Yes, some of them were good, and if Forest had "only" signed 10 or so of those players (although even those numbers sound ridiculous), even for huge money, then I would agree with you that their strategy was 'sensible'. But look how many signings there were, and how bad and/or unnecessary many of them were It was the very definition of a scattergun approach Bowler Richards, Hwang, Aguilera & Bade didn't feature in one game between them Biancone, Shelvey, Hennessey, Scarpa, and Wood all played less than 10 Lingard, Ayew, O'Brien, Toffolo and Dennis were generally seen as failures That's 15 players at a quick glance who could be described as unnecessary signings at best Yes there were plenty of good players/signings too, but when you sign over 30 players, the law of averages dictates you will hit the target with some of them

Yes, but it wouldn't have worked out 99 times out of 100. They did the equivalent of you or I spending every penny we had and buying every ticket for the lottery that we could afford, and they got very lucky. There is every chance that had they been relegated, they would have gone to the wall and tumbled down the divisions. It worked for for Forest last season, but it is not be the model that people should look to for inspiration going forwards. I*m not even against any club spending 100s of millions (especially after promotion), it was just so slapdash how they went about it. Like there was no plan beyond throw enough money at it and hope it pays off

From what I know/can tell, Mahoma, in the starting 11 was a trialist, as were Sellars-Flemming, Ross-Laing, Harper, Ibrahim, & Liard who were all on the bench. On a sad note, apparently Baker who was making his first start in about 2 years went off in a leg brace within 10 minutes of the game starting

Maybe would be better in the U21s? but it is pre season

Seeing that Pears was given a long term contract about a month ago, its highly unlikely

As long as the agreed schedule includes a new 5 year contract, then I can get behind it

Along with Phillips wearing 15 in the first game, those number changes may be quite telling for the coming season (assuming that the numbers used will be the same as the squad numbers when announced. Any chance of Adam Wharton getting 4 and Sigurdsson 7?

That might just be because the young midfielders in game 2 are closer to breaking into the first team than our young right backs (Duru/Haddow) so for todays friendlies JRC at RB makes more sense Would imagine JDT will try JRC as a box to box midfielder at some point during pre season, but with 2 games today (and therefore needing 2 right backs) and pre season having only just started, it might be that they have not had long enough to work on that so far

Hope that they post the matches on the website later/tomorrow, think they did for most pre season games last season

Is it because he and his family are deciding which house to buy near (but not too near) to Luton?

I thought he did too, on the back on a con scheme. Feel for the fans there, but surely if he was both owner and benefactor (I think you are right and that he was), they are in trouble

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-66099646 Fleetwood Towns owner has been jailed for 13 years for fraud. Any chance that the fact that he once employed Joey Barton as manager sparked initial reservations and investigations about his moral character?

I meant he looked hard working and a tryer, yes I agree that Poland created little if anything,

The Polish forward (Pienko is it?) looks quite lively

This may be more than a bit dry for some, but I found it quite interesting (and it helped me put off a job that I don't want to do, lol), even if it does just reinforce a lot of what we already know. It's the reported wage bill taken from most recent accounts (figures are in Million £s) of all clubs who were in the Championship in 22/23 and/or 23/24 Due to accounting dates, these figures are essentially for the 21/22 season this will mean that the figures from some teams will be from whilst they were in either the Premier League or League 1 It does show that Rovers are essentially a middle of the road wage payer, aside from those who have spent time outside the Championship over this period, we are amongst a glut of teams with roughly the same wage bill. There also seem to be a few basket case clubs (Stoke, WBA, Birmingham, Cardiff) who are seriously underachieving based upon wage bills. Middlesbrough also spend more than most but seem to do much better than the others mentioned. Special mentions to Coventry and Luton who show that a good league finish can be achieved without overspending, but as both teams recently spent numerous seasons below the Championship, it may be that their wage bills will catch up with others soon (Luton's probably this season in the Premier League) Just for reference, in League 1, Rovers wage bill was £16.8M, which jumped to £22.4M for their first season back in the Championship. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that the 'bigger' clubs who were in L1 at the time of these accounts (Sunderland, Ipswich, Sheff Wed) now have wage bills which are at the very least comparable to ours. Also worth noting Hull seem to be changing their buying strategy since these numbers were publicised and have spent big money on wages on international players last season (Darlow, Pelkas, Seri, Tufan, Estupinan, Traore, Tettah and others) 21/22 Season wage bill (in £M) Division at the time Leicester 180.4 PL Southampton 113.4 PL Leeds 103.5 PL Burnley 92 PL Norwich 91 PL Watford 78.6 PL Sheff Utd overdue (previous accounts state 56.5) Champ (previous figure used was when in PL) Stoke 35.6 Champ WBA 37.5 Champ Birmingham 31.1 Champ Cardiff 29.2 Champ Middlesbrough 28.4 Champ QPR 24.8 Champ Swansea 24.5 Champ ROVERS 24.4 Champ Huddersfield overdue (previous accounts state 24.6) Champ PNE 24 Champ Bristol C 23.8 Champ Reading 22.4 Champ Millwall 22.3 Champ Sheff Wed due end of July (previous accounts state 21.1) L1 (previous figure used was when in Champ) Sunderland 16.1 L1 Ipswich . 16.4 L1 Coventry 15.7 Champ Luton 15.6 Champ Wigan 13 L1 Hull 12.7 Champ (promoted previous season) Blackpool 10.3 Champ (promoted previous season) Rotherham 5.8 L1 Plymouth 5.5 L1 Please note that I am NOT an accountant, all wage figures have been taken from a (very quick) glance over the accounts (so feel free to 'fact check' me) as reported here. Wage bills quoted are totals for all staff at the clubs, not just playing staff https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00053482/filing-history I have no idea why Sheffield Wednesday's accounts are not due until the end of this month

Fingers crossed it does. Nothing particular against Cardiff (although I do find this whole refusing to pay that fee to be quite distasteful), more so that it negatively impacts one of our rivals, so more chance of success this season

You will be interested in this then, others probably will be too https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2023/june/30/finneran-shines-for-club-and-country/ He has been named Ireland U15 player of the year, sounds like he has his head screwed on right too

Enjoy, hope it is a good game for you, let us know how our guys get on please

Hosts apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_UEFA_European_Under-19_Championship

And they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids

Oh? I was right on a finance question? I feel all proud of myself

I am more than happy to defer to your knowledge in these situations

By 'that loophole', I meant selling club infrastructure to subsidiary companies. As I said, I'm not 100% on this (I'm sure someone will be along shortly to either confirm this or tell me I'm wrong though) , but if that loophole has been closed, we cannot sell further sites to other Venky owned corporations

Pretty sure that loophole is now closed, which is why we did it when we did (last chance to do so)

I think I still lost 😉