The January 2026 Transfer Window

[Browjd]

Imagine being RG, you are literally calling the shots on transfers (terribly) at one of the most historic clubs in the land and your CV includes ex footballer + work experience. It's astonishing. One day, they'll write a business book about these years....

[LeftWinger]

43 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

In a struggling Sheffield Weds side.

Just wait until he gets on the end of a Hedges cross. 

There are several reasons this won't happen 😂

Cadamarteri most likely won't come here.
Hedges might not play for Rovers again anyway.
When did anyone ever get on the end of a Hedges cross?

[Penwortham Blue]

49 minutes ago, Ghost7 said:

Why did Rovers need Sheffield Wednesday to tell them £750,000 wouldn't work... I could have told them that. I also could have told them the wage structure isn't high enough to buy a striker for £3m like Smit, so don't bother if another Championship club has any interest in the player. You aren't competitive in the market, or taking the league position seriously.

If we bid £3m for Smit, how has he headed up at Stoke, but just on loan !

[islander200]

1 minute ago, Penwortham Blue said:

If we bid £3m for Smit, how has he headed up at Stoke, but just on loan !

It's with an obligation to buy in the summer.

[Tomphil2]

Barnsley  'We need 5 mill for our starman if we are to let him go'

BRFC 'Here's 500k up front plus 500k in add ons'

Barnsley 'Lads we said 5 million you;'ve got to be near to that or we don't talk'

BRFC 'Ok here's 750k plus 500 add ons, that's our best offer'

Barnsley ' Get stuffed, your number is blocked' !

Sheff Weds   'We rate this lad around 3 million even though we are a bit desperate'

BRFC  'Here's 750k'

Sheff Weds  'Lads we aren't that desperate plus there's other interest'

BRFC  'Ok here's 750k plus add ons to 1 million'

Sheff Weds  'Get stuffed, your blocked'

 

Rudy Gestede 'We tried, be grateful you have a team anyway'

Rovers non happy clapping fanbase  'Get stuffed' !!!!

[Emerald Isle Rover]

49 minutes ago, Comfortably numb said:

I think Elliot Jackson would be the best person to explain all the hype about Cadamarteri. As a Wednesday fan he will obviously know more about him than any of us and what his qualities (if any) are.

Jackson has just re-tweeted th sheff wed reporters details 

his last article was about rovers going back in for Cleary 

he is well out of the loop at present however will know more about the player but regardless of things like he’s young he’s mobile he’s athletic the facts are he design seem a natural scorer he fits the profile of someone who can play across the line I genuinely would much rather rovers pay for league 2s top scorer at least they have the feeling and confidence of actually scoring 

[Inferi]

Cadamarteri would be so underwhelming. We are fighting against relegation and need someone to lead the line. Ohashi is not good enough to be a regular starter.

Cadamarteri's goalscoring record is shocking. Yes he's been playing for a poor team but you'd still expect more goals since he has started most matches this season. Nevermind the fact that we are also a very poor side. I guess he'a being targeted because he's cheap and noone else is interested

[Penwortham Blue]

3 minutes ago, islander200 said:

It's with an obligation to buy in the summer.

Fair enough, I wasn’t aware of that.

[bigbrandjohn]

This from my lifelong obsessive and rather distraught Wednesday mate

“Hard to tell. When he first played last year he had the likes of Windass and Paterson supporting him. And he looked really promising. 

This season he just has to continually plough a lone furrow all by himself against 3 defenders. 
And doing this for 90 mins 3 matches a week because we have no one else.”

well at least he is qualified for the role here 😉

[JCRovers]

Priority has to be getting a target man in before window closes. We need a focal point on top since we barely can string two passes together in defence and just hoofs it when under pressure. Can't rely on Ohashi as his confidence is shot, doesn't have the attributes needed to be a prolific goalscorer at this level and gets constantly bullied by defenders.

Would personally go for Salech at Cardiff (6'5 tall, 12 goals in L1 this season, 8 goals in Championship last season). Took a nasty blow to the neck in the weekend match but has apparently been cleared from any serious injury. Has re-sale value as well (24 years old) and should be an upgrade to Gueye.

[KentExile]

57 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

If we bid £3m for Smit, how has he headed up at Stoke, but just on loan !

 

55 minutes ago, islander200 said:

It's with an obligation to buy in the summer.

Will sign permanently in the summer for a record sale (previous record sale was £3.5m)

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/go-ahead-eagles-report-record-10775941

Edit - fee could reach £4.8M, so £3M was never going to cut it.  I will assume our bid could have reached £3M if all add on's were triggered, so was probably south of £2M guaranteed

Edited 2 hours ago by KentExile

[KentExile]

25 minutes ago, JCRovers said:

Would personally go for Salech at Cardiff (6'5 tall, 12 goals in L1 this season, 8 goals in Championship last season). Took a nasty blow to the neck in the weekend match but has apparently been cleared from any serious injury. Has re-sale value as well (24 years old) and should be an upgrade to Gueye.

They paid close to £4M for him, and are coming straight back up, so wont be selling for anything Rovers offer

[JHRover]

Under JDT the MO for Broughton often involved the 'loan with option to buy' approach whereby we attempted to get players in at minimal initial cost but with an option or trigger clause resulting in a hefty payment if/when we got promoted.

I can't remember names but there were a few where we offered to take a player on the basis if we got promoted or exercised our option we would pay a good amount of money for them.

Obviously that little plan is now in tatters as we are in danger of going down. No player or selling club is going to listen to promises of future cash or promotion clauses that we are never going to trigger.

So looks like we are back to the old favourite of a relatively small down payment with add-ons and extras later. Pretty daft expecting a club like Sheffield Wednesday to go along with that given their immediate financial issues - they'll want guaranteed cash up front.

No matter, only our Championship status and club future in immediate question with 4 days left to sort it out. 

[RevidgeBlue]

Cadamarteri would be absolutely desperation stuff.

He'd be ok as a cheap "one for the future" in addition to someone with some sort of goal scoring track record, but if we are pinning our hopes on him to score the goals to keep us up that will probably seal our relegation.

We're probably only in for him because we think he'll be exceptionally cheap. And even then we dont appear to be offering what Wednesday want.

Embarrassing stuff. And clearly not worried about going down if this is the best we can do.

[KentExile]

10 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I can't remember names but there were a few where we offered to take a player on the basis if we got promoted or exercised our option we would pay a good amount of money for them.

 

Lewis O'Brien was definitely an obligation to buy if we were promoted

the former Brighton striker whose name escapes me may have been another

Edited 2 hours ago by KentExile

[MarkBRFC]

Just now, KentExile said:

the former Brighton striker whose name escapes me may have been another

Deniz Undav

[JHRover]

Indeed. Attempts to get around having no money by tempting selling clubs to agree to a low up front fee with a biggie if we got promoted. Using the fact we were in/around the play-off positions.

A serious club would of course have paid the going rate to get those players in during January to strengthen for the run in.

But then again we were never serious about promotion, and that's why it slipped away in February and March when the players were running on empty and managers were let down. 

[RevidgeBlue]

4 minutes ago, KentExile said:

Lewis O'Brien was definitely an obligation to buy if we were promoted

the former Brighton striker whose name escapes me may have been another

We never actually landed any of these supposed "Loan with an option to buy" targets though - O Brien, Undav, Mcguire so we might as well have said we nearly landed Lionel Messi.

All turned out to be smoke and mirrors in the end for whatever reason.

[...]

1 hour ago, Emerald Isle Rover said:

Jackson has just re-tweeted th sheff wed reporters details 

his last article was about rovers going back in for Cleary 

he is well out of the loop at present however will know more about the player but regardless of things like he’s young he’s mobile he’s athletic the facts are he design seem a natural scorer he fits the profile of someone who can play across the line I genuinely would much rather rovers pay for league 2s top scorer at least they have the feeling and confidence of actually scoring 

Yea like there actually something about this guy rather than, who is he?

[Ricky]

I still think we would have gone up had we got Undav that January. He’s turned out to be a proper striker.

I dread to think who we’ll roll out as our big signing this January. Surely the manager has to come out with something after spouting off about the numbers of signings we needed and how we needed to do our business early .

[rock steady]

6 minutes ago, Ricky said:

Surely the manager has to come out with something after spouting off about the numbers of signings we needed and how we needed to do our business early .

You would think he might be held to account, or at least challenged. But I predicit it may go something like:

Local reporter: vague softball question about the window.
Val: January market is difficult.

The end.

[JHRover]

11 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

We never actually landed any of these supposed "Loan with an option to buy" targets though - O Brien, Undav, Mcguire so we might as well have said we nearly landed Lionel Messi.

All turned out to be smoke and mirrors in the end for whatever reason.

I think Broughton was doing the best he could with zero backing or support from upstairs, and his only way to do that, bring in reasonable signings and at least try to maintain our league position was to structure it on the 'loan with option' basis, of course not then requiring any cash from India as it could come out of the club's own reserves if we got to the PL.

Wouldn't have been necessary had the owners actually taken a shred of interest and wanted to support the manager in his efforts to get us promoted, but that's them all over. 

But even then when he'd done the hard yards and got such deals structured and agreed, shadowy characters did their bit to torpedo the moves. 

Not a problem we will be having for the foreseeable now that they've ensured promotion talk will be consigned to history. 

[Bohinen1983]

Can't wait to see what shite they unveil in the last few days of the window.. 

Dismantled a team skirting with the playoffs for this!
 

We looked well stocked at the back with Carter coming back (albeit for how long?),  Atcheson and Pratt looking good along with Miller's versatility. If we were to improve on our centre halves I'd have made improving on Mcloughlin a priority. Yet we being in a young(ish) Cashin who isn't an upgrade on anyone.
 

Our centre midfield is absolutely woeful, no bite, no guile, no creativity.  Worst I think I've seen in a long time- takes me back to the Coyle days of Lowe and Akpan.

Ignoring our lack of threat out wide (No pace, no creativity or crosses) as it's absolutely redundant when you've Ohashi playing up top.  He most likely won't take up a good position and even if he does you can bet he'll either take an extra touch 8/10. 

Awful squad.  It needs a complete overhaul,  absolutely disastrous summer that's going to relegate us.  

Edited 1 hour ago by Bohinen1983

[RevidgeBlue]

1 minute ago, JHRover said:

I think Broughton was doing the best he could with zero backing or support from upstairs, and his only way to do that, bring in reasonable signings and at least try to maintain our league position was to structure it on the 'loan with option' basis, of course not then requiring any cash from India as it could come out of the club's own reserves if we got to the PL.

Wouldn't have been necessary had the owners actually taken a shred of interest and wanted to support the manager in his efforts to get us promoted, but that's them all over. 

But even then when he'd done the hard yards and got such deals structured and agreed, shadowy characters did their bit to torpedo the moves. 

Not a problem we will be having for the foreseeable now that they've ensured promotion talk will be consigned to history. 

Think Broughton was just full of BS personally

He was DOF so it was ultimately his job to identify the deals, GET THEM CLEARED BY OWNERS/MANAGEMENT, and get them over the line.

He failed every single time - we don't know exactly why deals kept failing but we've never had the situation either before or since where deals got right to the wire on transfer deadline night before failing due to alleged administrative errors.

Not saying he was solely to blame but I wouldnt say he was any less to blame than anyone else.

All complicit just like Ismael is with our current slump in fortunes.

[DutchRover]

The missed paperwork was 100% meddling, the Maguire saga proved it. Broughton had everything agreed at a good value then rug was pulled away by someone (Suhail? Venkys?), he saved it by negotiating the loan to buy with a bigger fee but by then it was too late. I'm sure whoever killed the first deal stalled it at end to miss paperwork.

Broughton has been competent everywhere else he's worked except us, so hard to believe it was him. Shame he must've signed an NDA to not expose the nonsense JDT has alluded to in that period.