Green Army 75

Ah. Has it become a bit run down now?

Imagine if, 12 years ago, the owners had said we will invest 250 million in the next decade with the lion share going toward setting up the best academy in the land. Blackburn will become the hotbed of young talent with the best resources and the best coaches. That would have been pretty cool now. We’ve just invested £20 million in a new academy with the aim of producing high quality youth players. The fanbase are arguing whether this is money well spent (when we are in danger of relegation and don’t go into debt) but, the vast majority now see it as the right choice.

So, are they so rich that they’re happy to lose millions each year with (respectfully) little chance of promotion to the Premiership? What’s in it for them? Businessmen don’t normally like loss making businesses! Has anyone made an offer to buy? I know our chairman, who will sell to the right people who have the funds to take us higher up the league, says he gets one or two contacts a week from interested parties. I’m sure your owners would as well?

Oh I see. They only think it’s worth 200 million due to the amount they spent on it. I now understand why no one else can buy the club. You’d have to be filthy rich and not care about being ripped off.

Surely no one believes you are worth £200 million? Our chairman reckons we are worth about £40 million. We have no debt, about £15 million available this year for squad strengthening (including wages) and no old players on expensive contracts. Every ticket, and corporate package, will sell out as the club look to expand the ground. It will be 17 500 a game this season. We have a 7000 waiting list for season tickets You are clearly more developed and ambitious than we are….but you aren’t worth 5 times as much!

An Argyle fan in peace! We feel your pain but you will get through it. We had our own financial problems around 10 years ago and almost dropped out of league 2…twice. We had Risdale as chairman which should tell you everything you need to know and almost got wound up by the HRMC who wanted to make an example of a football club. They had a winding up case at the High Court that no one at the club was aware of. If it hadn’t been for an Argyle fan alerting the club that they needed to show up to the court case and argue for time we’d have been wound up…. But then we got a decent chairman followed by a brilliant one who was born and raised in Plymouth. We have no debt and we run a balanced ship. The chairman openly admits he can’t afford to give money or loans to the club so we can only spend what we bring in. So, we have the lowest budget in the league and are favourites for relegation. But, we will play attacking football with young players who we can improve and sell on. Things became surreal for Argyle fans last January when we were turning down bids from Lazio for Whittaker (and now Rangers). My point is that things will get better and your club will be run properly again. There will be a low point that you will look back on as the final turning point. We got knocked out of the FA Cup by Stourbridge…..

Well, in his 54 starts for us he scored 24 goals. He has just turned 24 so on paper it looks a good signing. I think part of the problem may be that our system played more to his strengths than yours does??

Somebody in your club must have really rated him to give him a 4 year contract on more money than we could afford. Maybe he’s a player who the back room staff thinks needs developing but will score 30 next season?

I’d be amazed if he had attitude problems. He wouldn’t have been tolerated at Argyle. Rumours were that we wanted to keep him and offered him 7 grand a week. Apparently you doubled it and he said we either match it or he takes it. We haven’t got that type of money for a striker when Hardie and Whittaker also score loads for i

Years ago we loaned a centre half to Blackpool. Turns out he was seeing our Chairman’s daughter and the clause to stop him playing against us was taken out. (No one ever found out who took it out……) Predictably he scored and they won and the Chairman’s wife was caught celebrating his goal. We got relegated that season There was a toxic atmosphere from that moment on…. Some say that was the moment we began our descent into admin and finishing 3rd bottom of league 2….twice. Luckily we now have an eminently sensible chairman and the club is run with the right values.

We’d have him back on loan in an instant. Sadly I doubt you’d loan him to a rival given we are next to each other in the league.

Weird isn’t it. He scored something like 40 goals for us in 90 odd appearances with about half of those appearances coming from the bench. Nothing I’ve seen so far in the Championship suggests he wouldn’t have carried on. Whittaker already has 10, Hardie has 6 from about 12 games and Azaz has 6…..if only we could defend!

It is really surprising to hear. We always knew he was injury prone and his minutes needed to be rationed but he was far and away our best striker last year. Given that we are the highest scorers in this league outside of the top 4 we do wonder how many Ennis would have by now. Isn’t weird how some players just fit at somE clubs. He needs the ball in front of him to be effective. If he is being asked to play with his back to goal then he might struggle as that isn’t what he is good at.

How is Ennis doing? I see he has now played a few games. We miss him as he was able to make nothing clearances into something and get us up the pitch. He was also so super sharp in the box. Whenever he played you sensed he was going to score. Just like Whittaker and Hardie (before his injury) he’d have a bucket load of goals by now.

It is a big step up for him. Isn’t ready to start Championship games yet but gets 10 mins at the end of games when defenders are tiring. Started against Orient in the league cup and scored 2 and then another against Palace in the 2nd round. He seems very clinical in the box but needs to develop his all round game. One thing Argyle do well is acquire players that no one has ever heard of, hide them away for 6-12 months on the training pitch and then they play. He will get great coaching and development so has every chance. I know we were trying to buy him for a couple of transfer windows so the club must see possible development in him. P.S. I’d rather have a fit Ennis though!