Doubles a very different game than singles. England lose to Germany in the last 16 of the World Cup and Littler has a very quick handshake and gets off stage in a bit of a huff. Crowd may have got to him, but he needs to remember how the crowd have been against his opponent early in his career when he was a novelty (see Fallon Sherrock). Needs to learn how to lose.

There’s loads of other sites that say the same thing , but here is one. https://www.sportbible.com/football/what-is-pre-contract-agreement-transfer-deadline-day-923365-20230130

You’ve posted the regulation that says the player shall be free to seek registration with any club of his choice at the expiry of his current contract. Which is correct. But you can sign a pre-contract agreement with another club. Plymouth wanted to keep Ennis and offered him a contract, but he rejected it to move to Ewood. He signed a pre-contract with Rovers and Rovers announced it. His registration moved to Rovers on the 1/7/23 For overseas transfers you can sign a pre-contract with 6 months left. For UK to UK transfers it’s within the final month of their contract. If Derby had agreed with Batth and it was signed off they could announce it.

Don’t think so. He can just sign a pre-contract agreement at Rovers. Nothing Plymouth could do about it.

Plymouth wanted to keep Ennis. He rejected a contract offer to sign for Rovers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65730082 You can sign a pre-contract agreement earlier, but the registration doesn’t officially change until the end of the current contract.

Imagine Wharton pinging balls through a year older. But it wouldn’t have happened as the club wanted to sell him, just as they wanted to sell Szmodics. Therefore I’d have said it to whoever objected and said to me whatever Bohinen1983 said. Let’s not pretend we were hopeful he would stay. As a club you can’t try and flog a player and then moan if he doesn’t want to get injured in pre-season to ensure said move happen. Another quote from Szmodics “Blackburn wanted to sell me for as much as possible.”

“I was still training, sometimes with the team and sometimes on my own, but I was going in and being professional.”

And then I'd have said "Fuck it then I'll stay and you can get Venkys to send the £11 million over you need, and also stick another £11 million in their matched bond. Don't forget you want me gone just like you wanted Adam gone earlier in the season - to actually fund the club. The fact is you are hanging on for a bit extra money but there's no chance you are going to keep me. And I actually do want to go to the Premier League but if I get injured in pre season it fucks me up. But as you are being a set of nobheads, I'll stick around and watch you sell everything you can to raise funds elsewhere. Without that £11 million you will be that skint you will probably end up doing something really drastic and embarrassing to save funds - like making the entire women's team redundant."

Maybe having seen the circumstances around Eustace’s exit, and the clubs hierarchy refusing to even discuss contracts with established senior pro’s, Batth simply thinks “fuck that”.

Szmodics didn’t want to play in pre-season games. He went and discussed it with his manager awhile was fine with it , hence the quote "I went to see him and said listen, I don't want to disrespect the staff, the players, but I don't want to take any part in the preseason games and he said that's absolutely fine, I'll protect you and I'll help you with whatever you want. Therefore he refused to play in pre-season games but played in the first competitive games he encountered. Let’s remember that the club were probably active.y trying to sell him, but squeeze every last penny they could because we were skint. Also I’m not sure why people are suddenly bothered about this today as he told us all this when he left in September 2024. Rudy meanwhile refused to play in the middle of January whilst we were just 6 points from the play offs. We ultimately drew at 23rd placed Wigan in the game he missed. We weren’t desperate sellers as we didn’t sell him until the summer. Very different scenarios for me.

Good performance and a good watch but not sure we should get carried away yet. Ian and Scott dominated but Brighton were shocking. As bad a team as we will play all season. Still, If we can do it again in the next round then I’ll start to believe.

After being unemployed for 11 months, Ismael will align on anything Suhail and Rudy say.

If he was French and Rudy’s mate he’d be getting his two years. I still think it’s under-discussed that we gave Ismael, a manager on the scrap heap, a longer contract in 3.5 years than Mowbray, JDT or Eustace when they were brought in on. This at a time when money is completely dried up.