Update: a lady on behalf of SW has acknowledged my email and says my comments have been passed on. Fair enough. I've thanked her & asked to be updated further in due course. Thanks for the positive feedback on the email by the way, from everyone across the positive / negative spectrum. I guess it goes to show that we have more that unites us than divides us, which is hard to believe sometimes. Not mean feat getting cross-party support for something concocted on my phone whilst tramming home from work!!

My email to SW: "Dear Mr Waggott, As a season ticket holder of 30+ years and as a long time silent member of the fanbase in terms of showing outright displeasure at the many failures at the club in recent years, I feel compelled to write to you to express my disbelief at what has occurred these last few days. We are long suffering fans who have seen this club become a figure of ridicule, both within the fanbase and outside of it. To top off losing 4 top talents at this level for nothing across a 12 month period, we now learn that 2 signings (1 an ambitious short term one to try to help fire us to promotion, the other a long term one to further the "project"), failed to be registered in time due to incomplete and / or unsigned papers being lodged with the EFL in time. There must be some explanation from the club to the fans as to exactly what happened to give rise to this scenario. I get deals need to be done in a short time sometimes, but to miss 2 deals in one go seems very shoddy indeed. The statement mentions issues beyond the club's control & that independent legal advisors were brought in to assist in the dealings. The club needs to provide more info in that respect. I have been one of the more patient and understanding fans, accepting the period of transition the club gas gone through since our slide into league 1 was arrested. I've accepted the journey, I accept the project, I'm even at peace with the loss of star players for nothing IF Ben Brereton Diaz is the last of them and new foundations are built to grow the club into the self-sustaining premier league force it supposedly wants to be. But to now be in the situation we're in with these two transfers is, quite frankly, unforgivable and does nothing to breed confidence in anyone in any authority at Blackburn Rovers. Please can you assure me that a full investigation will be undertaken to determine what happened, how / why and what lessons will be learnt, and that the findings will be made public as soon as it is possible to do so without prejudicing any appeal process? There must be transparency & accountability for what has happened. We are a town club that has dwindled in significance in the last decade, fans have left in droves, we're competing against big city clubs with much larger fanbases, or with larger income from commercial activities, on field success or tv money. We cannot afford slip-ups like this, reputationally this is a huge own goal. I would appreciate the courtesy of an early acknowledgement. I'm sure your inbox is filling up rapidly but I feel I deserve that at least." Was as polite as I could be. Was sent at 6pm, no reply yet obvs.

This is without doubt the worst news. Both deals off. A full explanation needs to be provided asap, though I doubt none can until the appeal process is exhausted. So depressing.

Absolutely. Sounds like this Sylvestor fella might have some awkward questions to answer.

Why on earth would I say that an error by a club employee is not the fault of the club on a vicarious basis?? That's not a legal concept, it's common sense. My point, which you can't seem to grasp, was that the last-minute nature of the deal was not the club's fault. There's been no shifting goalposts on my part. I really can't see what your difficulty is in accepting that when it's there in black and white on my post, other than it being a reluctance to accept that you misunderstood my post and refusal to accept that you went in at the deep end unnecessarily. Anyway, night, let's hope we get the news we want in a few hours time and not the news we fear.

They're not good lawyers, they're mercenaries. Good lawyers see a dispute, understand all sides of it, and advise their clients on the merits of their particular viewpoint accordingly within the context of the law applicable to the dispute so that the client can give informed instructions.

True, but GB hasn't and nor has JDT, yet according to some they're useless, don't know their arses from their elbows & should be summarily dismissed. I don't think Rovers want to be going back to court or a tribunal against a manager do they, didn't work out too well last time.

And it always is for others. I'm not a blind defender of the club, as my initial post made clear. I always try to look at things objectively, from all angles, just like any good lawyer should.

Hang on, the whole tenor of my post was that if Rovers have dropped a bollock, then legally they're in a very tight spot. I was in essence agreeing with Rev but, in his insatiable desire to blame the club for everything & explicitly stating it was a deliberate act of sabotage to drop said bollock (by who, goodness only knows), he misread my caveat that the fact that O'Brien's deal was last minute was not the club's fault. And it wasn't. Put it another way, could a deal for O'Brien have been done earlier in the window? No it couldn't; he only became available to us once WBA and Sheff Utd thrown their hands in at what, 3pm yesterday. Then Rev chose to antagonize by making it personal in questioning my ability as a lawyer to understand the situation correctly, despite me having stated that in my legal opinion we were in a tough spot!!! The mind boggles.

Read the post properly before making knee jerk reactions please. I said it looks like it is an error on a Rovers employee's part (therefore if so Rovers fault vicariously - we agree) but the fact that it was a last minute deal wasn't the club's fault, it was down to the player's late availability & him dithering on whether he had other options. The only nonsense being spouted in this is you stating the situation is deliberate.

Give over.

Been busy all day, have read Nixon's saga and not much else. Taking that as correct, this is really borderline & depends how legally-minded the EFL are. As a lawyer myself I know that service of all the right documents at the right time in the right method is imperative. Minor errors or omissions are, more often than not, fatal. Eg if a document (or documents) are not served in a prescribed way, service will be deemed ineffective even if the oppo admits they were received in time but in a non-prescribed manner. Or if a document is unsigned, or if a key document is missing, good luck arguing it in a relief from sanctions application. Sorry if that worries folk more.... FWIW, it sounds as though an admin error was made by a Rovers employee brought about as a consequence of the last minute nature of the deal, which in itself does not sound like it was Rovers fault. This is why last minute deals are a risk, but doesn't mean they should be avoided. O'Brien was clearly worth trying for, hence why we agreed to all demands, and it wasn't the club's fault that that situation arose.

Well I hope that's not an omen!!

You've got to admit this is all rather exciting. Never thought I'd ever be staying up waiting for a Rich Sharpe exclusive!!

Oh no, this site is starting to glitch under the pressure!

Tense? Nervous? Headache??

Neither are starting, but other than that top marks!!

Fair enough, others haven't quoted in the past when they should have & we've gone down rabbit holes as a result! I've just posted a reply to Mercer above which adds more to what I feel. I get the frustration, but surely the journey talk has to be discounted as that's from the previous management team. I can't be bothered going back to the GB and JDT threads but seem to remember most were happy to accept this season as being a transitional one. It can still be successful AND transitional, and clearly GB has tried within the financial constraints he's under but we cannot compete with parachute payments, the lure of Italy, or players changing their minds and deciding to take their chances at forcing their way into a prem team.

Wise words from someone who thinks the club is a shambles from top to bottom yet week in week out predicts that we should beat practically every opponent we face in pre match threads. It's gullible and naive to think "we're Blackburn Rovers, 6 time FA Cup winners, 3 times English Champs, League Cup winners". The last of those was 20 years ago & as much as we have fond memories of the 1990s & 2000s, it means nothing now to young English players, their agents or to potential foreign talent. Thanks to Venkys we're irrelevant to most youngsters nowadays and don't have the reputational or financial pulling power we once did. Supporting a different way of doing things to what hasn't worked in a decade isn't happy clapping, it's being realistic. That doesn't have to mean giving up on playoff hopes, but that's too nuanced for some to grasp I guess.

But wasn't it Mowbray, Venus & Waggot who were the driving forces behind that? That's in the past, before any of us had heard of Greg Broughton or JDT in the context of a young manager. Since they arrived the focus has been very much on longer term stability, regeneration & sustainability. That was something that in the summer most of us craved at a time when relegation was considered more likely than promotion. Rebuilding this club is analogous to building a team. Starting from the back with a solid defensive platform is the equivalent of building the club from the academy upwards, the rest then follows over a period of time. I want success as much as you, but not at the cost of throwing longer term sustainability under the bus. I think there's room for both.

But Venkys have spent a decade decimating us & have undone everything Jack built, besides the academy. That being the case, and with the academy being a long term project by definition, then any return to growth has to have that as it's bedrock & therefore must be central to the longer term. The club has to balance short term potential for promotion against long term regeneration, especially as an unfashionable club in a poor economic area with new sustainability rules coming in and with a hardcore fanbase of 8 or 9 thousand fans, half of whom wonder why they bother as it is. Yes show ambition this season & aim to go up, but don't risk the longer overall strategy of growing with firm foundations, which is what was written on the tin when GB& JDT arrived in the summer. Here's hoping we can get some good deals over the line today. 👍

Yes true. But Forest were massively underperforming before he took over, which I don't think anyone can say we are given the shambles we were on the summer and the position we're now. Plus he did that using the loan market very heavily (which is frowned upon by many on here but is the reality of modern football) and, most importantly, under an owner that actually cares for the club & wanted success. Spot the difference and let's not make GB & JDT scapegoats for the real problem.

I'm assuming this is directed at me as it follows my post? If so, that's not what I said in response to Arbitro's post is it? Did I say anything about it being a good thing not strengthening now?

So the club should have a plan that looks no further than May which, by your own admission in a post above, could not guarantee promotion? Ok, each to their own. Arbitro is part-right.

I get the general sentiment but I can't agree with this in bold. We need short, medium & long term plans, that's why a DoF is here. They're all as important as each other but the medium & long term plans need to be fixed with defined goals at various stages. The short term plan needs to dovetail with those, whilst being flexible enough to take advantage of promising situations, or indeed to mitigate threatening ones. That's where the club fell down last January and seems to be doing so again. And the common denominator there is not GB or JDT.