RoverCanada

Have to agree with this... . I think some of the impression is due to relief that THB looked 'decent' in comparison to Branthwaite, who was good for a few games and then suddenly had a couple very wobbly games. (I think both will turn out to be decent PL defenders in the long-run). We were 4-5-8 in games he started (he was also a sub in two losses, but I won't fault him for those), which is borderline relegation form, and we averaged 1.3 goals against in those games. We averaged 1.1 goals against otherwise... That record was of course more due him joining a team that was fraying at the time. He was fine, but hardly a catalyst that 'saved us from relegation' or whatever way some may spin it. I wouldn't have minded him back on loan as we did need CB cover and he is at least an okay Championship defender. Quite happy to have brought in van Hecke instead.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19836599.blackburn-rovers-benefit-swansea-city-move-andy-fisher/ We've got a sell-on attached to Fisher. Swansea reportedly paying £400k. So, we'll be getting maybe £80-100k of that. Break out of the bubbly.

Eh, this forum probably needed a good vent haha... Shame that Carter or Davenport couldn't get some gametime. I'm guessing they were the Covid players? It kinda worked okay in the first half as Lenihan was often overlapping and providing defensive support on the right. I think part of why the back 3 has been working well for us is Lenihan has been thriving with the increased flexibility it gives him. But then Lenihan went off and van Hecke was a bit more awkward in support on the right. And it was simply a poor game from Dolan. Probably more an indication of how far off JRC still is that he didn't even get subbed on... Shame Chapman's cup tied as maybe would've been one last opportunity for him to impress. Don't mind it for the sake of giving Nyambe a rest. And would've gotten away with it in the end if it wasn't for Pears' horrorshow...

Some varied thoughts: - I'm surprised that us apparently not being able to unilaterally cancel Poveda's loan hasn't gotten much attention on here given he's probably a pricey loan. Frankly, sounds like a blind spot in our negotiation (we've sent back injured loan players before...) Maybe could have assumed PL clubs wouldn't be so bothered about taking back wages in the past, but they're also under financial pressures these days. Picking up Sommerville instead as a 'make weight' could be a sensible compromise. - Whatever the speculation about our wage 'structure' and what we can afford vs what players can get elsewhere, I think it's important to keep in mind that even if our wage bill is ~£25m, which pushes our wage/turnover to nearly 200%, that is still below the Championship average (~£35m) and is half that of parachute clubs (some of which will be tied up in 'legacy' PL contracts, but they definitely still have plenty to spend). That's simply a function of our bottom-tier turnover. Supposing £15k/week is our 'cap', that's a good Championship salary (and high relative to other 2nd tiers), but there's certainly Championship clubs still willing/able to pay £20k+/week (as demoralising as it would be to see players leave for a Championship club; hard to begrudge players for a PL move). Hell, we were paying Rhodes £40k/week back in our parachute payment days... The big uncertainty for the out-of-contract players is if such contracts are still readily on offer given pandemic-related financial pressures. - Nyambe... it's clear his agents have been angling for a bigger move for a while now, whether that be a random laudatory article in The Athletic, a quiet kid suddenly having a pretty active Instagram page, strained negotiations last year, etc. Starting an academy in Namibia won't be cheap either. We've had our debates about whether he could be a PL player someday and he's had his times out of the squad (if still generally a regular starter). Certainly has the basic physical qualities, and you can see an agent's thinking, but still a work in progress. I'll be disappointed if he goes, but, whatever wage allegedly on offer, selling him this month (for a cut rate...) and replacing him with a (potentially promising?) player like Zeefuik would be a sensible last resort, if a sad conclusion. However, it also makes sense to simply run down his contract (and the others) for the sake of keeping the squad together for our (unexpected) promotion run. Maybe return for one last offer if we get promoted (or Nyambe/his agent finds offers elsewhere aren't as high as he hopes) - I love Rothwell, but I also think TM's past criticisms haven't been off base. Capable of amazing play, but can still go missing for stretches and his defensive positioning can be wanting (although he certainly has been putting in more effort this year). He's finally putting it all together this year, so I'm not surprised it's been a tricky negotiation. The Rangers link worried me as, whatever you think of Scottish football, they've got twice our wage bill. Similar if a parachute club like Bournemouth is sniffing... He's thriving in our midfield 3 setup and obviously can't complain about game time anymore, so I would assume he's at least pretty happy at the moment. - Lenihan threatening to leave surprised me. Not sure what to make of that... hope he stays as I've always thought he's a solid Championship CB, if not quite PL quality, but he's been excellent this year. Maybe he's worried this is his last shot at PL football (Sheffield U were sniffing at one point, but I don't think there have been any rumours since?) and/or is tired of being overlooked in the Ireland national setup (where has some relatively tough competition). I suspect/hope he'll eventually sign.

Checked a points calculator against either his minutes played in 2020-21 or this year and looks like he qualifies. Playing Bundesliga football is a big factor making him eligible (although not too hard to cross the hurdle playing Eredivisie football either).

Yeah, I think he had some injuries during his time at Halifax too. Otherwise, seemed he was at least a regular in the squad when healthy. So, certainly not a 'failure' of a loan (like, say, Rochdale last year... Magloire also struggled at Rochdale! Something about that team haha) Considering he barely played last year (only 45min during his Rochdale loan and 3 u23 starts), maybe an extended run in the u23s to test his fitness to finish the year wouldn't be so bad. Hoping another loan arises, but I think some overestimate how easy it is to find gametime in L1 and L2 squads. And let's not forget his famous hattrick against Bulgaria's u21s in September 🙂 (seems he's still a regular for the Wales u21s)

Jack Vale returning from his FC Halifax Town loan. It only ran to January, so this isn't his loan being 'cut short'. 1 goal in 10 league appearances (6 starts, 4 subs), plus 1 goal in 3 FA Cup appearances, and 1 goal in 1 FA Trophy appearance. I think he also had a few assists... So, hardly blew the doors off, but Halifax fans seem to think he was okay. However, I think you'd hope for/expect him to be starring at the National League level if he was ever going to make it for us. A shame as there was some hype for him at one point (I can still vividly recall him smacking the crossbar in his one sub appearance!). Injuries probably haven't helped. Hopefully can find another loan for the rest of the year, but perhaps he'll be the u23s striker to finish the year if Burns and McBride are going out on loan. Still signed for 2023 and turning 21 in March.

Great video. It's hard to see exactly in the video, but did Bournemouth's keeper run over to the van Hecke celebrations to bowl over Travis from behind? Hard to tell what Travis did to deserve that (might've kicked the ball in after the goal, or some low-key shithousery like that...)

At least going by my guesstimates (and depending on how the apparent 4-year FFP window was applied due to Covid + Covid-related allowed exemptions...), the answer is apparently both. Yes, added to 2020-21 under the 'player sales + STC sale' column. I assumed an £8m profit for that sale as that's same profit Reading recorded for selling their own training centre. Otherwise, I think our only real player trading profit last year would've been whatever we got for the Josh King sell-on, which would've been about £500k. Come to think of it, I overlooked potentially getting another £500k or so due to Raya getting promoted with Brentford, so maybe add another £0.5k of player trading profit to my 2020-21 guess.

Thought I'd briefly revisit these calculations I did about a month ago. White cells are actuals, yellow are my guesses. Compared to last time: - I've shifted the STC sale profit to 2020-21 rather than 2021-22, as looks like that was squeezed in at the end of the 2020-21 fiscal year due to changing EFL rules (and I've lowered the assumed profit to £8m). This changes how our FFP 'windows' look going forward. - I've raised our assumed wage budget to £23m, as £20m before was probably too low. - Lowered my matchday revenue assumptions a touch, inched up broadcast assuming a growing EFL TV deal/shares from the PL, made commercial a bit more optimistic, and raised amortisation costs a bit (haven't bothered to try to guess the exact amortisation calcs for Gallagher, Brereton, Armstrong, Pickering, Kaminski, Edun, etc.) Suggests we were definitely in breach of FFP last year, but the leniancy to expand it to 4 years means we'll just shave under a 4-year FFP limit. The estimated (FFP) £6m loss this year then means we roughly have £5-6m of room to play with over the next few years, but worth noting these projections have us back on the edge of £13m losses per year, ie, on the edge of FFP. Possibly suggests we'd be in breach of the 4-year FFP if we decided to spend a bunch in January, but a) I'd guess the EFL deemed our long-term 'sustainability' okay given we're roughly within £13m/year going forward (and presumably we had to admit to the EFL we were selling Armstrong), hence why we're apparently under no transfer restrictions now; b) any new transfers would be amortised, so, say, a ~£4m purchase would only count for ~1m this year (plus wages). All of course subject to any player sales we resort to in January (Nyambe, Rothwell, Lenihan...)

I've said it before, but I think the sheer unluckiest bit about last season was Wharton's achilles injury. Completely freak play too. Sadly, Dack getting re-injured wasn't too surprising... I think Ayala's injury history gets a bit overplayed if you check his historical games played (a bit), but also not too surprising he was out so much (and just seemed a step behind when he did play, or at least clearly not suited to our overly possession-based approach last year). That meant relying on a combination of Lenihan (solid), Williams (halfway out the door), Branthwaite (ok for a couple games, then lost it), THB (he was decent, but hard to ignore that our record was quite poor even when he took over for Branthwaite), and Johnson having to deputise a few times, while Carter was off on a good loan with Burton. Having a combination of Lenihan, van Hecke, Wharton, and/or Ayala as our 3-at-the-back is looking invincible. van Hecke also starting to look like one we should look to buy at the end of his loan, if possible...

'twas a joke. He got credited for an assist for blocking a clearance with his ass 🙂

For all the (justified!) uproar about the current out-of-contract players (I'm keeping some optimism that they'll be more keen to sign as this season rolls along. Clearly some good spirit in this team), there have been some good extensions of late among our younger players: Buckley, Dolan, Edun, Wharton, and Carter are all signed up to 2024 + an option year, a year to forget so far for JRC but he's signed up to 2024, Pickering and Garrett up to 2025. A minor point, but note that surviving one year in the PL is important as immediate relegation means only 2 years of parachute payments. A key fact for Huddersfield (their mid-table first year was an absolute miracle after being a pretty mediocre playoff winner...) and Sheffield United. However, those are both cases where the state of your ownership is also a key factor, as apparently neither are in a position to fully train their parachute payments to (Huddersfield having to guarantee some payback for their old owners, SHU dealing with ownership turmoil...) Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves 🙂

Did you not see his beautiful assist today?!

Understates it a bit... They're essentially under a transfer embargo for two years and they only avoid that further 6 point deduction if they follow a business plan set out by the EFL, which limits them to a wage bill of £21m this year and £16m next year. That's a pretty hefty drop from a £38m wage bill in 2019-20. And that plans already includes having sold Olise for £8.4m this summer. Reading may have avoided a relegation-guaranteeing points deduction, but this will do some pretty substantial medium-term damage. That wage bill pretty much guarantees they can't ensure a "ensure a good quality squad of contracted players". Swift, Yiadom, Cabral, and others all expected to leave on frees this summer. (Note the above also already includes Reading having engaged in both stadium and training ground selling chicanery) (btw, I obviously don't disagree about trying to get Rothwell, Nyambe, etc. tied down to new deals. The Armstrong and training ground sales should give us some decent headroom now. And for all our fucking up, we certainly aren't at Reading's level of financial bumfuckery in recent years. It's all endless speculation at this point so we'll see how that ends up...)

Your game summaries are always worth a look! I appreciate them for sure. Couple suggestions for working out averages: - Why not just divide all the totals by total minutes played and then conver to a 'points/90' style statistic? Should control for starts/subs. (Next step is controlling for game situation haha...) - One concern is normalising for position, as players in different positions are bound to have different 'exposure' to risky play, and thus notches on your scorecards. I suspect it'll be more fair to compare within position. Would be interesting to test my suspicion against a distribution of events per position... But I guess we'll see what numbers come up first!

Were you comfortable with how Khedra and Edun looked defensively on the left? I certainly wasn't. Poveda too... And that was against a pretty poor Sheffield U performance. Perhaps Pickering could solidify that a bit better, but it had me worried. Anyway, yeah, fair enough if you're not keen on Gallagher slotting back in. I wasn't advocating to put him back on the wing, more highlighting what Brereton provides there. And I agree that Poveda+Khadra deserve another start, I'm just cautious. ('Play the loans!' is a funny change of sentiment, but I suppose things can change fast in football!)

At least for me, Khedra and Edun's defensive troubles were a reminder that Brereton's defensive work rate is one of the main reasons we should generally keep him out wide, unless Gallagher is out. He clearly has the lung capacity to run up and down for 90min, plus exceptional straightahead speed. I think his athleticism gets a bit underrated because he can occasionally look rather uncoordinated/gangly out there haha

Sam Burns scored again. I think that's 2 goals in 4 games? It's production at quite a low level, but he is now doing it against 'men'. I wonder if he can secure a higher loan in January... Jack Vale with an assist in this ridiculous 7-4 game: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/59083037 Solid cross for his one assist. Hilton started again for Hamilton in a 1-1 draw. 3 starts in a row now... but their 1st choice keepr is still out, so we'll see. No game for Annesley with Woking yesterday, although he did start again earlier this week. Chapman again left on the bench for Burton. I'll draw the line at chasing down non-league loans haha (outside of Burns!), but Dowling and G. Pratt do appear to be getting starts with their NPL loans; Lonsdale apparently not. (tempted to start a separate 'Loan report' thread!)

I told myself I'd give Poveda one more chance after seeing the starting lineup... I recall him looking good for about 5-10 min in one of his early starts, and he must have something about him with his pedigree, but then crap ever since... what a rebound performance from him. Was less down on Khadra, although his recent appearances had been pretty poor, so quite pleased for him today too. Clear case of a couple young attackers just needing a few successful dribbles to give them the confidence to keep at it. Of course still questionable to have them over, say, Chapman, but he's currently sitting on the bench for Burton, so... (It would be nice to maybe turn one of these loans into a loan-to-buy, as some had recently mooted about van Hecke before his, ahem, creative tackle against Fulham. One of the benefits of a loan can be 'try before you buy'... certainly not suggesting that for Khadra or Poveda just yet!) A couple shaky moments from Lenihan and Wharton, but I suppose that can be excused for Wharton's first game back. Was a nice reminder of Wharton's dominance in the air today. Big head CBs, fuck yeah. Otherwise, pretty great performance all around. Edun makes me nervous at times, but it's nice to think we've got two young LBs competing for the spot. How long since we could feel optimistic at that position?! edit: I should also mention a resurgent performance from Davenport, who I had started to finally write off. What an odd player he's been...

Yeah ,media quotes were something like £1.2-1.5m. Who knows in the end, but the speculation that we only got a few hundred thousand was nonsense. So, we're in agreement: a great bit of negotiating by Venky's and co. 🙂 (I kid, I kid 🙂)

No, Marshall said there was a decent contract offer on the table (and no less than he ended up signing for at Wolves), but he was (rightfully) worried we were going to get relegated (and have his contract halved with the relegation clause) and refused to sign (despite Coyle's pleas... haha) My favourite part of that story is Coyle then froze him out of the squad, he went on the lash in Dublin for 3 weeks and Wolves couldn't believe his physical after they signed him haha... I thought it was interesting that he also confirmed in that interview we did get up to £2m from Wolves. There was a fair amount of noise on here that we'd be lucky to get £200k given he only had 6 months left...

I won't claim any clairvoyance as I didn't watch Barnsley much last year, but I was sceptical they could keep it up after last year's Cinderella playoff run. Their wages are probably half our wages (and our wages are below-average for this division!). All other things being equal (big caveat 🙂), wages are going to be the best first order indicator of where you'll place in the league. Whatever they managed last year was likely quite sensitive. Lose Mowatt and a couple others, perhaps there's some injury issues, Schopp's messaging suddenly stopped getting through... edit: agh, had a brainfart and forgot that Ismael left Barnsley in the summer, so Schopp was new (and may have simply been out of his depth!) xGs table has them 19th instead of 23rd: https://experimental361.com/2021/10/31/expected-goals-table-championship-29-30-oct-2021/ Maybe unlucky scoring goals, but their defense has been as bad (or worse) as advertised. A major swing from last year when their xGs were as good their record suggests (and we should've been 5th according to xG of course 😋)

A goal for Burns in the FA Trophy for FC United (albeit against the venerable Runcorn Linnets in the FA Trophy). Apparently deserved a pen too. BBC report seems to suggest Annesley started at LM for Woking to start his loan there. Vale started again for Halifax. Seems to be getting a run of starts after scoring in the FA Cup, but seems to get pulled off after 60-70min. Hilton has finally started a couple league matches in a row for Hamilton after sitting on the bench for a while (otherwise, he started in their Scottish Cup games at least). Seems their usual starter is injured, but they had a pretty poor GA record up to this point, so could be a chance for him. 1 goal against today after a clean sheet on Tuesday. Side note: no idea how he's actually playing but Chapman was left on the bench in Burton's 2-0 loss today. 0 goals and 0 assists in 9 games so far and apparently not an automatic starter...

Poveda has been an unused sub plenty of times this year (along with the rest of the loans) (Not to defend Poveda's actual performances. Looks like we can only hope he is sent back in January so far)