Am I the only seeing that Walton also seemed to take a forearm/elbow to the face from the Hogan on the Stoke goal? See the extended highlights. His head cocks back just as he's going to jump for it. (Although I'm doubting my own eyes a bit given Walton doesn't seem to protest it after...)

??? A £14m wage bill would've put us at the 3rd lowest wages in the Championship in 2017-18... I suspect we're well above that. (But still below the median Championship wage bill, which is probably around £30m or so) (Burnley's latest reported wage bill is £81m) (Not to say I'm giving those bizarre wage numbers above any credence haha)

Sharpe speculating that Hart will be in the matchday squad: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/17973653.rovers-full-back-make-first-matchday-appearance-14-months/ To make a rather bold (and perhaps hopelessly optimistic) proposal: could this be his chance to breakthrough? I know he didn't impress all that much in his limited appearances a couple years ago, and some have thus already written him off (I have sympathies both ways: writing off a lad at 21 years old is harsh, but fans can also be too forgiving of youngsters when they simply don't have 'it'), but he did impress in preseason and a total of 32 appearances in League One (where it seems reviews of him were generally positive from Rochdale and Southend fans?) is actually decent pedigree for a young player... Hardly ideal to rest our hopes on him (I guess we need to muddle through with Hart and Bell until January...), but I just have a feeling that Hart could take this opportunity... Aye. Those five (five!) Portuguese youngsters were quite a low point. In fairness, I recall Fabio Nunes was actually half decent (and it seems he's the only one managing a semi-decent career, currently playing in the Portuguese 2nd tier after a decent run in their 1st tier) For the curious: Fabio Nunes is currently in the Portuguese 2nd tier with Farense (with stops in the Italian 2nd tier, Portuguese 1st tier, and Greek 1st tier) Paolo Jorge is currently in the Portuguese 3rd tier with Espinho (with stops in the German 4th tier and Romanian 2nd tier) Edinho Junior was playing in the Portuguese 3rd tier with Ferreiras last year (with stops in the USA 2nd tier, Portuguese 2nd tier, the German 4th tier, and the Romanian 1st tier) but currently appears to be without a club. (Note his only two appearances with us were in the Championship and League Cup back in 12-13) Diogo Rosado was playing in the Romanian 2nd tier last year, but appears to be without a club. (Has had stops in the Portuguese 1st tier, French 2nd tier, Cypriot 1st tier, the Angolan 1st tier (???), and the Romanian 1st tier) Nuno Henrique is playing in the Portuguese 3rd tier with Lusitania (with stops in the Portuguese 1st and 2nd tiers and the Polish 1st tier) Dare I suggest dodgy agents may have had a hand in their careers... While Brown's overall production was obviously atrocious, Dare I suggest he actually managed a few decent appearances as a hold up striker? I have a vague recollection of him doing some excellent work against Charlton away, as one brief shining example... Not to defend his overall tenure, but I wouldn't put him down as the worst we've seen! (okay, I'm done making daft suggestions )

As always, apologies for sharing a paywalled link (I think they'll let you look at one article, if your cookies haven't already logged a view), but The Athletic's latest 'Perfect Player' feature has Jansen describing his 'Perfect Blackburn Rovers Player': https://theathletic.com/1224181/2019/10/05/perfect-player-matt-jansen-tugay-would-smell-of-tobacco-in-the-dressing-room-then-run-the-show-for-45-minutes/ If you can't access the link, in short (it's actually a fairly short article): Tugay's right foot and intelligance, Duff's left foot, Gillespie's speed, Short's heading, MGP's engine, Flitcroft's tackling, and Reid's 'niceness'.

Have we ever gotten a final number on the Brereton transfer? £7m seems to be regularly bandied about on here of late, though the latest reference I've seen to the fee in the LT is £6m. Furthermore, my rough extrapolations from the 17-18 accounts suggested the initial outlay was about £5m. I'm still hopeful we'll get something out of Brereton in the end, but I wonder what performance components there may be to the transfer. Maybe it's something like £5m initially, another £1m in instalments, and then another £1m depending on performance? Purely guessing. Probably not on pace to trigger many of any performance clauses at this point in time... (I know I'm splitting hairs...)

Hahaha... oh shit. Surprised I forgot about that! I happily take back my previous sentiments

Huddersfield's an odd case. I couldn't find the exact numbers with a quick search, but I roughly recall that in their original promotion season, in which they made it to the playoffs despite a negative goal differential and then won promotion through two penalty shootouts, on 'expected goals', they were more like a mid-table team. Then, they avoid relegation despite having the 2nd worst goal differential in the PL, and expected goals again had them as deserving relegation. Finally wore off last year and now they're in freefall. Either Wagner was performing some magic voodoo that eventually worn off or they may have gone on one of the luckiest two-season runs in football history... Essentially managed a promotion and two years of PL football with a mediocre Championship squad. Overall happy for their run and their fans, and hopefully puts them on much firmer financial footing going forward.

Seems we've had a very welcome revival in our youth pipeline. It felt like we hardly had anyone pushing through the youth ranks during our first foray back in the Championship. The likes of Tanner, Daly, R. Hanley, Edwards, Morris, O'Sullivan, Rittenberg, Preston, Fernandez, etc. all failed to break through or had to find their feet at a lower level. There are exceptions like Lenihan, Nyambe, and Henley (haha, I kid...), or cases like O'Connell who we prematurely jettisoned or Mahoney taking off, but in general it turned out to be a fairly poor youth crop, particularly for a Category 1 setup! We've now seen Travis come through, and some apparently justified excitement surrounding the likes of Buckley, Rankin-Costello, and Butterworth, plus a few wildcards (let's see how Vale, Fisher, Grayson, Magloire, Wharton, etc. turn out...), and maybe another one will soon emerge from the u18s (I think Durrant has gotten some hype?). Also can't ignore Wright and Winterbottom being snatched by PL clubs, and while a debatable move, Raya was a great return on investment. Perhaps I'm falling victim to overly optimistic projections of youth players, as we always do, but there does seem to be a lot more general optimism about our youth ranks the past couple years. I recall Mowbray a while ago questioning whether the £2-3m spent on the academy every year could perhaps be better spent on the playing squad (bit of a complicated financial question though, as I think most academy expenditure is exempt from FFP, so Venky's closing down the academy would first and foremost be a question of their financial commitment rather than FFP concerns). I suspect recent developments have tamped down that talk.

https://theathletic.com/1187478/2019/09/07/matt-jansen-returns-for-the-first-time-to-the-scene-of-the-moped-accident-that-changed-his-life-forever/ Great article on Jansen returning to the site of the accident with the The Athletic today. Apologies if you're stymied by the paywall, you might be able to get in one article read... (If you can't read it, I'm sure the BBC one posted above by Matty, or the many other articles floating around to promote the book will suffice!) (I swear I'm not marketing The Athletic haha. If I was, I'd be asking you guys to use my promo code to get myself store credit on Amazon haha...)

https://theathletic.com/1172076/2019/08/30/mowbray-exclusive-im-a-romantic-albion-fans-wanted-a-swashbuckling-team-but-im-more-pragmatic-now/ Behind a paywall, but a nice article on Mowbray, written by The Athletic's West Brom beat writer, so largely reflects on his time there. (Nothing necessarily 'new' in there, so not worth a subscription haha... The Athletic's recently expanded their PL coverage and cover a few Championship sides now too, but no Rovers-dedicated reporter just yet! I'm more a subscriber due to their hockey coverage anyway)

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2019/august/platt-returns-to-holker-street/ (With his 1-year contract renewal, guess it was Platt's last gasp here and he wasn't quite up for it. Shame, but hopefully he finds his feet at a lower level.)

I'm no fan of Lowe, but I would be curious to see how he'd perform for a League One or Two club that isn't a basketcase like Bolton. No way is he Championship standard, but I thought it was an interesting debate whether he is actually is worthy of a spot on a pro football team. I've argued he'd probably be fine for a lower league club, which is a fairly impressive accomplishment for such a naturally unskilled player! Although considering he hasn't already jumped ship from Bolton, perhaps that's a sign he doesn't even have any other League One/Two clubs after him... (I'll put my hand up and admit I was once curious to see if he could thrive at RB after a couple decent performances there. Then, I can't forget the exact game, but it was Lowe at RB and either Marshall or Conway at RW, and it was hilarious to see how incompetently he tried supporting them on the attack. You could just see the frustration on Marshall/Conway's face as Lowe sabotaged attack after attack... despite plenty of effort on Lowe's part of course haha...)

I honestly don't know the exact accounting/ownership details, but the way it essentially works for Derby, for example, is Mel Morris owns both Derby County FC, and all the assets within that company, and a separate Company A. Derby FC sells Pride Park to Company A, they claim the difference in the sale value and its book value as an 'intangible' profit, and then Company A leases Pride Park back to Derby for an annual fee (hence the deal allows for a large, one-off increase in profits, which helps for the 3-year FFP window, but it actually increases Derby's year-to-year running costs!) (Derby is a particularly weird structure though as they've got a parent company with a bunch of subsidiaries within it...) Again, I don't know the detail here, but I'd guess for Rovers it would be Venky's London Limited (under which I believe Ewood Park is included as an asset?) selling Ewood Park to some other company that Venky's owns in the UK, then 'leasing' its use back to the football club for an annual fee. I don't know if Venky's has any other UK-based companies... but I suspect they could make it work somehow (or find an amenable 3rd-party). This obviously breaches the 'spirit' of FFP to some extent, but it is rather clever! (Happy to be corrected on any of the above!) My understanding is Venky's have already maxed out their commercial sponsorship with us. Hence why our commercial income has held study at about £5m/year despite relegation, declining attendance, etc. (While a club like Wigan, for example, saw its commercial income drop to about £1m recently). These things are watched for under FFP, so you can't just plow in £20m and claim it's all commercial sponsorship-related (hence why Man City's at risk at the moment, but there's of course reason to be cynical about how that will wrap up...). It would need to track the going rates for such sponsorship. Perhaps they could juice that up further by sticking a big Venky's sign on Ewood Park and renaming it the Venky's Chicken Coop or whatever... but again, that may not go down well with supporters

Oh how I wish the nomenclature for 'free transfers' was changed to something like a 'wages-only transfer' (and even then, there will still potentially be signing-on fees, agent fees, etc etc...) ? Do you think we should sell Ewood Park to Venky's, as Derby and Villa have done? This seems to be hinted at by some posters, but I'd be curious if anyone is 'brave' enough to explicitly advocate for that! Forest have had some pretty significant sales in recent years... they booked £25m in player trading profits in 2017 and 2018, and they've trimmed their wages recently too. You may be referring to their owner's loan write-offs, but those will likely be excluded from FPP (as was the case for QPR, hence their breach of FFP). Even then, their most recent accounts show Forest still has a decent amount of headroom under FFP after excluding the loan write-offs.

Surely the sticking point with Gallagher is his current contract. He's still signed until 2021 on a rumoured £25k/week. Gallagher won't be keen to sacrifice salary that he's due, but he's balancing that with a desire for first-team football. Does Southampton hold firm and insist on getting all of his wages off their books, plus a hefty transfer fee? Can they drum up other offers? Do they know (and do his suitors assume) that they cave last minute knowing they ultimately want Gallagher off their books? Maybe we offer Gallagher a lower wage at £15k/week, but add a sign on fee to partially compensate the drop in wages with some upfront money or we offer him longer term to give him long-term security... All these options can have FFP implications too as the way you structure it will alter what years the financial costs hit/when profits are realised. it's not hard to imagine how these dealings can get complicated. It'd be nice if we had "**** you" money to make inflated take it or leave it offers, but that's simply not where we're at... Just to add on Armstrong being an example where we successfully drove a hard bargain (an approach not without risk...), it's worth mentioning that only a week before his signing, Mowbray referred to Armstrong and Chapman as being 'D signings' that weren't at the top of our list: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16389050.they-are-in-the-mix-rovers-boss-on-chapman-and-armstrong/ Of course managers talk **** when publicly talking about transfer dealings. It's all part of any negotiation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_tHXTBlCCk Can view it here at about 0:53. Reckless tackle by Smallwood, though it was that odd one where he actually caught way more of Bennett than the Sheffield player... Can see why the ref went for a red, but probably deserved a yellow on closer review! (Just as an aside on Smallwood, it's worth noting he apparently was keen on long-term deal after our L1 promotion but was only offered a one-year extension. His deal expires after this coming year, so I doubt it'll be too difficult to at least loan him out to cut the wage bill if we find no takers. Hardly a crippling contract extension and seemed fair enough after an excellent L1 campaign but hard to see him making it into the squad much now.)

I like Raya as a shotstopper and I think he does have the potential to become a great keeper (let's hope we have a sell-on attached if he does go...), but while it may seem distasteful if he's scapegoated for our defensive woes, it's entirely plausible Mowbray concluded he had to go after discussing our defensive frailties with our defenders and coaches. While the defenders obviously have the incentive to pass the buck, perhaps they are right... A case where we as fans ultimately don't know what's going on in the dressing room, in training, communication on the pitch, etc. Who knows what the back 4 + keeper dynamic was like last year. Add on that we can get an okay fee for Raya as a young keeper with promise (which would be our first senior sale since Jason Steele!) and it may not be a bad bit of business, subject to whatever keeper we bring in to replace him. Like the Johnson signing. Adds some much needed metal to our midfield. I'm one of the apparent few who likes Evans, but I'm well-aware he's hardly a. Smallwood's a keener, but ultimately too slow at this level (think it's worth pointing out Mowbray apparently held to only giving Smallwood a 2-year deal despite Smallwood wanting longer. I suspect Smallwood either got a little too confident in himself after a great L1 campaign or maybe knew this was his chance for a payday... in fairness to him, he has also clearly enjoyed playing here). Travis may grow into it, but he's still young.

Haha, happy to hand off my usual hectoring about the relative importance of wages over transfer fees to Biz this time!

On your last sentence, I agree that we shouldn't automatically assume a top-6 PL team's u23s are better than ours, but it's probably fair to assume someone like Ejaria, with 27 Championship games, 14 SPL games, and 11 Europa League games under his belt, (and Reading fans appear to have liked him) is a step up on, say, Buckley (no offence to Buckley!). (Note I extend my thoughts below to all PL teams, not just the top 6...) Perhaps a distinction is needed between bringing in a loan who already has some pro experience versus someone completely raw. King (20 years old when we brought him in on loan), Cairney (21), Gestede (24, so pushing it age-wise...), and Reed (23) all arguably fall under this category, and were all relatively successful loans, no? (Palmer a noted exception! But that may have been more lack of opportunity, as he was justifiably stuck behind Dack, than lack of ability). Your other examples were very raw (and perhaps then cheaper...) Now, you obviously then need to debate on the merits of Ejaria's better ability to contribute this year versus someone like Buckley (keeping him as the counterfactual), the potential damage this could have on Buckley's development (assuming he is ready for Championship game time), the potential cost savings of bringing someone like Ejaria on loan (who we can quickly dump if he doesn't work out) versus spending a transfer fee and committing to a longer contract for another player (who may or may not work out), and the potential benefit of gaining an 'in' on him if he has a successful year with us and is keen to sign a permanent deal knowing he won't be getting in a PL team's lineup anytime soon, like Cairney or Gestede (or we deal with the disappointment of him subsequently being priced out of our budget, being recalled midseason, or subsequently earning PL game time, as was the case with Gallagher (21), Keane (21), and Lawrence (21), who did contribute while they were here, and may now be the case with Reed.) Is it just me or has this debate about signing young PL players on loan been perpetually going around in circles? The costs, risks, and potential benefits are all relatively clear... it's just a matter of ones own preference on squad building, cost management, etc. It's not an idea that should be immediately dismissed (nor should it be assumed to be a guaranteed way of getting a solid starting player for a year, but only as part of a mixed transfer strategy)

Regardless of your thoughts on whether Downing still has anything to offer (I'm mildly optimistic/indifferent), I think we can all agree the key detail is it's a 1-year contract. This will not be another Etuhu/Murphy-type deal... (Perhaps there's an unannounced option year in there, but presumably he'll have worked out as a signing if he hits the targets for an option year, a la Graham!) Mowbray seems to think we need additional veteran presence in the dressing room (plus replacing Conway), and presumably they have a good working relationship. Hard one to get too upset over as an initial signing.

He wasn't a 'designated player', who can earn up to $6 million+/~£90,000/wk (e.g. Michael Bradley on TFC. Rooney's on $2.8 million, or about £41,000/wk, at DC), but I think his $800k salary he would have required using 'target allocation money', so he was one of the higher earners for sure (about 6th on the team going by the 2018 numbers). MLS teams tend to have a few players making $2 million+, several in the $200-500k range, and then a bunch of younger/depth players stuck at $60/70k. (MLS finances may be more transparent in some respects, but all the salary allowances/restrictions/exceptions are a bit of a labyrinth!)

VdW was pretty mediocre when he played (not terrible... but struggled to fit into the coach's system), and then was cut loose to start the year after a bust up with the coaching staff. Definite attitude issues... Seems more interested in his business ventures than football nowadays. Was making the equivalent of £12,350/wk last year (MLS actually publishes all salary info!).

Quoting myself from another thread... "Ah, picking up on PriceOfFootball's tweet here: https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1108621602051289089?s=20, we've "entered transfer agreements amounting to net transfer fees payable of £7.6m" since these accounts. Hard to say whether that includes performance-based add-ons (apparently we potentially owe another £2.1m on purchases based on performance add-ons, but that may be for 17-18, so for the likes of Dack, Samuel, Bell, etc. but not including this years' additions) Let's say Armstrong was £1.75m, Rothwell and Davenport £400k. Maybe another £200k on Chapman, Lyons, Annesley, and Durrant (maybe the former three are too recent to be included), plus loan fees...? Doubt we've received much for outgoing loans. That suggests Brereton's initial cost was about £5.25m."

I may be mistaken, but I think our League One losses aren't included in the 3-year FFP calculations as League One and Two follow their own version of FFP ("SCMP"), which essentially says any losses are fine (for recently relegated clubs, as I think there is an exception made for contracts signed whilst above League One) as long as the owner covers it. (Oddly, and sadly for smaller L1 clubs, they don't seem to have considered the possibility for 'big spenders' with deep-pocketed owners, like Wolves, Rovers, and Sunderland, dropping down to L1 and spending like sailors...) At the very least, checking the EFL website, it doesn't clarify whether League One losses count in the 3-year FFP calculation, but it does point out that promotion-related payments are excluded, so any promotion-related costs from 17/18 are excluded from our £17m loss for FFP purposes (as is a certain amount of our academy expenditure). One thing to keep in mind for FFP is player profits can be booked immediately, while transfer fees are amortised over the years of the contract. So, if Brereton was £6m with a 3-year contract, his accounting cost is £2m for three years. Hence selling Dack (if it comes to that...) acts as an 'escape valve' for us FFP-wise given his original fee was so low (and will be well-amortised by now) so almost all of the fee (minus sell-ons to Gillingham, I suppose) would go to that year's finances. I don't think there's an urgency to sell Dack in the next year or two, but could very well be the case in a couple years' time (and by that point, if Dack's generally continued his form and we're still puttering around mid-table, we can probably expect him to be off anyway)

I find the Rothwell debate a bit odd. Mowbray pretty consistently used him as a sub right from the start. Overall, he made appearances in 37 of our 51 games this year. Clearly indicates Mowbray did value his talents to some extent, but simply didn't trust him over 90 minutes (think Chapman last year...). As he says in that interview in India, and he's consistently said so, he thinks Rothwell's positional awareness was lacking when he arrived, having been given too long a leash when he was at Oxford. Like everyone else, I thought Rothwell was excellent down the stretch and his late season rise was one of the highlights of the season, but I think there's been some selective memory about his pre-January appearances. Looking back at old game threads, he was often criticised for running into blind alleys, giving the ball away, etc., and I doubt you'll find specific praise of his defensive abilities (always a difficult area to judge). Fans weren't calling for his head of course, and it's important to keep in mind he was often subbed into games we were behind and looking for a goal, but his appearances certainly weren't universally praised. It's fair to argue Rothwell wasn't given a fair stretch of games to grow into a role, and he certainly has a creative spark we often lacked, but his early results were ultimately indifferent, and we're also largely blind to what Rothwell was showing in training, including whatever tactical training that he may have been lacking when he arrived. Cue jokes about Mowbray having any tactical nous himself... but my point is we only have a limited idea of what players are showing outside of games. Feel free to disagree with Mowbray's assessment of Rothwell's initial all-around abilities (and I would agree that he was ultimately late in incorporating him in the 1st team), but I don't think it's all that scandalous for Mowbray to suggest Rothwell was a work in progress (who we got for cheap!) that had developed enough by January that he could trust him. (Not directing this all at you K-Hod, btw. Just using your post as a jumping point!)