Bethnal

Yeah, it’s really bad when you lay it all out like this

Strikes me that loans over permanent is related to contract length/“loyalty bonuses”/long-term outgoings. You can’t execute the model they’ve claimed they’re following without permanent transfers to replace your outgoings. I think Venky’s are genuinely shitting themselves about the court case outcome or the interminable rounds of hearings. They have looked at £22m as two tranches of cash they aren’t on the hook for, but that’s contingent on a budget remaining steady. If they isolate costs associated with loans as one-offs, almost like capex, they can find it, but they can’t allow actual running costs to go up. I suppose they haven’t factored in the downturn in match day, ticket and other fan-derived revenue that will come as time goes on, but all of that will be the responsibility of those at the club, in their eyes. We all know how bad it looks, but it feels like we might not yet know exactly how bad it is, “it” being the current status of the club.

As close to saying “I don’t want to leave” as he could say in the circumstances

Absolute madness to get this invested in football players but I suppose it had been a long time since a genuine Rovers fan had come through and looked like they could play at the highest level. Something about that especially will always be among the more special things about football and following a team. He did sound like he had a lump in his throat at a couple of points, but I just hope he hits the ground running and makes the most of it all.

Adam Wharton’s exit interview has unexpectedly done me in, I am pathetic.

“Okay, everyone. Last year, we struggled with the loan-to-buy deal we tried to do with a team in a different division on Deadline Day and caught a lot of flack for messing it up, so let’s change tack this year: same deal structure, but it’s a team in a different country.”

As a dyed-in-the-wool Sheffield Wednesday fan, I imagine he’s aware and delighted

I suspect he does have an in, but is stuck between needing to report on things and needing to keep lines open, so reporting in a way that the club don’t want him to would jeopardise his livelihood. Having said that, much as I like Elliott Jackson, he doesn’t help himself with the fanbase, sometimes. The glaring thing is no significant/explicit update on the McGuire deal. Either the club are saying, “bear with us, we’re working on it,” or aren’t willing to comment.

This is an objectively funny post, but today’s not the day for a lot of people

Refusing a transfer fee for Rothwell because your arbitrary value hasn’t been met and letting him leave for free? Fine, maybe that’s caution-to-the-wind optimism for promotion. Doing it again for Brereton? Can just about argue similar. Letting three of our bigger earners leave for free in the summer? Okay, budget restraints and upcoming financial sustainability, plus the need for more players in. Cutting the wage bill by pretty much the same amount gained from letting those players leave. Well, things must be really bad, but I guess I can just about see the logic, short-term. Selling your prized asset at the first opportunity? Okay, we need to strengthen, it’s really sad, but we are where we are. Allowing your recruitment team to line up as many as five transfers before sending your minion to put a freeze on all recruitment that requires a fee, because you are so hamstring by your - alleged - financial impropriety that the Indian court system needs to give you permission to send any money anywhere… We - as a fanbase - have accepted a lot and it appears many more are willing to swallow more. We shouldn’t. This needs to stop and it has done for a long time, but this has to be the tipping point. They need to be hounded out of the club, embarrassed in their own country and investigated thoroughly. We need to act.

He apparently walks from the car park to the director’s entrance entirely carefree, every home game.

I would take someone’s drunk Nan over this. We’d have something to market to people, at least.

Unfortunately - and understandably - you’re making the mistake of thinking about this logically. We’re talking about the whims of three fickle, petulant, competitive trust fund kids playing at running a multinational business. They’re billionaires currently on the hook for a £5m house purchase that wasn’t properly accounted for. Billionaires don’t get in trouble over £5m, morons do.

The voices in their heads, I wager

Rev, I know for a fact that you’ve been paying attention for the past 13 years. What within that time has made you think that the owners would behave in anything close to a rational manner? They are anti-talent. They are to talent as anti-matter is to matter. The inverse of it. Rich through the good fortune of being born to a talented father, enabled by a legion of yes-men minions and with ideas so far above their station it beggars belief. We are collectively supporting an entity which was passed from one set of untalented trust fund kids to another, with the first bunch bitter and vindictive that their patriarch cared for his town and football club a little too much for their liking and the second so deluded by their inherited wealth that they were planning to make us Champions League competitors with £5million of “player leases.” The operation at the club is below par, but the idea that the owners aren’t capable of this level of idiocy doesn’t wash. Its modus operandi for them.

How the fuck are we supposed to go to sleep with all this going on?!!!

This is proper amateur hour nonsense. Can anyone with better links than me substantiate the “Venky’s sprog running around Ewood playing Championship Manager in real life” whisper that came around about a year ago? What other than the whimsy of an entitled, trust fund brat would facilitate such fucking ineptitude? O’Brien was supposed to be a freak occurrence, this is currently form.

Agreeing the deal before the flight, changing the deal once he lands/passes medical. It is a bullshit, small-time negotiation tactic, essentially a bait-and-switch. The preserve of penny-pinchers and people who like to go on about “driving a hard bargain.”

Fair point, if the deal can be done with the parent club.

Nathan Jones (I know, I fucking KNOW) saying the McGuire deal has fallen through down to “money issues” around the terms. Have we - hypothetically - flown McGuire over on a handshake and then tried to change the agreement once he’s done his medical? Why do I feel like we’ve done this before? Has this happened before? Who does this?

Honestly excited about this one. Could come to shit, but is clearly playing some good football and finding the back of the net. A big move for a US player (coming to England), so if he seizes the opportunity, we will benefit.

If we’ve managed to get him, it’s a shrewd move. Think he would bring an awful lot to the table for us.

Or - and I think this might be the case - an agent giving details to press long before they’re actually supposed to. ”Yeah, definitely looking like it’s done.” If agents are anything like music managers, there are only very few, very bright ones.

Glad I decided to take Thursday off, I’d be getting fuck all done watching whatever crisis we manage to create for ourselves unfold. Fully expect a mad panic, end-of-day rush to get McGuire over the line as Orlando eventually buckle with minutes to spare to get him over. I’m for the signing, with no major insight. Telalovic could do with a League One loan this season and a full summer getting up to speed. U21s isn’t going to get him up to speed. Ennis - tell him to come back in top condition for pre-season or find a new club. Leonard - wanted to see him kick on this season and the opening day was full of promise. Needs a catalyst. If Gallagher stays, he and McGuire are enough for this season, I think.

If the Palace thing is right, as has been said on here, it’s a club signing, not the manager. The youth setup at Palace is famously solid and you only have to look at the trust they have in (relative) youth to see there’s a pathway for him. I think an opportunity to play in the Premier League and show what you can do, he either learns a lot and develops or quickly gets picked up by a team higher up the food chain. We’ve been lucky in the past to have players like Dunny come through and stay (apart from a brief sojourn to the midlands) with us for the bulk of their careers, so this stings, but I think as JDT said last night, we should be proud of/hopeful for him that he has a good, long career and maybe comes home for the last little bit.