Completely agree. When I say fair investment, I mean from the perspective of what Phillips owes us rather than us rather than what we as a club should be looking for in normal circumstances.

Injured, fortunately. I'd share your worries had their injury list not been as terrible as it is. There's a chance they won't have a single senior outfield player on the bench - we should be beating them really.

I don't think he is a Rovers fan to be honest, although I could be wrong. Don't get me wrong, I would also be gutted if he were to go for peanuts, and I posted a couple of days ago that I think he should do (for his own sake) something similar to what Bellingham did at Birmingham. All I'm saying is that whilst he does owe us to an extent for the work we've put in behind the scenes, it's potentially a big gamble in the face of a (potentially) huge financial offer from a club that competes for Champions League places. If we were to sell him now then we would likely get a couple of million or him, which is obviously a snip compared to his value, but is a fair return on the investment that we've put in to develop him. I think he could leave with a fairly clean conscience in those circumstances - even if the system itself is rigged. Hopefully it'll all be academic anyway because he'll sign the new deal and we can start building the statue!

Seriously hope this turns out to be right. Huge feather in the cap to the new lad at Lancs Live too. Doesn't seem like we get the big news from the local outlets much these days.

Entitled to your opinion of course - but I think disgusting is OTT. The only thing that the lad can do in this situation to pay us back for what we have done for him is reject Spurs' offer and back himself to get another one further down the line. I don't care how talented you are, how much self belief you have, that is a big gamble when you've made a couple of professional appearances and you're an injury away from disaster.

I wouldn't be averse to having him around if Spurs don't want him straight away. But I wouldn't actively look to get him back on loan as a part of any negotiation. As good as I'm sure he will be - he's only playing now due to a pretty extraordinary set of circumstances.

As much as we're going through a crisis there now, we're obviously looking to bring at least one defender in, and in a fortnight will have Wharton and Carter back. That would put Phillips as at best fourth choice, and that's only if you put him ahead of Carter, which given that he is still our player, we definitely shouldn't do in my opinion. If he goes, get the best deal that we can and let him go for me.

Yes - technically he's not irreplaceable but the idea of getting in a player who will be as good straight away seems fanciful. He's developed into a brilliant player at this level.

I think family connections probably helped there.

100% Give Carter a shot.

I wouldn't say that he owes us nothing - but obviously that comes nowhere near as a priority compared to what he can do for his family and career. I'm splitting hairs a bit though, I completely agree that wishing him ill in these circumstances is uncalled for. It's a kick in the teeth though, to be sure.

Not sure, in the Sheffield United game at Ewood, Poveda was streets ahead. Khadra got his deflected goal and caused issues with his pace - but was forever giving the ball away. Shame that Poveda got injured so soon afterwards, it would've been nice to see how he performed over a longer period.

Simply not enough. At least five million short.

That's pretty much how I see it. They have a handful of experienced pros who - whilst I wouldn't have them at Rovers - have decent ability and if their tails are up after the weekend could cause us some problems. But if we're being honest, we should be looking at their injury list and performance vs Rotherham and be licking our lips. Huge opportunity for four wins out of four.

Without wanting to derail the thread, does this mean that the data which goes into xG is entirely made up from the shots a team takes, and not other things (e.g. attacks which don't end up in a shot on goal)? I'm thinking of Wharton taking the ball of Obafemi's toe vs Swansea for what would be a near certain tap in. I'm not suggesting that this makes xG any less valid! But for an individual game it would be useful to have a similar model which takes chances without shots into consideration - not sure if they exist or not.

So they are - hadn't realised they were promoted last season!

Naby Sarr appears to have missed the deadline to be able to sign in time for tomorrows game. He's not exactly Franco Baresi, but he definitely would've improved their defence.

Partially because we've also conceded the lowest xG! I half agree - I think over the course of a few months or a full season it can be quite informative. At this stage when you've got such a small number of cases it's ridiculous to draw any proper conclusions from it.

On course to rocket up that xG table! First goal could be even more important than usual in this, I think. They'll be desperate to right some wrongs, but they will be fragile with their personnel missing and after such a poor defeat.

Won't pretend to know anything about him, but I wonder why he has been released? Especially with Schalke still being in the second division.

I'm guessing, but it wouldn't shock me if some of Spurs' U23s are on similar money to the likes of Wharton or Pickering.

I don't know, but I think he would arguably be a better signing for a lower league Prem club than a Championship club, strangely. Playing once a week for a team who defends deep will be less likely to see him pick up injuries and play to his strengths compared to the relentlessness of the Championship.

Yeah, we've got to be going for three points against a team that got spanked 4-0 by Rotherham. Sometimes you'll get away games where you respect the value of a point a little more, but this isn't one of them.

Yes - but never really seemed as invested as other Rovers fans who played for the club if I'm being truthful. He talked quite a lot about going to the Worthington Cup final in fairness.

It's blatantly not going to happen, but equally Jones is going to be taking a pretty massive pay cut irrespective of where his next destination is.