Angry_Pirate

Let's hope someone somewhere high up at Ewood had the sense to insert add ons, sell on %, first option and maybe even a buy back fee to the Gent deal. Of course, we know Steve and Suhail simply took the £200,000 and wanked on it.

7 career league appearances (2 in the Premier League). Albeit he's apparently been injured the best part of 2 years.

This team is potentially only 3-4 more quality signings/loans (GK, LB, LW/RW) AND Szmodics staying away from maybe not being the relegation fodder I still expect. That's about as positive as I can be.

So that's 6 signings in 48hrs. I know they "fired" their long serving media lady a year or so back, must be paying day rates for the camera crew and getting the monies worth!

I'd put money on our "creative" team going down the "Wey aye man, we've got one more..." route of teasing.

Getting him up to elite L1 speed ahead of the 2025-2026 season.

I'm still hoping that due to Chelsea having circa 15 GK's that they decide Gabriel Slonina is dispensable and he ends up here in either loan or permanent capacity.

I compared them to Wes Brown and Gordon Greer a few pages back. Wes Brown (36) at least had the massive Man Utd (200+ apps) and England pedigree (23 caps), plus had only ever played in the Premier League. Flop. And hell, even Gordon Greer (35) was just coming off being a relative (until final season) key player for Championship contending Brighton for half a decade - and got almost a dozen Scotland caps. Flop. McFadzean (37) has spent around 60% of his career in lower leagues (including a long spell below the National League), Finally Batth (33), who to be fair, is just probably a year or 2 past it compared to what we need at this level. All in all, Relegation fodder signings.

I'll bite just to add some names and see how far they go. One of the many Polish CBs playing in Italy: Sebastian Walukiewicz, Mateusz Wieteska or Pawel Dawidowicz perhaps?

Gordon Greer in, Wes Brown having a medical. I'm only remotely happy with the McFadzean signing if he's ridiculously cheap, and the plan is for him to get nowhere near the every week XI. Hayden Carter is CB1, and until otherwise sold, Hyam is his partner, Batth should also slot in ahead. Leadership, Role Model, Organisation, Wisdom etc - all fine... but the man is relegation fodder CB material as a starter vs any team we're hoping to beat. His performances at Leeds and Leicester away we're excellent, (and Coventry at home I'll admit!) but that is the exception to what we face every week. Unless the plan is to get 46 (literal) points next season. O'Riordan?

But wait, have we confirmed Waggott hit "send"?

What was the biggest offer we turned down for him? Was it something like £12m from Everton? Probably could have got £3m ish for Lenihan and Rothwell at peak, and certainly a lot more than £0m for Nyambe. Dack is a different case due to his injuries, but that was a potential 8 figure sum at one point. It's quite scandalous the ineptitude of Steve Waggott and Co.

Totally agree. If I could wish for one rule change, it would be that any loans going further down the pyramid, the cost would be fully covered by the parent club. Wage 100% and £0 loan fee. Same division loans, or loans to a higher division (which do happen), are fair game. Such a simple change would fix so much that is wrong with the structure of English football. I then wonder how quick/rash clubs would be to sign the likes of Rory Finneran, Ash Phillips, and Connor Mahoney to £15,000-£20,000 a week contracts. Of course, clubs would perhaps just loan their young players to Belgium, Scotland, and France (etc) instead.

His Wikipedia says he's 1.81m, so that's certainly not 6ft5". More like 5ft10" when he wakes up.

Which is likely why this will very likely be our last year in the Championship for the foreseeable.

Poor I missed that one, will update.

Looking at some of the"Free" agent signings in the EFL Championship this summer; Vaclav Hladky, Callum Chambers, Chris Willock, Ben Osborn, Cody Drameh, Japhet Tanganga, Louie Sibley, Josh Murphy, Callum O'Hare, Jamie Shackleton, Max Lowe, Jamal Lowe, Nathaniel Chalobah, Ben Hamer, Ben Gibson, and even Ian Poveda. Rovers annually sleepwalk through this part of the summer transfer window. In fact, looking back over the past dozen years, are Rovers perhaps the worst club when it comes to "Free" signings. Danny Graham and Charlie Mulgrew stand out, but the best I could research beyond that are Lewis Holtby, Daniel Ayala, Stewart Downing, Bradley Johnson, Richie Smallwood and Tommy Spurr... Maybe Sondre Tronstad and Arnor Sigurdsson (continue to) become class as successes. But that is still only 10 players in 12 years. Must wake up and do better. Every year we end up annoyed and disappointed.

Now that's just depressing... Back when we were up for sale, I always hoped for an American owner... One of the Billionaire NFL owners ideally. Unfortunately the Brown family can barely afford to run the Cincinnati Bengals, let alone an English Football Club. Or the dream that renowned Rovers fan Shawn Michaels could have a word with HHH and get the WWE involved. Imagine. 🤣 Didn't Matt Smith (of Dr Who and Game of Thrones fame) come out recently saying he wanted to create a consortium to purchase? Get Lee Mack, Stephen Hendry, Carl Fogerty, Jack Straw, Tim Farron (👀), Wayne Hemmingway and Liam Livingston all involved.

Son and Lewandowski formed quite the front pair in a 2009-2011 parallel universe. (Spoiler) We still end up here...

Remember when Rovers had Heung-min Son on trial (I realise he is not Japanese). Makes you wonder how many elite prospects must have fallen through over the years...

Oh, to be a club with even a minor semblance of ambition. You could (if you squint) build a borderline championship calibre team on remaining British (barring GK) free agents. There are so many options to improve this squad - which won't happen. This list ignoring Dele Alli, Ryan Sessegnon, Scott McKenna, John Egan, and Ollie McBurnie as too unrealistic... though some will no doubt end up in this league. GK: Marek Rodak RB: Cody Drameh CB: Nathan Ferguson CB: Paddy McNair LB: Brandon Williams CM: Andre Dozzell CM: Ben Woodburn RW: Sheyi Ojo LW: Ojie Ejaria CAM: Shola Shoretire CF: Tyrese Campbell How many of them would get into our starting XI? Four at least?

Can't wait for this season.

Pears kicking looks to have improved... only two woomped out of play in the first 7 mins. Even saw him control a backpass. What a hit for their goal BTW.