I'll start. Absolute fucking joke. The one area where we probably should be looking at academy players (4th or 5th choice backup) and we are signing up a guy who was generally piss poor after being brought in off the Plymouth scrap heap.

I was thinking about this before I replied to the thread earlier and the two bits in bold are key to this ongoing debate. It’s the word ‘luck’ that is causing part of the issue, as in reality it’s getting softer ties that you probably wouldn’t expect at later stages of the tournament. I certainly think we got that in last years tournament. Whether it’s luck or not is debatable by pure definition of the word. The second point about the expanded tournament is also quite relevant. It may be that due to the increased number of “softer” teams in the competition, that “softer” draws become more of the norm. What Southgate clearly did do was avoid the Iceland’s and the group exits that plagued us under other managers. Games and groups we expected to progress through, we did.

The last Euros was a bit out of the ordinary based on who we played by seedings. No pot 1 or 2 teams until the final. First time it’s happened since the euros were expanded. Remember those seedings are based on results / merit. The other argument is based on what you define as lucky. Just because the ties in later rounds are based on results in that tournament, it doesn’t mean you can’t get ‘softer’ ties. Take a random cup upset. In 2011 Stevenage (4th tier) beat Premier League Newcastle. You could have played that tie 10 times and 9 times Newcastle would probably have gone through. In the next round Reading drew Stevenage and Reading won comfortably. Reading definitely got a softer tie against Stevenage than they would have had against Newcastle. Were they “lucky” they benefited from the earlier upset?

I’m not naive enough to think that money and contract length aren’t key points for renewals. But I heard from a good source towards the end of the season that a lot of senior players aren’t happy with how the club has been over the last couple of years, especially with the manner of Eustace leaving. Since then we’ve had Waggot depart, giving Suhail more control, and the shambles of the women’s team. I suspect the likes of Brittain and Travis don’t really want to renew. It’s just being leaked as financial as that’s the only way to save face. Similar with Baath. As a regular starter you think he’d sign up straight away for another season. He could want two years. But he could just want out.

Shouldn't be a surprise. Don't forget we got practically live feeds from The Avenue's CCTV camera's a couple of years ago during the bizarre Fans/Players/Waggot meeting.

I'm calm about the shirt. As I say, it's OK. In the grand scheme of contracts being run down, players sold to pay the bills, under-qualified buffoons running the club, season ticket prices going back up, the women's team being made redundant and the ground looking like shit, an above-average shirt is the least of our worries for our 150th year.

Meh. It's a Rovers kit. I've seen better and seen worse. As the official formation date of Blackburn Rovers is 5th November, the club could redeem itself here by requesting to play in the home game closest to that date in a different shirt which has a proper retro feel. Then putting it on sale in the run up to Christmas as a limited edition (i.e no re-stock) But that would cost additional money on the shirt and be a risk on the stock, so unlikely. Although Yasir is probably scribbling notes as he reads this.

I think in a major tournament, the further you get the better you expect the opposition to be. So we were unlucky in the same way that you’d be unlucky to walk down a back alley and not find a tenner on the ground.

Yep. In the World Cup you can have teams from across the globe and still be ‘competitive’. But this is different. Almost 75% of the New Zelaland national side play abroad. In the UK some of them play for the likes of Reading, Burton and Mansfield. Therefore what does that tell you of the quality of players who still ply their trade at home for Auckland City? And yet here they are.

I’m waiting for Nelson, Padiham and Burnley 😂

Thought it was Soccer Aid when I flicked it over and saw the score.

They were in pots 3 and 4 by merit 😜 I do get your points, but I still feel like that last tournament opened up massively for England. And it’s a good job it did as we still could only draw 4 of the first 5 games in 90 minutes.

My only point is you can get lucky with the draw. Tranmere and Sunderland both knocked out Premier League teams. You can’t control who you play, but things can pan out more or less favourable. Englands ‘performances’ in the last Euros were fairly poor but they had a kind enough draw to get through to the semi finals and then actually played ok against the Dutch. However we did get a bit lucky with the draw. There were 24 teams, seeded and split into 4 pots. In the knockout stages all three games were against teams from either pot 3 or pot 4. We got lucky being drawn against a 3rd place qualifier in the last 16 and we didn’t play any team from seeding pots 1 or 2 in a knockout game until the final. That’s the only time that has happened since the tournament was expanded to 24 teams.

Millwall reached an FA Cup final in 2004 before getting battered off Man Utd in the final. Still a great achievement for a 2nd tier club. However they didn’t face a premier league team until the final. They played:- Walsall at home, Telford away Burnley at home. In the quarter final they got past 3rd tier Tranmere, the lowest side still in the tournament. Meanwhile the four remaining Premier League sides all drew each other. In the semi they beat second tier Sunderland whilst Arsenal played Man Utd in the other semi. Is anyone actually arguing here that they didn’t have luck on their side with the draw?

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 who 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.