Ben Brereton Diaz

[alex l]

This guy is generally on the ball when it comes to transfers. As long as he gives his all for us in the remaining games, so be it. 

[roversfan99]

Still an absolute joke that we have let this happen. All down to one family.

[alex l]

I'm no Venkys apologist but I wasn't aware they directly handle contract negotiations with the players. More reasonably a statement is they are the reason we had 6/7m to spend on him in the first place. 

[roversfan99]

3 minutes ago, alex l said:

I'm no Venkys apologist but I wasn't aware they directly handle contract negotiations with the players. More reasonably a statement is they are the reason we had 6/7m to spend on him in the first place. 

They like with Rothwell intervened preventing a potential substantial sale. We now go into a summer having to try and replace him with no money to reinvest.

[alex l]

Having kept him, we go into the last 9 regular season league games with a good chance of making the play offs and therefore a chance of promotion. If we go up, and I absolutely do not want to jinx it, we get 100-150 million, depending on who you listen to. Would you then credit Venkys for sticking to their stance and the result of that?

[roversfan99]

I still don't think the owners should be intervening, and I still don't think even if we do get promotion that the owners should be making such risky decisions, so no I wouldn't credit them. When we have spent probably a tiny bit on top of the potential Rothwell and Brereton proceeds on transfers right across the last 5 seasons since promotion, it gives you some perspective on how much money we have squandered just to keep those 2 for a combined period of 18 months, and even if the owners were willing to write off that expense and add it to the budget which they obviously wouldn't, but with FFP it makes it an even more foolish risk.

It also undermines those below the owners who seem to understand that the key to a club of our resources (as teams like Brentford have shown) is to sell assets on and reinvest some of that on a continious basis.

Before the season, probability wise the chances of promotion were quite low, even now they are less than 25%. Can we afford to throw over £8m on Brereton down the drain in a gamble? No. Obviously the key would be to use much of that money to reinvest.

[Dreams of 1995]

There would be relatively few people who would have sold Brereton-Diaz in the January window of 2022 - sitting 2nd in the table, with Brereton 2nd only to Mitrovic in the goal scoring charts.

The gamble was obvious: sell BBD in the middle of absolutely fine form and hope a replacement comes in hitting the ground running.. or hold on to him knowing full well it meant he would go for free

No £8m offer in the summer was ever confirmed, and seems like pure waffle to me. BBD's form sunk Feb onwards, and with him available on a free in 6 months (abroad) or 12 months domestically I reckon we'd be hard pressed to find a team willing to throw £8m on him. Especially knowing full well he'd get another full season in the Championship under his belt anyway

Obviously, people that have now had the benefit of hindsight make out like they always would because hey, we all like to be seen to know it all

Knowing the context of January 2022 who would we spend this supposed £8m on? Bear in mind the only player matching his numbers at the time was Mitrovic - a bloke who cost the handsome sum of £22m in 2018..........

There's plenty of room to criticise the goings on in the boardroom at the Rovers. This just isn't one of them. Neither was refusing to sell Rothwell (also in fine form at the time) to our closest rival in the automatic promotion push

Tony Mowbray spoilt that season with his constant blunders at management level, and managed to turn a team flying into a team devoid of any confidence within a couple of games

Edited March 29, 2023 by Dreams of 1995

[yankfan]

8 hours ago, magicalmortensleftpeg said:

The Brereton situation is different to Nyambe, Lenihan and Rothwell for me. He was on the periphery of the squad until 2021 and if we had offered him a new deal then, plenty on here would have been angry (look at the reaction when Gallagher signed a new deal last year). His transformation over a summer could not have been foreseen and after that, he was never going to sign a new deal with us - unless we get promoted. 

But if you believed what TM was saying at the time, “he’s banging them in in training…” then they had to have seen some potential. Maybe could have gotten him on a long term deal with very low wages.  At that time he likely would have taken any offer we gave him. 
 

 

[yankfan]

21 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I still don't think the owners should be intervening, and I still don't think even if we do get promotion that the owners should be making such risky decisions, so no I wouldn't credit them. When we have spent probably a tiny bit on top of the potential Rothwell and Brereton proceeds on transfers right across the last 5 seasons since promotion, it gives you some perspective on how much money we have squandered just to keep those 2 for a combined period of 18 months, and even if the owners were willing to write off that expense and add it to the budget which they obviously wouldn't, but with FFP it makes it an even more foolish risk.

It also undermines those below the owners who seem to understand that the key to a club of our resources (as teams like Brentford have shown) is to sell assets on and reinvest some of that on a continious basis.

Before the season, probability wise the chances of promotion were quite low, even now they are less than 25%. Can we afford to throw over £8m on Brereton down the drain in a gamble? No. Obviously the key would be to use much of that money to reinvest.

£8 million on 25% odds to return £150 million seems like a good bet.  Even at 15% chance it’s a good bet.  Provided £8 million loss doesn’t matter to you, as it doesn’t to billionaires in another country who could give a toss about the community. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by yankfan

[roversfan99]

28 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

There would be relatively few people who would have sold Brereton-Diaz in the January window of 2022 - sitting 2nd in the table, with Brereton 2nd only to Mitrovic in the goal scoring charts.

The gamble was obvious: sell BBD in the middle of absolutely fine form and hope a replacement comes in hitting the ground running.. or hold on to him knowing full well it meant he would go for free

No £8m offer in the summer was ever confirmed, and seems like pure waffle to me. BBD's form sunk Feb onwards, and with him available on a free in 6 months (abroad) or 12 months domestically I reckon we'd be hard pressed to find a team willing to throw £8m on him. Especially knowing full well he'd get another full season in the Championship under his belt anyway

Obviously, people that have now had the benefit of hindsight make out like they always would because hey, we all like to be seen to know it all

Knowing the context of January 2022 who would we spend this supposed £8m on? Bear in mind the only player matching his numbers at the time was Mitrovic - a bloke who cost the handsome sum of £22m in 2018..........

There's plenty of room to criticise the goings on in the boardroom at the Rovers. This just isn't one of them. Neither was refusing to sell Rothwell (also in fine form at the time) to our closest rival in the automatic promotion push

Tony Mowbray spoilt that season with his constant blunders at management level, and managed to turn a team flying into a team devoid of any confidence within a couple of games

No one has advocated selling him last January. Nice bid £8.4m in the summer for him.

23 minutes ago, yankfan said:

£8 million on 25% odds to return £150 million seems like a good bet.  Even at 15% chance it’s a good bet.  Provided £8 million loss doesn’t matter to you, as it doesn’t to billionaires in another country who could give a toss about the community. 

This £8m doesnt matter to Venkys line makes no sense. Firstly, we have spent about double that across 5 seasons so it would be a very significant amount to us. Secondly, there is FFP to think of.

That £8m could have been invested in a couple of very significant signings that could have helped us this season (it's not either gamble and keep Brereton for essentially £8m on a seasons loan or have nothing) and not only that, would mean that if the 85% likely non promotion season happens at the point of making that decision, we are in just as good a position in the following seasons to compete again.

Managers and now Broughton have mentioned having assets on long term deals with comparisons to clubs like Brentford who trade assets and get stronger. When the owners undermine the supposed process by not allowing assets to be sold and money reinvested then it prevents that process from coming into play.

[Dreams of 1995]

16 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

No one has advocated selling him last January. Nice bid £8.4m in the summer for him.

If that offer was genuine interest. The press reported it but that means nothing. It came and went like the wind. They “put in an offer”, we said no and that was that 

Doesn't seem right. No offer is accepted first time of asking for a player you don’t want to sell!! 

Supposedly Celta Vigo and Fulham did the same. Can’t see it myself - in less than 6 months they could talk to him for free 

The bids worth discussing supposedly came in January, all above £8m. Then it wasn’t the right time to sell 

I’d eat my hat if Nice were to pay +£8m for a player out of contract in 12 months. Would have been a serious outlay for a team like Nice - for a lad who has never score a top flight goal and only had half a season of regular scoring under his belt 

[Exiled_Rover]

1 hour ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

There would be relatively few people who would have sold Brereton-Diaz in the January window of 2022 - sitting 2nd in the table, with Brereton 2nd only to Mitrovic in the goal scoring charts.

The gamble was obvious: sell BBD in the middle of absolutely fine form and hope a replacement comes in hitting the ground running.. or hold on to him knowing full well it meant he would go for free

No £8m offer in the summer was ever confirmed, and seems like pure waffle to me. BBD's form sunk Feb onwards, and with him available on a free in 6 months (abroad) or 12 months domestically I reckon we'd be hard pressed to find a team willing to throw £8m on him. Especially knowing full well he'd get another full season in the Championship under his belt anyway

Obviously, people that have now had the benefit of hindsight make out like they always would because hey, we all like to be seen to know it all

Knowing the context of January 2022 who would we spend this supposed £8m on? Bear in mind the only player matching his numbers at the time was Mitrovic - a bloke who cost the handsome sum of £22m in 2018..........

There's plenty of room to criticise the goings on in the boardroom at the Rovers. This just isn't one of them. Neither was refusing to sell Rothwell (also in fine form at the time) to our closest rival in the automatic promotion push

Tony Mowbray spoilt that season with his constant blunders at management level, and managed to turn a team flying into a team devoid of any confidence within a couple of games

Agree to disagree.

The only way we're going to get promoted is by succession planning. Bournemouth offered well over Rothwell's market value (especially for someone with just 6 months left in his contract) - he absolutely should have been sold.

Likewise, say we don't get promoted this season and someone comes in with a £10m offer for Hyam (arguably our best CB) you say "thank you very much" and take the money. The whole point of having Broughton et al is that the next cab on the rank is already identified (either in the Academy or from smaller clubs) and that £10m is used to strengthen the team / club.

Relegation threatened PL clubs started getting desperate for Brereton-Diaz in January 2022 - we should have sold him if a £12-15m offer (with add ons) came in. I'm not sure it did - the market has decided he's not worth anything like.

[roversfan99]

46 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

If that offer was genuine interest. The press reported it but that means nothing. It came and went like the wind. They “put in an offer”, we said no and that was that 

Doesn't seem right. No offer is accepted first time of asking for a player you don’t want to sell!! 

Supposedly Celta Vigo and Fulham did the same. Can’t see it myself - in less than 6 months they could talk to him for free 

The bids worth discussing supposedly came in January, all above £8m. Then it wasn’t the right time to sell 

I’d eat my hat if Nice were to pay +£8m for a player out of contract in 12 months. Would have been a serious outlay for a team like Nice - for a lad who has never score a top flight goal and only had half a season of regular scoring under his belt 

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20671027.blackburn-rovers-reject-ogc-nice-bid-ben-brereton-diaz/

It was widely reported so it seems a bit strange to dismiss it as fictional. Nice spent a lot in the summer especially in wages on the likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Ross Barkley, Aaron Ramsey and Nicolas Pepe amongst others.

£8m is a substantial amount (half of our transfer spend over 5 years) even if we may have wanted more in an ideal world. We could have signed at least a couple of players on long term deals.

[J*B]

5 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Still an absolute joke that we have let this happen. All down to one family.

It’s entirely down to the CEO putting a block on all expenditure through COVID. By the time it was over it was an easy decision to ignore a deal.

Not saying that was the wrong decision, the pandemic meant hard choices. But the decision made had huge knock on effects. 

[Gav]

10 minutes ago, J*B said:

It’s entirely down to the CEO putting a block on all expenditure through COVID. By the time it was over it was an easy decision to ignore a deal.

Not saying that was the wrong decision, the pandemic meant hard choices. But the decision made had huge knock on effects. 

We have billionaire owners, would Jack have allowed John Williams to do the same?

This is owners that simply don’t care.

[J*B]

28 minutes ago, Gav said:

We have billionaire owners, would Jack have allowed John Williams to do the same?

This is owners that simply don’t care.

They don’t care about our football club like we do, no. 

[Dreams of 1995]

3 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20671027.blackburn-rovers-reject-ogc-nice-bid-ben-brereton-diaz/

It was widely reported so it seems a bit strange to dismiss it as fictional. Nice spent a lot in the summer especially in wages on the likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Ross Barkley, Aaron Ramsey and Nicolas Pepe amongst others.

£8m is a substantial amount (half of our transfer spend over 5 years) even if we may have wanted more in an ideal world. We could have signed at least a couple of players on long term deals.

I never “dismissed it as fictional”

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, J*B said:

It’s entirely down to the CEO putting a block on all expenditure through COVID. By the time it was over it was an easy decision to ignore a deal.

Not saying that was the wrong decision, the pandemic meant hard choices. But the decision made had huge knock on effects. 

We had a bid to make a profit on him last summer and turned it down. That was the owners choice.

[Dreams of 1995]

3 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Agree to disagree.

The only way we're going to get promoted is by succession planning. Bournemouth offered well over Rothwell's market value (especially for someone with just 6 months left in his contract) - he absolutely should have been sold.

Likewise, say we don't get promoted this season and someone comes in with a £10m offer for Hyam (arguably our best CB) you say "thank you very much" and take the money. The whole point of having Broughton et al is that the next cab on the rank is already identified (either in the Academy or from smaller clubs) and that £10m is used to strengthen the team / club.

Relegation threatened PL clubs started getting desperate for Brereton-Diaz in January 2022 - we should have sold him if a £12-15m offer (with add ons) came in. I'm not sure it did - the market has decided he's not worth anything like.

Yeah, I mean that’s what it is all about. Opinions

I wouldn’t have signed off on selling Rothwell to our promotion rivals at that time. Hindsight says I would be wrong. But I am being honest about it - there’s no point pretending 

Neither would I have sold BBD. £15m was a hell of a deal, but it would have meant we sign a player guaranteed to get goals for that fee. It would be a big call especially in January 

The massive dip in form after January ended was the fault of Mowbray

If you’d have made those calls fair enough 

[roversfan99]

12 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Yeah, I mean that’s what it is all about. Opinions

I wouldn’t have signed off on selling Rothwell to our promotion rivals at that time. Hindsight says I would be wrong. But I am being honest about it - there’s no point pretending 

Neither would I have sold BBD. £15m was a hell of a deal, but it would have meant we sign a player guaranteed to get goals for that fee. It would be a big call especially in January 

The massive dip in form after January ended was the fault of Mowbray

If you’d have made those calls fair enough 

Would you have chosen to sell him for £8.4m in the summer or would you have let him run his deal down?

[alex l]

As the other side of the same coin, how would people have reacted with a transfer fee of less than £9m? Particularly when Arma went for £15m? IMO there'd have been uproar. And if Hurst was instead a permanent...

[ben_the_beast]

4 hours ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

If that offer was genuine interest. The press reported it but that means nothing. It came and went like the wind. They “put in an offer”, we said no and that was that 

Doesn't seem right. No offer is accepted first time of asking for a player you don’t want to sell!! 

Supposedly Celta Vigo and Fulham did the same. Can’t see it myself - in less than 6 months they could talk to him for free 

The bids worth discussing supposedly came in January, all above £8m. Then it wasn’t the right time to sell 

I’d eat my hat if Nice were to pay +£8m for a player out of contract in 12 months. Would have been a serious outlay for a team like Nice - for a lad who has never score a top flight goal and only had half a season of regular scoring under his belt 

That theory only makes sense in a closed market. At the end of the day Nice, Fulham, Celta Vigo, the Italian team I can't remember. None of them are getting Brereton for free if he's chosen to go to Villareal. Even if a players contract only has 12 months to run, unless you have a bombproof gentleman's agreement that your club is the only club he wants to go to, you have to pay money to reach the top of the pecking order. 

As much as I have my doubts around his ability to make the step up, £8million for Brereton in todays market is still a steal, regardless of the amount of time left on his contract. 

Should we have sold him in the summer. Maybe. But then it brings me out in a cold sweat that we would have had cash in the bank and maybe splashed up to £5million on George Hirst rather than bringing him in on loan.

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, alex l said:

As the other side of the same coin, how would people have reacted with a transfer fee of less than £9m? Particularly when Arma went for £15m? IMO there'd have been uproar. And if Hurst was instead a permanent...

But its £8.4m more than he will go for this summer. If he played for someone else, would you be happy if we paid that to loan him for a year as a loan fee?

The Hirst hypothetical deal is a totally seperate deal, it isn't a term and condition of selling Brereton.

[alex l]

I accept your point that the signing of Hirst is hypothetical. But then so is the belief that we'd have spent all or any of the £8m.  And had we done, how those signings would have performed and where we'd be. 

What isn't hypothetical is our league position and, despite a poor run of form for a couple of months, BBD is still our top scorer. 

Had he downed tools, been poor all year and we we were 15th I think we'd all agree we should have cashed in. As it stands, I think it's worked out fairly well so far. 

[philipl]

Do a simple net present value calculation with absolutely known probabilities and Diaz' scoring record and you arrive at the £15m valuation. 

Offers of £8m are no brainers to reject.

There is no debate to be had.