7 minutes ago, J*B said:

Blackburn’s on-off move for Lewis O’Brien move is in the balance … and here is the breakdown of the drama.

Deadline day starts with Rovers following up a previous inquiry for the Nottingham Forest midfielder.

Rovers are happy to pay his wages in full on loan for the rest of the season and wait on the player to decide.

West Brom coach Carlos Corberan wants his old Huddersfield player to join his squad but the club is yet to commit.

Sheffield United are desperate for O’Brien and the player is keen on them. However Blades are under a transfer embargo and need to sell Sander Berge.

The Norwegian is waiting on Newcastle, who do not seem keen come the crunch. Alternative choices are headed by Brighton but they pull the plug in Moises Caicedo leaving and do not come in.

By this point Blackburn have kicked on and say they will take O’Brien and agree to the Forest demand that they sign him for £10 million.

This part of the deal hinges on Rovers being promoted and they are happy to do that. Baggies do not want to sign up for that plan.

At 3pm on deadline day O’Brien gives the green light to Blackburn and heads to Manchester for a medical.

There are no snags and his agents are at Blackburn to sort out terms on the potential full time move at the end of it.

O’Brien’s advisors and Blackburn discuss what the wages and length of contract will be in the deal should they go up.

Those figures are disclosed and Blackburn are not out off, but no contract for that eventuality is signed.

Paperwork is done and sent over for the loan but the timing is delayed by those discussions over the future of the player AFTER the end of the season.

There are no problems again and Forest say they are happy for the deal to go ahead on the basis agreed between the clubs.

In the frantic final minutes O’Brien, who did his interview with the club press, was interrupted just before the deadline to sign the form.

But then it is discovered that ONE signed form that was needed for the deal to proceed was not sent off after it was signed before 11pm.

Now the EFL are looking into the details and the explanations of the case - among several others that are also borderline decisions.

What an absolute clusterfuck. 

3 minutes ago, Bohinen1983 said:

Easy done to be fair. 

🤣🤣🤣

1 minute ago, Mercer said:

Just how feckin naive are they at Rovers?

I flagged in an earlier post that terms would have had to be agreed with O'Brien to take effect if the conditionality of the contract was realised.  If they weren't, it's likely the contract was null and void in any event.

This could leave O'Brien in the lurch and it is not beyond the realms of possibility he will seek financial compensation from Rovers for such or even pursue a damage claim on the back of Rovers' negligence.

What loss would he claim? He’s still being paid….there isn’t a civil court in the land that would order payment of damages with no tangible loss!?

What type of consultant are you out of interest? 

1 minute ago, J*B said:

Pure speculation based on hearsay but I don’t think this happens. I think the problem is we didn’t agree a contract with O’Brien in time if the future fee was activated. We agreed the loan deal and the future transfer obligation, but not the specifics of the player contract. 

Wow, if that’s the case….people need to be held to account. Unthinkable that a team sat there including a DOF with likely £500k in wages between em couldn’t fathom this out 😳

Just now, SoldierMo said:

Onamoh joins pne on 6 month contract haha their fans seem gutted

There’s something wrong there…an issue with him…?

32 minutes ago, phili said:

Ok I will pop it back to you.

All the funds they have is £10k a week from the release of Hirst to bring in the players that's it this month. No additional funds from Venky's. 

The recruitment team and GB must also knock a £100k a week of next season's players budget, so no new deals for Ayala and Dack I would expect.

So how would you pull the rabbits out of these hats you expect all these amazing players to come from within our budget.

He’d do fuck all, is the answer!! 🤣

But, he would be sure to tell us he’d “been around the block” whilst insinuate that he was some big shot with pals in “all the right places” and that everyone should just “man up”….

Sound about right? 

7 minutes ago, Gav said:

I don't believe he failed his medical Paul, his parent club changed the terms of deal at the last minute I heard, he ended up at Stoke on loan.

Ahh, sorry. I thought he’d failed the medical. All aside though, do we really want Maja? Seems he can’t find a home anywhere…

I think it’s fair to say that historically we’ve been lacking in direction and strategy. But I do genuinely believe that GB has a plan and he will need time to execute it. We all want success right now and I think the recent forays into the Playoff positions have raised expectations but it’s clear to anyone that we are not a top 6 team / squad. We simply do not have the finances, so will need to overachieve to get there.

I don’t think we struggle to identify players, the problem is that we simply cannot afford them under FFP regulation. If another owner came in, they would be under the same restrictions.

Of course, we must get better at generating revenue from player sales but with diminishing gates and being placed in a low economic area, we just don’t generate the funds we need to.

23 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

Be surprised if Maja would even consider us after previously coming over to sign, sitting around all day and then told, thanks but no thanks.

He failed his medical, didn’t he? 

1 minute ago, jim mk2 said:

I don;'t know the man but he shouldn't have laughed at Lenihan. All players are proud of their ability and have ambitions and Lenihan was not unreasonable in hoping for a top flight move. There are plenty of defenders worse than him in the Premier League

I agree, it felt a little unnecessary. Afterwards, my friend (A Sheff United fan) asked if I knew Waggott, such was his openness and relaxed conversation.

But for the record, I do think Lenihan was dreaming that he could get a move to the PL and I can’t think of a single defender in the PL who isn’t better than him. Hyam is MILES better than DL and I don’t think he’s good enough..

38 minutes ago, Gav said:

Waggott tells everyone what they want to hear, you should know that by now.

If I was in his shoes I'd resign to be honest Paul, what is the point of being in that position when you're got little or no influence over arguably the most important aspect of the job. 

Armatures the lot of them.  

I accept that he could’ve lied to me but it was an impassioned plea from him in spite of me not pushing him…

He spoke very openly about how crap Nyambe’s advisors were, about a conversation he’d had with Lenihan, who apparently thought he’d get a premier league move which Waggott laughed off. He was ADAMANT that Rothwell would be sold if he didn’t sign and indicated there was interest in him.

I also know for a fact (basically the horses mouth) that the Rothwell to Bournemouth deal was done last Jan and replacements lined up (Dembele & Jed Wallace) - that deal was torched by Venkys.

As I say, I’m not sticking up for Waggott but his bosses can’t put him in the firing line for decisions he isn’t empowered to make. Which is probably why they haven’t sacked him!

Completely agree that anyone with any self respect would’ve resigned, but I guess £300k a year ain’t too bad for what’s practically an administrator role!? 🤷🏽‍♂️

I’m not sticking up for Waggott, I don’t think a good CEO. You only have to look across the board at us commercially etc and you can see his limitations.

But he can’t be sacked for the reasons mentioned here because he wanted to sell Lenihan, Nyambe, Rothwell and Brereton before their contracts ran out. He told me so in a chat I had with him at Ewood. Something or someone must’ve blocked him because he was adamant they’d be sold if the wouldn’t sign.

1 hour ago, Sparks Rover said:

It should worry you that he continues to try it then.  A good manager adapts to the players he has.

You talk like we will be waltzing in and around the promotion/play offs for the coming seasons regardless.....for me, we need to push the button whilst 4th and with BBD at the club.  JDT lacks balls and wants a nice easy 3 years here without much pressure.

Name one top manager who changes his style of play to suit the players….Ferguson? Mourinho? Guardiola? Klopp? Arteta? Conte? Ten Haag!!?? Not a chance!!!

Every top manager has a way of doing it and you either fit in or fuck off.

JDT is a winner. He was as a player and he has been as a manager. My guess is that if the club don’t pull their finger out and back him, he’ll walk away. 

2 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Absolute tosh. Brereton has had nothing but support from the fanbase right throughout. If you go to Ewood, you'd know this.

It's funny how most other clubs find a way to trade players and realise some value back. Not us though, for some reason.

You just keep on believing what they tell you.

What who tells me?
 

I’ve been a season ticket holder for years and a member of this board for a while now too and im as sure as I can be that most on here would’ve gladly waived Ben off on loan at the start of the 21/22 season. We’d probably have been right too, he’d been hopeless most of the time until then. They’d offered him a new contract BEFORE Christmas!

Had they offered him it before that season started, I’m sure he’d have been delighted to sign and most of the fanbase left wondering why?

It’s simple supply and demand. On a they know they can get more, you’re knackered.

Planning 2yrs in front is the only way to mitigate risk, but even that wouldn’t have worked with Ben, such was his rise.

8 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Quite the opposite. I'd argue that it was very, very fortunate how it turned out. Brereton changed from an absolute donkey with no value, into a 15m player in a matter of months.

The dimwits in charge didn't recognise and capitalise on this, hence we are where we are.

 

Well, it was those ‘dimwits’ who saw something in him in the first place when most of the ‘experts’ on here wouldn’t have paid him in washers.

What really is annoying is why they haven’t just grappled him to the floor, wedged a pen in his had and physically forced him to sign the contract. They’re so shit!! 

8 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

No, I'd just believe it about as much as I did when we were gonna sign Beckham.

And to flip it around a bit, I sometimes think that if they came out and said they could turn their piss into wine, 'you guys' would line up in front of their phalluses.

The key here is that I can admit that they’re very shit at lots of stuff…I’ll await you opening up on some positivity about what’s happening at the club and then we’ll talk about who is biased and who is not…👍🏼

3 hours ago, bluebruce said:

He means it's irritating for those who don't want to see any wrong in how the club operates. Because it's a glaringly obvious and pretty much indefensible failing.

The club in many ways are a shit show, but i genuinely think sometimes that if they came out and announced they’d learned to walk on water, you guys would say it was only because they couldn’t swim. 🤦🏽‍♂️

4 hours ago, superniko said:

It's pretty simple. If you decide to spend £8m on an unproven, young, project striker, when you've barely got a pot to piss in, you'd be complete morons to let them leave for free at the end of that 1st contract. Add in the fact he's now an international and has scored 30+ across the last 1.5 years even more so. (I'm not blaming Broughton with this, but a certain David Brent type has been around throughout it all)

Ohhh jeez - They offered him a contract and he didn’t sign it. He wasn’t worth a wank until last Christmas and even then no one wanted to stump up the cash for him!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and if Venkys had known we were going to implode last Christmas then selling BBD and Rothwell for £15m combined would’ve been a solid call. Truth be known, they woulda been lynched for it back then.

It’s very very unfortunate how this has turned out. But as early as Sep 2021 most of wouldn’t have given a shit if Brereton had gone on loan and never come back…that’s 18 months ago and we’d have been perplexed had he been offered a new contract.

It is what it is. The club don’t have a crystal ball and can’t even pay the wages of the likes of Boro and Bournemouth - we must move on.

4 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Just out of interest, what's your promotion plan?

I assume spend money we don't have and hope to go up automatically - competing against 3 teams with fresh massive parachute payments and half a dozen more multiple years into their parachute payments.

What's your plan if that worked and we went up? You'd have to buy a totally new squad, right, like Forest? What's your plan if you failed to catch Burnley / Sheff Utd / Watford / Norwich et al and had spent £10m in the process?

He doesn’t have a plan, it’s just big, brash, cliche ridden hot air! It’s Nigel Farage talking to the right wing idiots, or Boris promising to give the NHS £200m if we voted for brexit. They’re just words playing to ego’s…

We’d all love to beat our chests like William Wallace and charge to promotion, but with a budget in the bottom Q of the championship and a club rooted in a financially challenged area, we simply do not have the muscle or muster to make that charge….YET. Mercer (assuming he has been around the block) must know that too, as I’m sure do those ‘liking’ his narrative!! But in reality, we’re going to have to try and do it a different way…

I’m not saying what they’re doing will work, but the ‘plan’ (if you can call it that) as described by Mercer takes us back to the stone ages. 

2 hours ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Give over.

Once people realise we are trying to get rid of Brereton, with one year left, the offers immediately go down. £8m has always been a laughing stock.

And who would you have replaced Brereton this year with the funds we have? You lose 20 goals from last year and are left with x millions to replace him, after being in the day for days

Let's just say I am glad GB is our director of football and not you. I don't disagree there's a lot of bullshit happening at Ewood but you have this spectacular ability to ignore the cause: Venkys.

Broughton has had 6 months to work with owners who are difficult, disinterested and distant. And here you are making out like this bloke, who has worked in football for decades, is out of his depth. I know you try and pass it off as an informed opinion but the fact is it is just silly and knee jerk

Any director of football needs a couple of windows to be able to build the team. It is Venky level of stupid to be looking to move the DoF on after 6 months and not even one full window. So congratulations on entering that esteemed club

Finally, some sense. Excellent 👏🏼

I think the keeper has been linked because Pears wants some first team football and our 3rd & 4th choices are likely getting released in the summer.

Start next season with TK, Haikan and Pears - that’s what having a plan is all about 👍🏼

1 hour ago, Theaxe15 said:

Ah yes, the forum pages metric 

Quite…let’s write copious amounts of non transfer content and then blame Greg Broughton for getting to “200 pages without a signing” 

Whatever has gone before, in Greg Broughton we have a strong leader with a clear strategy based on the owners vision of being a sustainable Premier League club.

His in depth articulation of the role and objectives he has gives me confidence in the process. Reading between the lines also helps us to second guess what they might do, too…eg based on his analogy of the midfield scenario, we won’t be signing an experienced midfielder UNLESS they’ve lost long term confidence in Travis and Buckley because to do so would block pathways of Garrett and Wharton.

Really interesting and encouraging insight. Whether you like it or not, there is a plan. 

6 hours ago, rigger said:

 

And of those 732 minutes I doubt if Dack has been back helping out midfield for more than 10% of them.

If you’re watching the games, you’ll see that out of possession, Dack is deeper and helping the midfield by closing spaces down etc.

So the two becomes a three in midfield, out of possession, which makes you both right!?