facts to try and defend him. That window you're on about I was also told by someone whose source was allegedly Waggott himself that Venky's offered Mowbray a substantial war chest (in addition to the promotion bonuses which were actually published in the LT) which he declined to use. So any suggestion that Rothwell needed to be sold to raise funds that window is nonsense as far as Im concerned

Re Smit… “It’s a big risk!!!….” Ermmmm yes!! Every signing we make is a huge risk because we don’t have the money to have someone nailed on. If he had scored 22 in the second division and then 15 last season his price tag would be 5-10m now. The lad who’s signing for Newcastle went to Stuttgart for free last summer and is about to be sold for £69m! With every one of these players, we’re hoping to pick them up and hit that hockey curve moment. At least at 22, the Dutch lad has time and room to grow. I still don’t reckon we’ll sign him or Soumane. The art of misdirection…👀

Like Mark said... Isn't this a non starter as we have no ESC slots left? Regardless, sounds very Telalovic mk2

Im not discounting that he may go. Again, our inability to offer proper contracts. But he would be a huge loss and we certainly couldnt get by without replacing him.

That's obviously why they're doing it to discourage fans from bringing in their own food and drinks and drive people towards the over-priced crap on the concourse.

I follow it a bit purely for betting purposes (fantastic for over 2.5 goals bets). It's pretty much similar to premier league 2 level where the reserves play, so yes a significant difference in quality to the top flight. A number of teams reserves actually play in it.

Interesting -didn't know that.

Haha you could say so! Yes their second division has 4 U21 sides from the Eredivisie, so it’s not the best standard of football. Smit could be a glorified Joe Nuttall who loves scoring against U21 sides 🤣

Disagree, need someone who's got a good chance of hitting the ground running and who's arguably better than Ohashi and Gueye even if it's only a loan. If you're going to gamble you might as well give Leonard a proper chance.

It's a big gamble - and one that doesn't obviously push the two starters. To me we either need to bring in someone better than those two or someone wildly different for an option off the bench (i.e. quick!).

His stats look a load of Smit but let's hope he has a couple of wonder seasons like Brereton when he added the Diaz to his name. I'm uncertain he will though.

Sounds all set up for a failed appeal

So do we know what happened with the case yesterday?

3 goals and 3 assists in 22 games in his debut season in the top flight after an excellent season year before in the league below. Lets have it right, if he’d banged a load of goals in last season as well, he wouldn’t be coming here, especially with his profile of being 6 ft 3 and quick. Another gamble, but I think they can afford to do so with Yuki and Gueye in the squad

But they are doing so now. They are admittedly being more aggressive cutting the wage bill etc but they are still doing the same thing. You speak as if they were willingly putting in money for the betterment of the club. Thats not the case. All Championship clubs without parachute payments are propped up by owners. Clubs at this level cant be self sustainable. Their negligence hasnt helped those losses, but we would have incured losses either way and they would have had to offset them. It will be the case again in the June 2025 accounts and in this current newly started June 2026 year, they again will probably have to make up another £15-20m. The year we sold Wharton, that was a freak sale, a one off. The only reason we made a small profit. You look in the seasons before the court case. Tomasson's first, we spent £4m. The one before under Mowbray, we sold Armstrong and didnt spend anything. The one before, we didnt spend any real fees. The one before, we covered the majority of the Gallagher fee by selling Raya so maybe a £1.5m net fee. The one before we did spent £10m. The one before, in League 1, maybe just over a million spent. The one before, we made about £10m selling players under Coyle and spent £250k. The one before, very little spent. Last summer we spent only a small chunk of the Szmodics and this summer it seemingly will be pretty much a net spend of nil. Point being, in only 2 seasons out of the last maybe 10, we have spent anything of note. The season we came up and the season when Tomasson joined and even that was only £4m. Point being, we barring one off exceptional sales will ALWAYS make a loss as a Championship club. They will HAVE to make those losses up. All other Championship clubs are the same but no one describes that as their owners being "willing to pump money in." Because thats not what it is.

Wow, is that some sort of pennance for something? 🙂 The standard in the Eredivisie is a lot lower than the PL Id say, is that the same for their second tier compared to ours?

Scores 14 points if the website is accurate which is 1 short. Don't know if you can appeal something like that. Wilsden is the guy who would know

Is that with or without what Akon owes VLL !

I only saw this for the first time in an announcement from the club on their website. It's about supporter behaviour but contains the following: Supporters should also be aware of the club’s bag policy when entering the stadium. To make Ewood Park safe for everyone, restrictions are in place on what you can bring in a bag into the stadium. Each supporter can only bring one small bag and it must not be bigger than A4 size. I know lots of supporters particularly in the family stand who take drinks and snacks in bags bigger than A4. For the life in me I can't see any logic behind a decision like this. Why don't they just say what the restrictions in the bag are. It's almost like we have appointed a 'Head of Pissing People Off' whose job it is is to annoy supporters.

Go Ahead Eagles won the Dutch cup last season beating AZ on penalties. Smit played the whole game (didn’t score or assist). I’ve been watching a bit of the Dutch second division since visiting FC Volendam in February. Their striker scorer 52 goals in two seasons at the second division level. Now playing in the Eredivisie he hasn’t scored a goal this season, it seems to be quite a big jump in class from the second division to the Eredivisie.

Ah OK. Thanks. Not getting great vibes off that one. Presumably not good enough for the Dutch top flight. Is 6ft 3" though so would fit in Val's Valley of the Giants.