I only had hand luggage. The baggage drop off queues were HORRIFIC!

Well, if we are in any face to face negotiations then they must be happening in Portugal. I bumped into Gregg Broughton and Mike Sheron around 6am this morning in Manchester T2…nice guy!

They will be given a chance Chris but the consensus of opinion is that there’s no one banging the door down this season. Phillips, A.Wharton and Leonard are the golden guys but not expected to breakthrough this time… We need to acquire some players 👍🏼

That’s fine. Everyone tries to apply their own logic. Quick one though….Venus asking the lads not to sign elsewhere in the belief that Tony would get the WBA job this summer in no way stops the lads from disliking him because he’s a bully. They’re not related. But I’m fine with whatever you think went down pal.

Sound. Have a lovely day…early night for me! Flight out to the sun early doors tmrw 👀😎👍🏼

It wasn’t actually that wrong….believe it or not, Mowbray was WBA choice before Bruce and he turned them down. Bruce held onto his job by the skin of his teeth or it would’ve come to fruition…. As for Nyambe, his relationship with TM is / was brilliant. It’s Venus who created the bad feeling…which I’ve been told is the thing which destabilised RN 🤷🏽‍♂️

JR - Agreed - the fee was £3.5m rising to £6m if / when they went up. DL - I think they went above and beyond. Boro just went (a lot) higher. RN - has become disaffected by Venus (bully) and thought he’d get a lot more money elsewhere. As of last week those offers were not forthcoming. I have a feeling we have dug our heels in and he will end up on the same / less money at lesser / similar club.

I agree with you but that’s only because we are a soft touch. Sell him and buy someone who wants to sign a 4yr contract.

I don’t know any of that, but the person who told me this was as close to those negotiating these deals as you could be…🤷🏽‍♂️

Yep, I’d probably have been pissed off too mate. But Dembele, Wallace and a couple more would’ve appeased me.

Nail on head. Its true that Waggott had his hands tied at Christmas. I think, by his admission he’d have taken the cash for any one of those three and they did have deals lined up for some good players. But this should NEVER have got to the 6 months point. We don’t have the finances to let out better players go for free. If they (or anyone) isn’t going to sign they should have been sold the summer before last or last summer at the very latest.

Agreements were apparently in place for those two plus another two and wouldn’t have cost us a penny with the fee plus freed wages for Joe. Suhail stopped the sale. That was the end of that.

He said as clear as day, “If they don’t want to sign I’ll sell them all at Christmas” this is what we should have done with at least 1 or 2. Though we really shouldn’t have been in that situation.

Of course we can do without him. Players come and players go. The budget is the budget. Those cribbing about us not just paying him what he wants have obviously never run a business. BUT the club need to get tougher with these players. There should be full reviews done at the ‘2yrs’ point. At that point you’ll get a feeling as to how it’s gonna go. I’d sell anyone who has no intention of extending at that point and allow any who are unsure to drift towards that 1yr mark. But no one would be going into the last year for me. I’d have them sold in that summer and have a recruitment plan geared to replace with the cash from sales.

What does his salary have to do with it?

Haha - I’m glad you said that first! I agree, he has his hands tied a lot by Suhail (Venkys). I know from the conversation I had with him after the Sheff U game that he’d have happily sold all three at Christmas and wasn’t allowed to.

Losing three players is not great. I know for a fact that both Rothwell and Lenihan have got deals between 2.5x and 4x what we can pay. It’s really as simple as that - Money! What really should lead to the club being hauled over the coals is why this wasn’t sorted last summer. A simple “Darragh, we’re offering X, is that enough for you or not?” Darragh - “No” Us - “Right, tell your agent to find you another club please” SOLD!! Not selling JR at Christmas was sacrilege. SW and TM had four players including Siriki Dembele and Jed Wallace lined up on long deals which would’ve cost net Zero against the sale, only for Suhail (Venkys) to refuse the sale.

The one who is REALLY struggling with the high press is Dacky!! 👀🤐

Apparently we do 10’s there’s close to 25…

AND they offered me 2.5x what Rovers did 👀

Phillips, Wharton and Leonard are the ‘chosen ones’ now…lots of excitement about these lads in particular and the crop coming through but none expected to break through this season! Not to say one or two won’t surprise us this season, but not expected. So we need some players.

No rules broken but everything planned meticulously and delivered by the coaches…

Makes sense!

I can tell you 100% that he’s been in COMPLETE charge of everything all week. Don’t sweat the pics 😊

Agent is involved but Usually comes down to ambition and money….If he can get a club in the highest leagues of Spain, Italy or England on 4x the money then why would he stay?