agree. i think it needs to be gregg's contract task #1 once the window closes.

his distribution is absolutely shocking nowadays. he was pretty decent when he first came here, i remember it was a breath of fresh air after raya. i'm sure he used to play outside of the box a lot more than he does now as well.

where's that come from?

what was this??

i'd be pretty happy with Broughton if he manages to build on binning Hurst off and hopefully getting Edun out on loan by pulling off signing Porteous, Gelhardt and a midfielder off the back of it this window.

what a pathetic performance. if that doesn't loosen some purse strings, dear lord

selfish player in a team sport. good for the goal charts, but not the league position.

honestly think the venky's suffer a bit of sentimentality to some players, and it ends up f'ing us business wise. the fact we let so many players leave for nothing through stubbornly offering them a million contracts instead of just selling them is bizarre? and look at the brereton situation! as a fan, i get it, but as people running a football club? it's just not sensible business.

looking like louie annesley will be leaving this window before his contract's up. what a weird signing he's been? i know it's only gibraltar, but when you consider his age, the load of international games he's played, and just how long he's been here (five seasons now!) it's quite odd there's never once been anything whatsoever about him coming through into the first team, or even heading out on loan to develop? seems odd we'd bother keeping him for so long if we think so little of him? i saw him play for the u21s a few times, and he always seemed decent enough, no worse than many others on the pitch. odd!

pretty sure most of the first transfer window signings were based on players identified by john park and his team for mowbray if he'd stayed last summer. broughton and tomasson then cherry-picked from those they felt may fit their ideas. brittain and hyam minimum fall into that category, but i wouldn't be surprised if they all did considering we didn't have a recruitment head at the time. broughton was big on talking about park's contribution to that window as the latter left, which makes me think he was being gracious for allowing them to start on the front foot, despite coming in mid-window.

i certainly would be.. but i'm not josh bowler..

van den berg joins schalke.

putting words in my mouth. i think we'll get two in. if one is hyam, then i think we'll keep pursuing van hecke til we're forced to default to an alternative option. can very much understand why hyam would replace van den berg in the wanted list.

based on this, he is the exact type of signing Broughton was brought-in (sorry) to make. his interviews on podcasts etc. talk about this. this is the real brentford model they mean: find gems in the stats, moneyball it. it doesn't necessarily mean they have to come from europe just because that's where brentford found most of theirs.

two permanent defenders on the cards? 🤔 found it interesting that sharpe said hyam may knock a move for svdb on the head, not jpvh. any potential subtext there seems to suggest we'd prefer two permanent additions at the back, and good on us if we can pull off two permanents deals.

bit biased? an equivalent for hyam would be two promotions with coventry and 88 championship games in two seasons under his belt. he's more experienced than vdb in both championship games played and age. you might not be into the deal, but don't use cheap tricks to disguise the truth.

maybe we're desperate enough at this point to try our luck with an appeal?

anyone else unable to pick a seat for the pl international cup games?? edit: looks like you can pick for the individual games, but not for the packages??

to be fair to Zeefuik, he was either played out of position or injured for the majority of his time here, so it isn't hugely surprising he didn't particularly set the world alight during his spell. it's a shame, it seemed like he had the potential to be a top player for us before his arrival.

wasn't it hedges who nodded the ball down to travis??

as someone who hasn't renewed this year (cost), i find it absolutely staggering i haven't had an email, a letter, a phone call, a text, anything, to ask why that is! nothing about what they can do to change that or to even just try to convince me to pick one up! baffling!

am i right in thinking this open training session was an alternative due to the lack of a curtain-raiser friendly at ewood? or do we do do them often and they've just passed me by?

you're quoting the uefa rules for teams in their european competitions. in the championship it's the efl ffp rules. they will be changing soon, but not to uefa's.

where from? last seasons were so popular they seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth

this is brilliant glen, stellar work as always. cheers. can't wait to read the rest!