Dreams of 1995

Using Nyambe and Lenihan in that is unfair because I'm certain we'd all like to see them in the first squad next season too. The rest is a sad indictment of Rovers under Venkys. Defenders will never come because there's no reasonable strategy in place, and money seemingly only available for attacking players. It is a rather skewed viewpoint that gets peddled on here that this is Mowbray's fault, but just like the Mowbray out mob cite historical tendencies as reasons why he won't achieve anything further than what he already has, they then refuse to acknowledge the historical tendencies of Venkys transfer business. I have never got myself worked up as to who we will buy in goal, or centre back of left back because I firmly believe that if we do it will be a freebie or loan. Even if we do sign one for a fee I suspect it will be nominal, and then whatever money we may have will be spent on a midfielder or attacking player, with potential for resale. Should the above not be the case I will happily be proven wrong but Venkys do not spend money on defenders.

He wasn't that calibre of player when Shrewsbury got him on loan.

You only need to look at teams like Villa who, in recent years, got promoted on the back of their good loan signings. They bought a couple of them after too.

That is a slanted view on things. Had our loan goalkeeper have been better we may have seen better results; had our loan left back not suffered a terrible injury we'd have seen more of him. It is all ifs and buts, but the idea that 2-4 good loan signings can't take this team into the top 6 is unjustified in my eyes. The simple answer is the loans haven't been as successful as we require them to be generally. Some of them have been unfortunate, others just not good enough. A perfect example of a good use of the loan market is Marcus Antonsson. He wasn't good enough for us really, but in his first few months he scored some very important goals in league 1, a poor end to the season followed and rather than be stuck with an asset we have to service, pay and eventually try to offload we walked away from our financial liability and had only paid for the service he had given us. There are of course a bad loan move for every good loan move but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to use the market.

That depends on the loan agreement. A loan being used to cover up recruitment doesn't make it mediocre, it just means you require a further look in 12 months. I am only looking at it from a financial point of view. In terms of "building a team" it doesn't make much sense except adding quality you can't otherwise afford - and those are the arrangements which usually come with fees / stipulations. Again it is all about balancing the financial risks of owning a player vs wanting to own them. In all walks of life you want your assets to increase in value, at least increase in line with the market, but in football to do so you usually need to lay down cash up front for such an asset. In our position we are loaning players that a) we otherwise can't afford or b) risk free temporary contracts that we can walk away from if it is not working in our interests. It is a balancing act financially, one which we aren't privy too, but I'm certain that most clubs in the Championship use the loan market not because they want to but because financially it makes sense for them to do so. However which way you view it is down to yourself, but the key to all of it is ensuring that the players you do get on loan are better than the players you already have.

You learn something new every day

I don’t know for certain the prize pots but I’m going to assume there is at least £2m difference between 18th and 11th. If not, fair enough, but it doesn’t take away from the remainder of the post. They have helped us achieve a goal. They helped us finish higher than the season before, and their purpose was to temporarily fill holes in the squad. Again, the conversation was along the lines of loans being a waste of money and not financial sense, or at least my post was, and the statement that loans aren’t financially sensible isn’t true, as the points made by Herbie etc show

The funny thing is, none of what you are saying is making business sense. If we don’t have the money to outright purchase that player (asset) then it is common place in business to use a loan system (rental). It happens in all industries - you use free lance professionals to plug a hole because it is risk free in the sense you pay for what you get. Once the contract is up you walk away without any further financial liability (usually). That is essentially what a loan is. It allows teams to afford players they couldn’t otherwise afford, or plug holes in their squads they couldn’t afford to plug otherwise. It also takes away the risk of depreciation, as is the case with Cunningham had we signed him permanently. The prize money we received by finishing 11th over 18th probably paid for a portion of them loan players. As has been repeated several times - loans do not = bad as a general rule of thumb. There are a lot more variables to consider, especially if you are talking financially as opposed to team cohesion or whatever.

Is this a joke?

Well done Woaksy. Went to my school and played for the same cricket team as myself, Aston Manor. A whole 4 years older than me but remember at the time Woakes being the guy you tried to be like. Love every second of watching him play!

Can we set up a transfer links thread again? It was good for the days you wanted to see links without having to sift through the usual spiel Im trying to figure out whether we have been genuinely been linked with Muric, Phillips or whatever or it is just another rumour

It isn't out of the goodness of their own hearts. If it was they would have spent serious time in assembling a suitable management team to oversee the running of Rovers. Instead it's a half-arsed approach and has brought about an almost lazy culture. We are later than most clubs in doing anything, it's been said that Rovers are now a nightmare to deal with in terms of transfers and quite frankly I am still trying to figure out what Sasha's role in the club is!! It's all very opaque, and no where can the fans really hold any of them to account. We have not had an explanation for the first 5 years either, nor have we had an apology for what was done. Both of them things would go a long way to settling some bad scores. The bold bit is more concerning than it is praise for me. Why would they put money in if they are not benefiting from it? They haven't even bothered to show up for nearly 7 years now, and have had no interest in trying to win the town back over. It is a distant relationship whereby they are keeping us on life support with trickles of cash to just about keep the club running, instead of trying to actually bring about real change, deliver success and build a relationship with the fan base that isn't toxic. The last one should be the very basic principle of any club owner.

Don’t diss the bloke bluebruce. I signed him on footy manager in 2017, originally on loan from Bournemouth. He got plenty of assists and was 2nd in player of the year behind Mulgrew. Signed him for 1.1m the year after and he was my signing of the year, as voted for by the fans, in back to back promotions. He’s a good en, trust me ?

If anyone out there is still listening to what Nixon says then please message me. I have a bridge for sale.

?? If he is in goal then he is responsible for those clean sheets, as are the defenders. Likewise when they concede there is responsibility attached to the defenders too.

He also got them in that position for the first time in decades

Fair point Phili, I kind of get where you are coming from. He has performed better at Brentford but, without being in the set up, it is hard to say whether or not the goalkeeping training there just kept up his development or whether it accelerated it. For all we know, he could have been on course to deliver a similar season here. Although the Brentford GK coach did leave for Arsenal I believe, which probably tells its own story!

Yet. You are nailing your flag to the mast at the age of 24. He's a child in goalkeeping terms. He has another 13 years in him at least. This was his 3rd full competitive season, his 2nd at this level, and he kept the most clean sheets and narrowly missed out on promotion because, and I quote from the Brentford lot, "of a shocking few minutes". He had a great season with them and I couldn't help but think what we missed out on. David Raya is a cut above most goalkeepers at this level that's for sure, where he stands in the rankings of Premier League keepers is another matter, but that will come. We also weren't discussing whether he was a Premier League keeper, you called him a shit keeper. He clearly isn't a shit keeper because he is the best at our level.

What? How had he stagnated? It was his 2nd full time season for us really., his first in the Championship. He continues to make them mistakes but as you allude to yourself: he isn't a Premier League goalkeeper yet, which is the only reason he wouldn't have featured 10-15 years ago. I'm boggled by the thought he was stagnating at us. If you think only 1 full season at any given level resembles stagnation then you mustn't have any patience whatsoever. In any case it is irrelevant because now Brentford are benefiting from our 'poor coaching set up' that from academy level has developed a ball playing shot stopper that needs some work to develop into a senior. Goalkeepers play until they are 35, you think he stagnated at 23. I don't get it. David Raya is a modern goalkeeper and losing him for £3m is another of Tony's shockers, however which way we want to revise history.

Nah, nah. I said important stats. Why do I need to see his season before last stats? Is that because this seasons stats doesn't back you up? He won the golden glove because he kept the most clean sheets this season. That is the only stat that counts for a goalkeeper. Joe, you don't help yourself at all. You go on tirades about why we shouldn't sign players using an assemblage of graphs, stats and so on - which is fine, by the way - but then in another argument, when it suits, you use out of date stats and don't provide the actual meaningful ones. The fact remains that last season David Raya was an exceptional Championship standard goalkeeper. In fact, a post on the Brentford forum perfectly sums my thoughts up and to paraphrase: this is the glass ceiling for Championship keepers, and until we get promoted we won't get better.

Ok then. What do the important stats say about Raya?

We only use them when it suits. And even then we massage the way the graphs are displayed to further a point.

Have to wait until after the transfer window before making a prediction. This league throws surprises in each year, it’s difficult to predict at the best of times, let alone before you even know who will be playing where.

He’s confirmed he’s staying. ?

Playing Harrison Reed at right wing instead of centre midfield was one of the worst howlers I've seen TM make. I never got it. Reed did a good job at right wing but you can tell when he did play centrally it made him that extra bit better. The problem is when we went to sign him again who would you rather go play for? Scott Parker, a class central midfielder in his time, at a team with a squad that should have been automatic play offs in reality, or TM - the bloke who told you that you had a lot to learn from Smallwood. Reed must have been watching some games and thinking how shite must I be if I have to learn from him? That's no major disrespect to Smallwood, but in the times he played that season we got ran over. I think it was the Swansea game when Smallwood came on and they scored 2 goals literally driving through our midfield unopposed. It was embarrassing.