Would've been a bit discouraging if he missed that 🤔

Good solid signing. 2 year contract till he hits the magic over 30's club where his legs will fall off overnight. Now that this is over the line i suggest we watch Hyams situation very closely......

The strong starts are now absolutely vital for this club to prevent us fighting at the wrong end all second half of the season. Forget play offs if we hadn't had such good first halves to the last few years it's almost guaranteed we'd have dropped, promotion doesn't come into it. This is Venky Rovers, we need to be 3rd at Christmas just to make sure we don't go down by May !!!!

Jordan Rhodes - £8 million sold for c£11 million - Consistent reliable top goal scorer. Adam Armstrong - £1.75 rising to £3 million - Sharp young prospect scored goals and developed here - sold for double figures. Brereton - £6/7 million - Prospect took a long time to develop but showed his potential and SHOULD have fetched double figures. Szmodics - £2 million - Good lower league prospect found his feet here and kept us up almost on his own - Sold for 4 or 5 times the fee. Danny Graham - Free transfer, big wages - Reliable strong centre forward played a big part in promotion and res-establishing club. There are more but the point is you DO have to invest good money regularly if you want to resell for big bucks and reap the benefits in between.

Everton are actually scoucers though.

They'll be over the moon covering all this windows outgoings with that one sale but at least it fits the trading model at last.

We need the Championship version of Andy Todd - without the dark side obviously - so this guy sounds just the ticket.

A steady Eddie is just what is needed next to Hyam he plays so much better with a calm presence next to him.

We've been straight with FFP for a while and recently has probably been the best opportunity in a decade to invest in the squad significantly. Coupled with the good periods of form and league position at Christmas by not 1 not 2 but 3 previous head coaches the time was never better to give the club a real push but no they didn't want to know. Oh so conveniently they can't invest because there is a problem over in India of their own making. The FFP excuse might have stood up in the past but no any more.

I'm assuming his situation is complex but I've a feeling he might even do a Bentley or Ben Marshall.

I'd say if a club like Derby are in for him they'd want ti avoid that risk.

What if there is a club in for him and Rovers are dragging their feet over agreeing compen and being a little bit awkward with him ? Who'd be surprised at that and of course it will leave him in limbo for a while at least.

Probably because they'd have to agree adequate compensation first and if they can't they risk getting stung at tribunal. 15k a week over 3 years might be agreeable but not if it comes with a 1.5 or 2 million fee as well.

As usual you're dragging a completely different standard of player into it brought in on a totally different budget and project.

Do only relegated European 2nd tier teams contain the players Ismael wants ? Or are they the cheapest closest match ?

Now just apply some critical thinking to it. We want to build as strong a squad as possible and Wharton won't last a season and Batth is 36 so we'd be very strong in that dept, Batth would be off next summer and Wharton a year stronger. Chances of all 3 being fit and fighting for 1 spot at the same time wouldn't be often over a long hard season plus cup games.

A lot younger i assume and will maybe actually get longer than 12 months. Ideally we'd keep Batth and bring this guy in but they aren't capable of that.

Usyk v Dubois 2 any predictions ?

If they replace him with the guy from Hull and don't sell another of the centre backs then we might be able to finally argue there was some sense in it. Until then though.....

I'd rather him be brought along slowly and build up his strength etc then come into the team than be chucked in through necessity and struggle. He'll get his chance at some point and lets not rule out Rovers might have to pay another big chunk of money for him once he plays Championship football. If he isn't going to make the grade and someone lower down offers a few quid there's no harm done.

Good morning this is Suhail Pasha calling, we are interested in your player but won't pay anything near your current asking price. Please let us know if nobody takes him and you still want rid, even if it's in 12 months time, where we will offer one third of what you are asking now. Please be aware though we won't be offering to pay him what you do so he might turn us down anyway' Bye.

It's long standing interest allegedly we've enquired about him before so it's either we are waiting for desperation from Hull/the player (like when they got Hyam) or it's just the usual lazy journalism.

Should be decent enough if it comes off. Has Hyam signed his contract yet.....

But he runs in treacle, stands on the ball then turns backwards so surely such an easy opponent even for a bunch of cloggers.

It's called window dressing i don't think we've ever been 'linked' with so many since the windows involving Kean and co. We haven't announced a 50 million war chest yet it's 3 or 4 different players a day. Amazing stuff.