Seemed to me his early struggles were linked to our laboured playing out of the back. Doesn't offer much of an outlet for holding up the ball... I also noticed he'd be desperately trying to marshall pressure up front to no avail, maybe when our pressing game was still developing. But he was at least offering decent defensive work, particularly during a few sub appearances, and popped a few goals. Now, he seems well-geared to the one-touch passing JDT is trying to instill, plus he's a menace on the press. Can start to see why JDT may have specifically picked him out, and our persistence in signing him... Haha, I was surprised that didn't seem to get more notice! Reminded me of that lower league Scottish football commentator who got sacked a couple years ago for telling the audience he was late for the 2nd half because of a "half-time jobby" haha...

Hell, I may still be drinking GB's kool-aid, but, whatever you may think of him, at the very least it would be very worrying if GB (and JDT...) leave in the offseason, while the likes of Waggot and Sylvester are still in place.

Grabbing some 'micro' stats from https://www.fotmob.com/teams/8655/stats/blackburn-rovers/players and https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/158/Show/England-Blackburn I recall the MLS has some sort of 'expected goals from build up' stat that helps value how MF passes help build up attacks, but haven't come across that for the Championship... maybe in the PL... Obvious caveats to take on how to interpret them, how they're tallied (which can differ between sites...), etc., but picking out some stats for the sake of the argument (click for a slightly larger image! Sorry...):

According to Sharpe on Twitter, Leonard (and Harlock) were brought off at half-time yesterday because they are due to be involved in an internal game on Wednesday with whatever senior players don't play tonight. Perhaps he'll be on the bench, but wouldn't expect to see him starting anyway. Just noticed Leonard hasn't actually made the bench yet for a league game, only for a couple FA Cup games.

Ah, I only took a glance at his low appearances this year, but may have been injury-related!

Repeating myself, but to briefly add, Benson's also apparently still a close confidante for Dean Henderson going back to their Carlisle days. Fisher's done alright since he left too (although seems to have lost the starting gig at Swansea). Stergiakis maybe a miss, but whatever. I know fuck all about GK training, but the social media video snippets they post of the GK training appear to be relatively creative/interesting (or I'm just boring enough to bother watching them). Agreed that all good coaches must have been ex-players is silly reasoning... I've been curious what we've had in mind with a relatively large stable of GKers. Wonder if anything will come of Hilton (had a decent Scottish loan spell last year), Eastham, Goddard, etc.

FYI, MLS transfer window is currently open and doesn't close until 24 April. The season starts in 10 days, running until the end of October. It's not uncommon for European players to join MLS clubs for loans. For example, Richie Laryea, another Forest player, is back on loan with Toronto FC for a loan until June 2023, presumably timed so he'll be back in time for training with Forest for 2023-24. Should it go to league arbitration (I've long lost track of the levels of appeal/who has actual authority over the EFL...), hopefully it would move relatively swiftly, or at least something Rovers will keep in mind with the MLS timetables above for O'Brien's sake. He'll still be able to fit in a ~4-month MLS loan if this drags on for a couple more weeks. Hell, as it continues to drag on, it may become more about extracting compensation from the EFL rather than pushing this loan through (all assuming we do actually have a strong case of course 🙂), even if that'd be little comfort for this season...

Bit harsh on O'Brien to write him off at the PL level because of a rough few months at Forest, who had plenty of problems to start the year. £10m is relative peanuts at the PL level (and probably the going rate for a top, young Championship-level midfielder). Probably need to spend at least £15-20m for a 'PL proven', young midfielder these days... It's all fantastical sums for us to consider, but keep in mind that Bournemouth have spent ~£80m this year (setting aside Fulham and Forest's outlays...). Norwich spent about £55m and Watford ~£40m after promotion the year before.

You can chalk up that up to his ADHD, which is definitely irritating, but maybe just how he reacts to stress... It's his chest-pumping and peacocking after wins that drives me nuts, acting as if he was the one out there making tackles for 90min... plus his success at Luton (fair enough) has given him an odd arrogance.

🙂 Jones irrationally winds me up like no other in football.

Frustrating goal to give up, but otherwise can't fault that away performance. Seemed to be a lot of odd miscommunications attacking down the right (our goal aside!) and Brereton largely anonymous on the left. Finally did cut in with some purpose near the end of his shift, but definitely need more from him... Travis was driving me nuts in the first half, but then had a classic battling performance in the 2nd. Hope it's a sign of a resurgence from him. Really impressed with Carter, who had his hands full all game and came out quite well. JRC had some awkward moments in defence - he and Thomas didn't quite seem in sync defending down the right - but have to give him credit for the results again, plus a key contribution to the goal. Wish Pears was a bit more commanding defending crosses - had some great punches, but you wish he wasn't having to punch in the first place! - but continued his steady keeping otherwise.

My view may be skewed by North American sports, which is more 'regulated' and the players unions have a great deal of power, but I can certainly imagine a case where the EFL needs to bend here (with obvious heavy caveats at what's been leaked so far!). Broughton may have simply been playing down expectations for now... Lacking a clause for if we get relegated obviously appears to be a moot point and worth contesting. You may question the impartiality of the appeal observers (Stoke and whoever?), but they will want to keep any unreasonable EFL pedantry in check. I also imagine the reaction of the PFA would need to be taken into account (even if player unions aren't all that powerful in European football?) given there's now a player in the prime of his career without a club for 6 months through little fault of his own. The EFL may simply retort that we failed to use standard contract templates/clauses that any other club would have readily included, hence we were incompetent. Case closed. I recall there was some fuss over Steve Kean's leaked contract defining his salary if we ever got relegated to League One - ha - given he would clearly (hopefully...) be fired by then but all eventualities need covering in a long-term contract (e.g., any payoff Kean was due for getting sacked would drop if we got relegated). But we can argue such details are obviously unneeded here for a short-term loan + conditional purchase agreement... The Brierley transfer, rather pathetically, sounds more like a case of a 'broken fax machine'/paperwork errors. It was good to hear Broughton say they will make sure Rochdale is at least covered financially for now until the transfer can go through in the summer... Best I can imagine, if the unticked 'White-British' box is to be believed, is we would argue that the EFL already has such information on file, so it's redundant for a within-EFL transfer, or any 'reasonable' person wouldn't get confused about the agent name misspelling... in any case, I can imagine the EFL not bending on paperwork errors (and, frankly, this transfer is less important, if still an annoying setback)

Maybe betraying my ignorance, but on covering O'Brien's wage, isn't it possible that if he's on £45k/week, we only agreed to pay, say, ~£20k/week, with Forest covering the rest? Maybe appearance fees, etc add complications, but I would have thought a player is still ultimately made whole on their original contract? PL clubs insisting on loan fees, full wages, penalties for lack of gametime, etc. make sense when they've got leverage over a highly sought after loan, but there must also be cases of young loans going out for free (particularly in the lower leagues), so surely you can meet somewhere in the middle? (You can on FM anyway 🙂) It was probably still a relatively major outlay for us, but in a case like this where Forest would have been keen to get any of LOB's wage off the books given he wasn't going to make their 25-man roster and we were the last resort, I'd be surprised we agreed to cover £45k/week (nor would I read too much into the implications for our apparent wage structure...) edit: and Sharpe just tweeted Broughton's comments on the alleged financials:

Ha, so an Ugbo signing may have some legs after all... (edit: or not haha) Repeating myself a bit from a post a few pages back, but there is some hype around him for the Canadian national team. Canada's relatively deep on attackers, so it was no mean feat for him to make the World Cup squad after only recently committing (being a former England U20). His form seems to be all over the place, but he has scored goals when given starts on a few separate occasions now. It's not all rosy, as apparently the managers at both Genk and Troyes have questioned his attitude/motivation. Obviously having a down year with Troyes after impressing last year, but they're also having a mess of a season. Troyes only recently signed him to a long-term deal, but he may be an interesting 'buy-low' option... Hard to predict Troyes plans for him given they're part of the City Football Group... If you want a skim through many pages of Canadian soccer nerds 🙂: https://www.canadiansoccernews.com/forums/topic/77309-ike-ugbo/ Not so positive of late, but it is/was expected that he'll settle in as our 2nd choice striker behind Jonathan David.

Whatever he said, Travis can fuck off if he thought that was a good time to get mouthy with Etheridge.

JRC turning into the feel-good story of the season. I'm not, like, his dad, but I feel weirdly proud of him.

Markanday: Maybe it's just me, but I thought his FA Cup start against Norwich was a good demonstration of a) why he's an exciting prospect, b) he's not quite ready yet, as I wasn't impressed by his play off the ball (which JDT does say is improving!) I (thankfully) didn't see the Rotherham game, if he made an impression there... Certainly looks like he can play a role as an attacking sub down the stretch - and perhaps that's what we need! - but a loan to finally get some regular senior football also sounds good for his long-term development. Ugbo: No real insights on him as a player, and gather it's only a speculative link, but thought I'd add there is some excitement for him with the Canadian national team after he decided to join (former England u21). Made the World Cup squad despite our deep attacking depth (hold your laughter if you watched the Canada games 🙂). After some mediocre EFL loans, he's racked up goals in the Dutch 2nd, Belgian 1st, and Ligue 1 when he's gotten regular starts, but struggled for game time at Genk and now Troyes after initially impressing there on loan. I think he just gotten beaten out by in-form strikers at Genk, but not sure what's happened this year at Troyes. He only recently signed a long-term deal there, so I'd guess he's only available on loan.

I think Pears definitely deserves another Cup start after his form so far this year. He's fairly angling for more playing time and may help advertise him for a last minute loan (and then maybe bring in that Bodo/Glimt keeper, if that's the plan...) I'd only consider throwing Kaminski in if he demands a start to get back on track after a couple rough games.

Fair point about it being better to get our business done early (if not necessarily easier to do so!), but worth remembering there was pretty much no scuttlebutt surrounding most of our signings in the summer. I think Szmodics only came up because Peterborough's chairmen couldn't keep his mouth shut, the failed van den Berg loan was a bit of a saga, and a loan like Morton being reported is a bit different. I think Brittain, Hyam, Hirst, and Mola all came out of nowhere. Broughton seems to run a tight ship so far in that regard.

He did make that one last ditch block against Bradford in the League Cup this year, which secured us the tie with West Ham (and then on to the next round against Forest), which will have raised our revenues by ~£400k+ this year. So, boom, worthwhile signing 🙂

To me, he's interesting to watch. He's maybe not consistent enough, but every time he has the ball I'm curious what he's going to do with it. He's 'fun' haha.

The ~£2.7m profit (that 'profit' might be a bit better when the actual Rovers accounts come out later) certainly gives some breathing room within the current 3-year FFP cycle. Our operating losses look to be around £20m/y of late. FFP allows £39m over 3 years, so £13m/y, but that's probably more like £16m/y (£48m) when you factor in exemptions for spend on the Academy, community, ladies' football, etc. So, a £2.7m profit for 21-22 suggests that we could lose a total of ~£45m this year and next, i.e., an extra ~£3m per year relative to our 'baseline' operating losses of £20m, but you still have to be ready for that £2.7m profit dropping out of the 3-year cycle. For example, suppose we run losses of £23m this year and next (so, no major asset sales). We'd then need a profit of £3m in 2024-25. So, money can probably be spent today (some of which has already been spent on Hyam, Szmodics, and Brittain, plus potentially spent on Hirst and Mola...), but an eye still needs to be kept on what we'd do at that cliff edge when the Armstrong and STC sales drop out. (Note this all may be moot given speculation about FFP changes, salary caps, etc!) There's also some complications with the Covid-related reprieves. I think they're taking an average of 2020-21/2021-22 losses for one year, plus allowing some Covid-related losses... don't have time to work that out myself! Side note: thought it was interesting/surprising that we're apparently getting £462k from the Magloire and Stergiakis sales. Magloire did apparently impress while on loan at Northampton, and maybe we did get some sort of fee for Stergiakis...

I figured his decent showing against West Ham was a bit of a fluke, but major credit to JRC putting in another decent performance out of nowhere. Excellent stuff from Bucko today too.

Out of my own curiosity, our FA/EFL Cup home attendances since 2016: 2016-17 - EFL Cup: 3,448 for 2nd Rd vs Morecambe. FA Cup: 9,237 for 4th Rd vs Blackpool, 23,130 for 5th Rd vs Man Utd 2017-18 - EFL Cup: 16,313 for 2nd Rd vs Burnley. FA Cup: 3,710 for 1st Rd vs Barnet, 4,472 for 2nd Rd vs Crewe, 6,777 for 3rd Rd vs Hull 2018-19 - EFL Cup: 5,211 for 2nd Rd vs Lincoln. FA Cup: 14,228 for 3rd Rd replay vs Newcastle 2019-20 - EFL Cup: 5,215 for 1st Rd vs Oldham 2020-21 - behind closed doors (Covid...) 2021-22 - EFL Cup: 5,283 for 1st Rd vs Morecambe 2022-23 - EFL Cup: 6,844 for 1st Rd vs Hartlepool So, yeah, big turnout for a 5th Round FA Cup game against Man Utd, and okay turnouts vs Burnley, Newcastle, Blackpool at a stretch. But otherwise struggle to get more than 6k for such games... Would have hoped that a bit of a Cup run could spark above-average interest, but weather/poor marketing/derby losses/Nottingham Forest not being particularly exciting have scuppered that. I'll guess we get to 8k in the end...

Blackpool already sold him on to Scunthorpe in January, so if we got anything additional it would've been then (I doubt it was anything material!) Wasn't the rumour that we get a decent 6-figure fee for him when we sold him to Blackpool (I recall reading £500k, which sounded high to me!)? He ultimately turned into a decent profit turn for us after being picked off the scrap heap from Aberdeen...