DE.

Big Mak 😎

If £0 was going to be reinvested of the fictional transfer fee for Pears, why would we, as fans, want to sell our first choice goalkeeper? So that Waggott and Suhail can add it to the list of financial targets met to spend as little as possible whilst bringing in as much as possible?

Pretty sad seeing the parachute payment affect in full force. Three teams steaming ahead at the top who aren't even particularly good, but the gap between them and the rest in terms of finance makes the competition aspect a bit laughable. Only Sunderland unexpectedly keeping up at the moment. There's already a 12 point gap between 3rd and 5th ffs.

Yep. For whatever reason the owners seem happy for us to plod along in Championship purgatory forever, as they've never shown any ambition to push on despite numerous seasons where we've been doing well at the half way stage. Eustace has gotten the team to overperform until recently, meaning yet another season where the owners feel no need to put in anything extra. If there was a genuine ambition to get promoted we would have seen it by now. There's been plenty of opportunities and we never look to push on.

Pears is alright, and he's improved beyond what I thought he was capable of. Yeah he makes the odd mistake, but show me a keeper at this level who doesn't. We know we'd get sweet FA to reinvest, and I don't trust Gestede to pull a rabbit out of the hat, so I'd be totally against selling Pears.

Why are you entitled to rely on it when the people telling you it have proven in the past to be liars? I very much doubt Eustace is that naive.

Absolutely Eustace knew what he was getting himself into. He isn't stupid. Fact is you don't want to be an out of work manager for too long, and we're still a club with significant visibility in the overall landscape - and despite the lack of investment, we still have a capable enough first eleven even with the squad depth being pretty pathetic. I'm sure Eustace will be disappointed with the support he's received - but surprised? I highly doubt it. He just knows that releasing his grievances to the press won't achieve anything, and will make other clubs think twice about hiring him in future. JDT had wanted out from the previous summer before he departed, and was likely confident his name alone would get him another gig, so he didn't hold back in the same way. I get the feeling he won't leave without something else at Championship level lined up. Even if he does offer to resign, as we saw with JDT, there's no guarantee Venky's would accept it anyway.

From memory I think there were some harsh words exchanged(@J*B I think was there?) but it was mostly met with a response of 'get behind the lads ffs' and that the boos were making the younger players upset at half time or something.

If the heat was turned up at the ground, I wonder if Waggott would get the fan groups down to Ewood again to get a telling off from the senior players committee or whatever it was amusingly called. I just remember Szmods sitting there looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

The points we accrued during the first half of the season should be enough for us to scrape to safety in the end. I have no other expectations at this point.

Chronic lack of ambition will always make things difficult, regardless of whether it's the summer window or the January window. Clubs who genuinely want to achieve things do whatever needs to be done, rather than peddle excuses and complaints.

I can only think of two realistic reasons (if you assume that the rumours they have had serious offers and turned them down immediately): 1) There are skeletons in the closet they don't want investigated. 2) Pride/Not wanting to lose face by selling and essentially admitting to failing. I don't think there have been any Indian-based owners of UK clubs previously or currently (although I may be wrong), and if so we are unfortunately the precedent for how owners from that culture may behave. It's also possible that they've had offers but they've always been contingent on them writing off the debt, which they are unwilling to do, but without knowing if or what offers have been tabled, we can't know for sure.

Yep, same every season. We've got enough to do alright in the first 4 to 5 months, then fade away when the lack of strength in depth becomes brutally apparent.

I feel sorry for Eustace - he's getting everything he can out of this squad but, as always, lack of backing from the Ewood hierarchy is absolutely killing us.

Not many teams who could do back-to-back promotions and then stay in the PL, I'd wager. Tough result for Ipswich today, but any team could get hammered by one of the big boys considering the sheer gap in finances and structure. They need to try and keep the score down at Anfield and then get back on track at home to Southampton. At this point I imagine it'll be two of Wolves, Ipswich and Leicester to go down with Southampton - but which two remains to be seen. Ange surely can't have much longer left. He seems to have no tactical flexibility whatsoever which is bizarre for a manager at PL level.

Unfortunately I think it's more than just not seeing urgency. There's no ambition, which negates the need for urgency. They'll have seen JE drag this squad into 5th with barely a penny spent and be thinking there's no need to spend any more, as it's probably already wildly above expectations. Works out for everybody in positions of power - Waggot and co saving the owners money whilst the team seems to be doing well, whilst the owners get to continue putting as little in as possible. The ones getting shafted are the fans, the manager, his staff and the players - the latter three getting no support whatsoever despite vastly exceeding expectations. Until we have owners and board members with genuine ambition we are never going to get anywhere, even when we overachieve (which I'd argue we've done quite a few times since 2018 under Mowbray, JDT and now Eustace).

We're just lacking quality in squad depth. Fortunately not the only team with this issue, but you can see how hard even just a couple of injuries hit us.

We aren't getting anywhere near top six without attacking reinforcements. Problem is our owners simply don't care.

https://www.brfcs.com/forums/topic/31709-archived-glen-mullans-blogs/

FM OGs know you only ever sign a player up to age 32 maximum, then sell the year before contract expiry. I thought Ipswich were starting to get going, but it was a really poor result for them against Brighton. United will steer clear of trouble purely through having quality players like Amad to step up, but they're a long, long way off getting close to the top four any time soon. Top half might be beyond them at this point.

Isn't that what we tried with O'Brien before we "accidentally" forgot to submit the documents on time?

If WBA want to keep a steady position in this division that falls somewhere between 7th and mid-table then TM is probably a shrewd appointment. If their plan is to get promoted then probably less so. Depends what their aim and general situation as a club is. Mowbray did some good here and he did some bad, as any manager would after 5 years or so. Ultimately he simply stayed on past his best before date and we didn't have anyone in a higher position to make the correct call to move on and try something new. Anyway, as far as transfers are concerned, if we fail to bring in a decent attacker in this window then Eustace will deserve manager of the season if we finish in the top half.

Netflix only has part of the library, unfortunately. WWE Network had literally everything. I haven't watched a full WWE show in years now. Tried to watch the first Raw on Netflix, but was just reminded of why I stopped watching in the first place.

The most pleasing thing about JE's tenure thus far is the shift in mentality. Thus far, touch wood, the death spirals largely seem to be a thing of the past.

Big win, especially as this is the type of game we'd normally slip up in. Back into the playoff places.