Re: Bair, general story is he was an exciting prospect for Canada, but disappointed when trying to break into Vancouver's squad in MLS. Hence a loan to Norway's 2nd division, where he finally impressed a bit, caught St Johnstone's eye, but flopped there and left by mutual consent. Common complaint at Vancouver and St Johnstone was playing too much on the periphery despite his physical tools. Also reports of not putting in enough effort in practice when he was younger... Was essentially written off by Canadian soccer fans by then (although only 23 when he left St Johnstone...), but made a surprise move to Motherwell and was a revelation there (their POTY). Perhaps finally putting it together? Notable he's been included in Canada's squad for Copa America, his first time joining the national team since 2020. (Feel free to scoff haha, but Canada has quite a few attacking options!) Rumour is he's making peanuts at Motherwell (not surprising given his track record before joining), so probably easily tempted by a 'lower-tier' Championship salary... Maybe Rovers took note of him at Motherwell while keeping tabs on Vale/Gent (or allows for lazy journalism 🙂) Obviously would prefer someone with a longer scoring record, but could be a case of picking out a player on the upswing while he's still cheap-ish. (Thought I'd chime in when a Canadian is randomly/allegedly on our radar haha. Last transfer window, it was Ike Ugbo, who similarly had a mixed scoring record, hence mixed reactions here. He was angling to leave Ligue 1 Troyes, where he joined after a successful loan but then fell out with the coach. Ended up at Sheffield Wed and was a big part of their survival, scoring 7 in 18. He's on Canada's fringes too and notable he was left off the Copa America roster, unlike Bair...)

Hmm, just doing a quick look back at youngsters outright released in the past 10 years: - Jamie Maclaren's certainly had an interesting career since leaving. Now the A-League's leading career goalscorer at over 150 goals (!!), plus a mixed spell at Hibs, and failing to crack 2.Bundesliga. - As just posted above, Matty Pearson now a steady Championship CB (if just relegated), but took a while for that to happen - Ryan Edwards managed multiple seasons in L1/L2 + Scottish Prem. Now plying his trade in India... - Osawe managed some decent years in 3. Liga + a couple 2.Bundesliga seasons - Fabio Nunes probably the only one of that bizarre Portuguese contingent with any real talent... managed some years in Portugal's Primeira Liga, still plying away in Poland's top league - Josh Morris had a few years scoring like mad at Scunthorpe in L1 (forgot he actually had a decent number of appearances with us (22) before being let go) - Sam Lavelle now a steady L1/L2 CB; Matt Platt a L2 CB; Sam Hart in L2; James Connolly a L1/L2 CB; Tom White a L2 MF; Butterworth with a mixed season at L1 (now L2) Carlisle; James Brown and Brad Lyons regulars in the Scottish Prem at Ross County and Kilmarnock, respectively. - I remember Ben Williams randomly popping up against us as Barnsley's LB a few years ago while they were in the Championship. Now in L1 at Cheltenhem - As mentioned, Boyomo's now a regular in the 2nd division in Spain. - Ha, as I was scouring, noticed Nuttall just had a half-year loan at Cheltenham in L1. Bizarrely getting a L1 loan whilst under contract at Oldham in the NL?? Think we sold him for a few hundred k to Blackpool? Generally not seeing much to lose sleep over! But good for those who have managed ok football careers.

Not sure what to make of GB. Ultimately a failed tenure but also so many mitigating circumstances that truly judging him is difficult. Definitely pointed comments in his LinkedIn post about Szmodics and Hyam not already being on our transfer lists before he showed up... whatever GB's merits, you can't have a 'Director of Football' setup where the CEO (or his minions) is apparently happily spreading gossip undermining the DoF's credibility. No surprise SW doesn't get a thank you. I recall reading SW saying that the DoF model was imposed by Venky's and he didn't see the need for it... Probably thinks of himself as a 'football man' and the McGuire fiasco gave him the opportunity to get his mitts back on transfers. On O'Brien/Brierley, perhaps GB should've recognised our admin setup was archaic when he joined (bit of a stretch when we had no such issues the preceding summer window, nor ever before...), but he stood up and took the hit (while SW took until his pre-season interview to acknowledge he had any culpability himself). I understand if you don't want to give GB 'credit' for moves that didn't get over the line, but both would have been astute pick-ups... Such shit happening again with McGuire is unforgivable, but it's well-documented that the deal was pretty much wrapped up the day before, until the usual last minute Venky's intervention (also cited as a regular issue in post-mortems of Mowbray's tenure). Maybe he should've been looking over Sylvester's shoulder when he clicked 'send' (such micro-managing shouldn't be necessary in a competent organisation...), but it never should've been a last minute deal in the first place. I don't buy that concerns were suddenly raised about whether McGuire was worth a ~£2m+ fee (FFS, that's really not that much in today's young strikers market). He's continuing to do well at Orlando and it'll be interesting to see where he does land when he leaves MLS. Also liked the creativity shown in bringing in JDT and taking advantage of 'geopolitical events' to get Siggy on a free. Tronstad's a gem. Did some good work on contract extensions, including doing all he could with the Phillips situation. Ennis and Hirst were duds, all part of a major failure to bring in a striker (was he finally going to rectify that with McGuire??), but he also managed to effectively cut bait on both. Hirst's failure here is increasingly interesting in hindsight. Ennis... a bad move, but given our budget, I can't hate the idea of going for young strikers with some L1 success who are available on a free. Wahlstedt is probably the fatal signing (for both GB and JDT). I admittedly thought it looked like a decent bit of a business: make a profit on TK (regrettably, but it's really difficult to stand in the way of a PL move) and bring in a young GK on the fringes of the Swedish team who clearly has some talent (if ultimately looking to be a flawed keeper)... I can't hate the thought process, but a scouting failure that greatly contributed to our doomed season. I'm probably being too kind/slanted on some of the above, but I'm certainly not optimistic about where things go from here (I have a post from a while ago expressing worry if we suddenly find ourselves with JDT/GB gone and SW and co. still in situ... bah, it's all fucking Venky's fault anyway).

The overall sucess of the Siggy signing is 'mixed' so far, but I did like the creativity shown by the recruitment team. Managing to pick off a talented 24-year-old with decent pedigree for no transfer fee (probably still on a decent wage, but still) by taking advantage of 'geopolitical events'... that's the kind of thing clubs in our financial position need to explore. As you say, if he can step up his physicality/show some better endurance, he's pretty much the only goalscoring hope if/when Sammie leaves, but certainly only an if! In the last 6 seasons, he's averaged only ~1,900min/season on the pitch (that's including a decent chunk of Iceland minutes) due to a combination of injuries, club turmoil, and often being a sub. The most he's managed in a continuous year was 2,271min back in 2019-20 (he managed ~2,600min across his loan in Sweden, but that's split across two seasons - I didn't bother to calculate that exactly!) Can he put in the 3,000+min we'd need as our lead attacker? Doubtful...

And now a goal for Weston (play starts from 2:34 below). Looking like a nice little loan for him to get some men's football with a flailing Kidderminster. I recognise the name but I don't recall much hype about him... Checking now, he did make our bench a few times this year. Played for England U-16s. Turns 20 in the summer. edit: updated the YT vid as the previous one went 'private' for some reason...

Think I saw that Walker's been dealing with an injury, but a quick perusal of Oldham's forum suggests he hasn't impressed much in his limited minutes. Don't think he's one to hold out much hope for anyway. Think his contract is done at the end of the year, so presumably he'll be off. Bloxham's lack of gametime is disappointing. It was mostly a function of our threadbare squad, but he did make our bench a number of times and JDT gave him a couple subs. Seems he was at least getting thrown on as a sub fairly regularly at Harrogate, but that seemed to stop and now not even making the bench. Can't find any word as to why. On the positive side: - Charlie Weston's had 4 starts + 1 sub since his loan to Kidderminster. Had a quick look on their forum and they seem to like him and are resigned to him not returning with their relegation to NLN. - Vale and Gent establishing themselves as starters at Motherwell is probably the best story of our loans. Their manager was recently quoted saying he'd love to have them back: Gent's played enough (League: 14 starts + 10 subs 1 goal 3 assists, and now firmly a starter, plus 2 starts and a goal in the Cup) that you'd have to figure he'll get a look as to whether he's ready to provide LB depth next year. We have our reasons to doubt Vale (League: 8 starts + 2 subs, 2 goals 2 assists, plus a goal in a Cup sub), but even if he's not in our plans, he may have at least shown he's worth a small fee for a lower league side? He's signed until 2025 + an option, so presumbly Eustace will get a look at him first.

A few notes after a skim amid some travel/work. Might give it a more detailed read later, but aside from the new language on the club as an ongoing concern... the actual numbers aren't surprising with the VLL accounts having already given a sneak peak. - As others have noted, this is only for 22-23, so this year's budget cuts won't show up yet. Easy to forget now, but with the additions of Szmodics, Hyam, and Brittain, a couple pricey loans, Dack/Ayala/BBD still around, there was generally decent financial support last year (setting aside the January fiasco...). Attendance improved a bit, had quite a few TV games, and the cup runs pushed up both turnover (to our highest since the end of parachute payments) and player costs. - I wouldn't get agitated about the £5.9m of max potential future add-on payments. That's only up from £5.3m last year and could apply to any player on the roster we picked up for a transfer (Szmodics, Hyam, Brittain, Pickering, Pears, Hedges, Gallagher, Wahlstedt, Telalovic, hell possibly even Academy pick-ups like JRC or Travis!) I'd imagine plenty of those transfers have promotion-related add-ons, for example, which is of course not a financial concern at the moment... May have an add-on for Szmodics' international caps, but that may not actually apply yet due to his caps only being friendlies so far! - Looks like Edun + Kaminski + Phillips was an initial £3.4m. That won't include add-ons... Stergiakis + Magloire and maybe loan fees and/or other add-ons (I'm not clear how those fit in to the figures!) netted £349k last year. - While 22-23 wasn't a 'sustainable' loss, with the previous Armstrong + STC sales, and now the Wharton sale, and accounting for other deductions, FFP simply isn't a concern/excuse at the moment... - Again had high interest income, I think due to the how the STC sale sat in our accounts, but swung back to net interest payments as the cost of the overdraft essentially doubled due to its rate being linked to the BoE rate. Don't mean to come off as making excuses/taking a rose tinted view, but the numbers for 22-23 are very much before things got dark...

New article in The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/5277307/2024/03/05/blackburn-rovers-gary-neville/ Don't think it adds anything new, but details how the Modi government's crackdown on the wealth transferring money out of the country links to Venky's purchasing Gary Neville's house for £7.4m in 2011 (there's your lede!). Summarising given the paywall: - Nothing new, but it details how £9m of Pune property has been seized by the govt so far based on 'unpaid tax and interest' on the investment in Neville's house. Venky's were allowed by the Delhi high court to pump in £26m in the summer and a further £11.5m in Nov (with equivalent amounts put in holding accounts), but a decision to allow more in Jan was delayed. Rovers provide boilerplate comment that the owners have assured them of their continued support, they hope to settle the matter soon, etc. No concern about staff wages not being paid. - Gives a general run-through of our past ~10 years, lack of signings of late, focus on youth, becoming a spot for young PL loans, etc. - Refers to signings and managerial appointments being run by both SW and GB, with input from the head coach. No mention of if that's changed in the past month or so... - GB/JDT hoped to add more Championship experience until Suhail informed them of the urgent budget changes. Example: GB/JDT were excited to sign Baath, with a deal verbally agreed, but were then told they could not sign anyone over 30. - Same thing happened with another unnamed target, so JDT offered to resign. Venky's, fans of JDT's coaching talent (albeit less appreciative of his public/private 'communications'), refused to accept his resignation. JDT felt his days were numbered, but was persuaded that if he kept the team in playoff contention, some more funds could be released for the Jan window. A loss of form followed a promising start; the Watford loss referred to as a 'killer' for morale. - The Athletic repeat their version of the McGuire saga (which Jackson's reporting partially refutes): initial deal nixed mid-flight, McGuire flew over anyway to secure a deal with Sheff Wed. That fell through, so his agent approached us about a loan. The "usual to-ing and fro-ing" occurred between GB, SW, Suhail, and Venky's before a ~£550k loan deal was agreed with a £5.5m purchase option. Deal and documents all signed, etc., but failed to click submit... Suggests we'll try to return for him in the summer. - Not the first time the recruitment team had agreed terms for a deal before there was 'ominous' silence from India and then word from Suhail that the deal could not go ahead. - JDT again offered to resign. Venky's said they'd accept subject to an agreement on terms. JDT "said to have made a financial 'sacrifice' to facilitate his departure" - Agent: McGuire was an extreme case, but there's an acceptance with all negotiations with Rovers that any agreement may be vetoed by Venky's. - Eustace's quick arrival was due to 'contingencies' being in place, as it was expected that JDT would leave in the summer. Refers to a wide, thorough recruitment process, variety of candidates interviewed. - Comment from Ian Herbert about the grim state of things after selling Wharton and JDT leaving, uncertainty about funding now tied to the whims of an Indian judge... Tim Farron can only highlight the Academy as a positive.

FYI, Jackson reported that GB said he'll do a post-transfer window interview during the international break, saying that he wanted to give Eustace some space before addressing it. (Not endorsing that btw, just saying FYI!) I really can't imagine how he'll try to spin it... if rumours are to be believed that GB's ultimately heading off (I've had a soft spot for GB's seeming competence, but I can't give a fuck anymore either way), it should be SW in the firing line, but he'll probably hide as long as he can. Might as well let GB take another bullet on his way out... Whatever the format of the interview, I only wish they'll be asked point blank 1) did A. Wharton push to be sold, 2) did we have to make that sale due to Venky's apparent inability to fund the club (and, as a follow-on if they claim FFP, run us through exactly how close we would have been to breaching FFP given budget cuts and also selling the likes of Kaminski and Phillips...) They may insist Wharton wanted to leave, it wasn't due to Venky's inability pump in more cash, FFP, blah blah blah, but might as well get them on record as lying (will at least get a partial answer to the latter when the accounts come out over a year from now...)

hahaha, Markanday a wily Hobbit amongst Ents there... nice to see some flashes from him (thought he was the only bright spark in that awful QPR loss)

Glad to see Ayari starting to show something. Didn't acquit himself well in that start against Cardiff, but I figure a smart club like Brighton will have had their reasons for bringing him in. Got some fire to him too, and seemingly unlucky with refs (I recall him getting some unjust fouls in his first or second appearance too...)

I think the wording in that article is still a bit confused, albeit it's a subtle difference. The rate that contracts are amortised, i.e., how the costs are booked in the accounts, still relates to the length of the player's contract. So, sign a player for a £10m and a 5-year contract, it's a £2m cost in the accounts for 5 years. This will show up under 'amortisation of intangible fixed assets' in the accounts. I think the general story with Derby is they got hit for choosing what amortisation periods suited them, which can be perfectly sound as far as GAAP goes (also see clubs taking impairments to bring forward the cost of bad transfers; there was a lot of that in Rovers' accounts back when we were negotiating our exit from FFP transfer embargoes in the mid-2010s...), but not for the sake of fiddling annual amortisation costs to game FFP. Chelsea is apparently staying within FFP despite spending £400m+ on transfers this year by using 8-year contracts to spread out the cost (while you book profits for sales today). That does also mean that Chelsea will still have a hefty amortisation bill for the next 8 years, and the 'booked profit' for selling any of those players in the next few years will be heavily reduced, but clearly those 8-year contracts aren't within the 'spirit' of FFP rules... The PL closed this 'loophole' by setting a maximum amortisation period of 5 years (contracts can still be longer than 5 years). (sidenote: the NHL had this issue when it implemented a salary cap years ago. Teams started signing older stars to 10+ year contracts, with the latter years at minimal salaries as the annual cap hit was averaged across the contract length. Teams fully knew the player would retire and get off the cap by claiming injury for those latter years. The NHL retrospectively punished a couple teams for that and now have a 7-8 year max contract rule... many of the folk running the NHL aren't too clever.) --- Accounting malarkey aside, I don't think that has any relation to the actual cashflows of a transfer. I haven't checked the regulations on this, but I can't imagine why there'd be restrictions on a club receiving a transfer fee 100% upfront versus spreading it out over X number of years. On top of that, clubs often 'factor' incoming transfer fees (https://www.ft.com/content/e47a43dc-2362-3780-a1e3-b17b06f2c165), taking loans on those receivables today. So, for Wharton, even if we've only received £6m so far from Crystal Palace, we can probably pretty easily secure a loan (with interest) for the remaining £12m (for the guaranteed fee; I imagine factoring for add-ons isn't so easy!) if we wanted to... tldr: I'm procrastinating from actual work

Aye. Suspect GB thus fed to Elliot that the initial McGuire deal was actually only £2.5m+, or whatever he reported. I'm sceptical of McGuire, but that's not an outrageous number for a young MLS striker (while the reports of the second deal rising to ~£6m are probably BS, or only if he hit major add-ons). Wasn't SW bragging to a supporter how he brought in Szmodics, rubbished the need for the DoF model, etc. essentially undermining GB? Ridiculously unprofessional. I imagine the idea of the model is the CEO stays out of the football minutiae and only handles the pursestrings, but SW's been in football long enough that he probably still thinks of himself as a 'football man' and jumped at an opportunity to take the reigns. It's often assumed SW and Mowbray were chummy, but this Athletic article from a couple years (undoubtedly sourcing Mowbray contacts resentful that no contract extension was coming) reported how their hirings were not linked, they didn't get on, and Mowbray resented SW's meddling in football matters, including scuppering the Rothwell sale, taking a more active role in recruitment after Harvey left, and mishandling the contract renewals (although that's probably linked to SW following strict financial marching orders from Venky's). I don't doubt that SW's had to deal with a lot of shit this year with the budget cut, but he's a relentless self-promoter. Hence he couldn't help himself in bragging about renovating a fucking bus (even if that was a legit 'small win') and paying creditors on time while everyone was concerned about the overall budget. He knew the owners were keen to hang on to JDT, so he publicly grovelled to assuage him ('no pressure', 'avoid relegation', etc.), which JDT mocked in response. It also took him until the summer to admit that he also may have had some culpability for the O'Brien fiasco... Avoiding/deflecting blame and overstating your accomplishments is often how mediocre BSers rise in the c-suite. This shit ultimately all comes from the top. In North American sports, fan ire is often directed at league commissioner, but they are simply a conduit for the league owners' wishes (for a TV analogy, think of Tom in Succession selling himself as a 'pain sponge'...). Seems the targets this year were 1) survive in the league amid the budget cuts (and sell Wharton if the courts keep holding up cash injections), 2) continue the development of the DoF model, and 3) hang on to JDT. Amid our poor run of form, whatever the fuck happened with McGuire, and JDT continuing to (justifiably) mouth off, SW saw an opportunity to undermine 2) and 3), while still hitting 1) and get his hands back on football matters.

And why weren't you fired...? (😉) I bet we don't even have the cashflow to fire anyone until the end of the season (hence all the apparent haggling over JDT's exit)...

Here's the article itself: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24119456.latest-gregg-broughtons-blackburn-rovers-future/, as we should all support local journalism, etc etc... I listened to it while churning through some boring work in the late evening, so possible I mixed up the details there too!

Sorry, my wording conflated a couple things. Elliot's 'exclusive' report is that GB is staying (at least in the short term), and it's implied he knows that because he had a quick off-the-record chat with GB, presumably when he also found out GB will be doing an post-transfer window interview in a month's time. Elliot also went through his understanding of the McGuire saga (as I think he's already written before), including that the deal was not pulled mid-flight and that the numbers reported by The Athletic are too high. So, I guessed that he got these slightly more Rovers-friendly details from GB, but that's purely me guessing, and you're right that it doesn't chime with it being an 'off the record' chat.

A few tidbits from Elliot on that podcast. I think he's already written some of this, but more may be coming in future articles: - Who knows what story/side to believe, but he says he had an 'off-the-record' chat with GB. Elliot rubbishes the story of the initial McGuire deal being cancelled midflight, although reiterates Venky's did suddenly pull the funding for the deal. Says the initial deal was for ~£2.5m*. When Venky's pulled the plug, McGuire flew over anyway to negotiate with Sheff Wed. They couldn't come to an agreement, so his agent came back to GB about a loan-to-buy, with the buy cost increasing to ~£3.5m*. *I'm probably misremembering the exact figures. Main point is his sources (probably Rovers-linked) are insisting quotes of up to $7.5m are way off. - GB is staying, at least for the short-term, and was actively chatting with Eustace before/during/after the Stoke game. He'll be speaking to the media about the transfer window during/after the international break in March as he wants to give Eustace some breathing space first. Not sure if SW will speak. - Elliot didn't seem 100% sure, but he's under the impression Eustuce is a SW pick. Interestingly, he also suggests GB wasn't the one who picked out JDT (so maybe SW made the first contact with JDT?), but GB had a role in bringing him in/finalising it.

He said nothing of use, very generic comments but he did slip in that 50points is the target that is what he was brought in for. Get us to 50 points. Well you've got 15 games to get 14 points John. Looking at our fixtures that seems a huge challenge and big club was a strong chance of at least 1 point. His words not mine! Ha, reminds me that 51 points didn't do the job back in 16-17. Hell, we probably 'deserved' relegation that year all things considered, but yeesh was that harsh... Apparently Peterborough has the record for highest point total while still getting relegated at 54. Had a quick look and apparently ~43 is the average needed for staying up. We're on pace for 53 (current form of course a concern), QPR in 22nd is on pace for 43. Looks like Cifuentes has QPR back on track, but worth keeping in mind there's still a few shit teams between us and them. Should be doable... although I say that having missed last night's game... What's so ridiculous about our current predicament is suppose Eustace fails spectacularly and we get relegated (unlike Mowbray where we got relegated despite decent form under him - I don't mean to spark that debate!) I bet it'd still be up in the air whether we sack him as we wouldn't have the cash on hand to pay him off.

I think a PSA needs to be sent out about not giving any credence to sites like these 🙂 (Even need to be wary of the 'per week' values in FM, which may be reasonably close to reality in terms of footballers' 'basic' wage - fwiw, they have Dolan at £5k/week (https://www.fmscout.com/club/blackburn.html_) = but total salary costs will be much higher due to bonuses, sign-on fees, etc.)

Huh. Wonder if it's too late to see if Eustace is willing to serve as an assistant under Lowe.

Yeah, limited financial damage aside and acknowledging the overall financial constraints, it's definitely been GB's biggest failure. Ennis... best guess is he was seen as a good bargain opportunity. Young striker who has scored some goals, out of contract, no compensation. But then showed up out of shape, his poor fitness should've been flagged/questions to be asked about his medical, JDT not impressed, and it snowballed from there... Maybe washes out now that we're rid of him, but not a mistake we could afford this year amid the budget cut. Strange with Hirst. I think it's documented that JDT did approve of that one. I think he just struggled to break into a squad that was doing quite well. Flubbed a few chances, lost both his and JDT's confidence... 12 goals in 44 games with Ipswich is pretty good, but not incredible. He's had 9 assists too, so maybe has worked as more of a complementary piece rather than the goalscorer there. Would need to read up more on Ipswich fans' views...

While only 'small victories', particularly with everything else going on, while GB* has generally failed to bring in a striker, it's at least some succour that the financial consequences of his two main striker acquisitions - Hirst** and Ennis - have been minimal. Something to be said about limiting long-term risks/managing to wriggle out of mistakes when you're in the strikers pound shop... And then when he finally had some money to spend on a striker... Whatever the final financials, a loan-to-buy for McGuire sounded sensible. I'll speak up for MLS's gradual improvement in quality (there have been recent cases of (successful) MLS sales of £5-10m in recent years), but there's definitely reason for caution about a 22 year old with only one big MLS season after getting drafted out of college soccer. Of course, if McGuire floundered on his loan and we happily moved on, the question would still hang as to what, if any, of the Wharton sale will actually go toward player investment... Rather pathetically, even if Ennis nets out to a small 'accounting loss', probably the biggest financial benefit is any relief his fee brings to our immediate cashflow (in order to, uh, fund the McGuire loan fee...) *I've generally been a 'fan' of GB, whatever happend with the McGuire fiasco, I can't be bothered to endorse/take a 'side' on any part of the Rovers hierarchy when the whole thing is rotten, with Venky's incompetence/clusterfuck finances setting the tone at the top... **Ipswich fans seem happy with Hirst. I recall posts taking bets on Hirst playing non-league football by now haha. Odd one. May simply have been a 'bad fit' here or JDT failing to get the best out of him. (I'm saddened I couldn't figure out if it's possible to add footnotes 😞)

Yes, think it explains trying to shoehorn Moran into that role vs QPR. JDT essentially throwing up his hands to say "who the fuck else can play that role now that Wharton's gone?!" Then Moran kept drifting forward and Tronstrad struggled to do it himself. I understand the stick Morton got last year, but I think that explains why he was a regular starter after Buckley disappointed in the role, Travis clearly can't do it, and Wharton needed time to 'learn to be a pro' (understood that's controversial, but think we need to give JDT some benefit of the doubt there). I guess Buckley will get another audition and I guess we can hope/see if Ayari's up for it. Don't think Fleck's suited for it (and his current/ongoing fitness will be a concern anyway), can't trust Garrett with the ball... maybe JRC, but I don't know... There may be room for Travis to support such a role (although his general inability going forward ultimately hampers him...), but Tronstad clearly supplanted him.

Vale's goal at 3:45. Pokes in a sorta 1-on-1 under some pressure. Not optimistic about his chances here, but he does seem to calmly bury chances when he gets them. (I'm sure someone can remind me, but I can't recall him making any horrific misses last year). The problem is more how little he's able to create chances/find space in the first place... Gent also picks up an assist at 3:18, although just from simply laying off a pass for a screamer of a goal. His 2nd assist of the year, plus got a Cup goal a couple weeks ago. Seems he's now their regular LB after mostly being a sub to start his loan, which is good to see.

Yes, was about to post. Seems their sources are more on the Orlando side, but gives some new tidbits on the back-and-forth leading up to the 'admin error' (but no additional info on whatever the hell happened there). Summarising below due to paywall: - Just for context on the scale of salary involved, McGuire made $77,360+ last year (~£1,200/week) and produced goals at a rate equivalent or better to strikers making $2m+ (£30k/week). Orlando was nowhere close in salary negotiations, hence McGuire was pushing for a move and Orlando was accommodating. - We tried two loan offers in early January, but we didn't have the upfront money for a transfer/loan fee to entice Orlando, who needed money for a replacement. Sheff Wed also had a few offers declined. McGuire started pushing for a move. - We returned with a permanent offer after the Wharton deal (allegedly) gave us some cash to use. Agreed on an initial fee of ~£3m, with add-ons potentially taking that to ~£5m. Orlando would retain a sell-on clause, apparently a crucial negotiating point. - We booked and paid for McGuire's flight. McGuire takes off... Venky's call Waggott, GB, and JDT to inform them there was no money to make the deal. - GB called Orlando's director and McGuire's agent to apologise. Orlando tried calling McGuire to tell him he's welcome back, but unclear if they couldn't reach him as he made his connecting flight or he got onboard still hoping to make a deal with any English club. - Sheff Wed reopened talks with Orlando. Plymouth and Ipswich also expressed interest. Agent had McGuire stay in Sheffield, assuming Sheff Wed was the best bet. - Rovers apparently trying to make a deal for Brekalo around this time, an Orlando target, wouldn't have helped our negotiations with Orlando. We signed Koumetio instead. - Interestingly, apparently it was McGuire's agent that approached GB after the Wharton deal was 100% confirmed - the first contact since the original deal fell through - asking if we were interested again. GB said we could now only do a loan, Orlando said they'd only sanction a sizeable loan fee and higher purchase option. Agreed on a £550k loan fee and £5.5m purchase option, with add-ons potentially bringing it to £7.5m (the figure being this high is disputed) and Orlando still retaining a sell-on. Orlando were happy the hassle had at least netted them a few million. - Sheff Wed remained in the picture. Both clubs sent cars ready to pick up McGuire at the hotel. GB apparently made the final sell, convincing McGuire to choose us over Sheff Wed. Final agreements hammered out while McGuire was en route. He arrived 5 hours before the window closed for medical, etc. and the deal was done with 100min to spare. - We reimbursed McGuire's agent for the cab 🙂