It's a completely unnatural way of wording it. I can't believe that many people would structure the sentence in that way, especially somebody who's job it is to be clear with these things. Even if we go down the narrative that Sylvester isn't particularly competent I still can't imagine him doing this. Again we are basing our assumptions purely on Nicko, which has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but if what he is saying is accurate I simply cannot see Rovers not winning. The only thing I can see the EFL case resting upon is that they can query what they like and in their opinion they left adequate time for us to make the ammendment. Which is quite laughable. As has been mentioned many times, the fact nobody has ever won an appeal previously says to me that the EFL need to be checked and accountable. Their systems can't be infallible. If we win I'm not sure what I'll be happier about, us having O'brien or seeing the EFL knocked off their perch.

He's certainly been our biggest goal threat.

Anybody more educated than on these things than me know what the cost would be to stream our home youth games live on YouTube. The club regularly release clips so I assume the camera set up is already there. Surely it can't cost much? I'm really enjoying watching. I only usually read about players in our youth set up and see the odd highlight here and there. It'd be a great little additional offering by the club.

Usually I get frustrated at threads drifting a million miles off topic. This has got to be the worst case of it ever happening on this board, but its actually really made me laugh. Only on brfc. Are we going to have super stakeholders now? And happy clapper or doom merchant stakeholders?

28th is ridiculous. But at least we have a date and an end in sight.

The club have released a statement to update their stakeholders on the appeal. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2023/february/20/club-update---transfer-deadline-day/

Bundesliga shaping up into one hell of a battle.

If true, I'd assume that there has been some kind of conversation with Diaz to give the club any sniff that it's worth pursuing. That's not to say I think it'll be signed. I don't. My guess is that he's stressed right now. He's just had a baby, he's got Villareal waiting on an answer and he can't leave them hanging indefinitely. He'll have a support network here for him and his girlfriend and all of a sudden the idea of sunny Spain seems very intimidating without friends and family around to help with a newborn. That's not to mention the language barrier. It may well be the option of he makes the move by himself or not at all. Lots of assumptions in this post but it's not an unlikely scenario. From a club perspective I'd be looking to offer him a 2 year deal with a low release clause. £8m to recoup our outlay. If the move abroad is causing stress it allows him to focus on his family for now, it gives a bit of security in the event of an injury, whilst giving the club a small amount of protection.

If the super league doesn't happen it's because all the English clubs are aware that the Premier League brings in far more money than any league in the world and they're aware that future TV deals will dwarf the insane amounts of money already washing around in the league. The longer they maintain the status quo the bigger the gap will become between all other clubs worldwide. Real, Barca and the rest are struggling to compete financially as it is. Fast forward another 5 - 10 years and the gap will be huge. The main pulling power clubs outside the EPL will have is history and you'll have midtable Premier League clubs able to offer better financial packages than historical super clubs. Through all this huge opposition to the Super League it's clear to me something needs to change. The English pyramid has been broken for a long time and we're now beginning to witness it on a European and Worldwide stage. It really should be down to FIFA to resolve, but with them being just as money hungry as the clubs and leagues, that ship sailed long ago. It's nigh on impossible to level the playing fields once there is such a disparity. It needed pre-emptive action. As it stands their main concern seems to be maximising their own income through stupid ideas such as a world cup every 2 years. There doesn't seem to be the will there and if it was, I'm not sure legally there would even be a way. Tbh the only thing I can see as a workable solution is actually having a super league. The part which wouldn't work would be they should not be part of their own domestic leagues and there would have to be some form of promotion/relegation. A closed shop would be boring. Essentially the system is already broken and fans being outraged really is missing the gulf which is widening year on year.

It's an interesting position to be in. Pears will have a year left on his contract come the end of the season. He's showing that there's not much to separate him and Kaminski. Will he be keen to sign a new contract if he's not first choice. If not he is worth a bit of money now. Could he actually become our number 1 and we sell Kaminski? It's great to have two very good goalkeepers but it's a luxury considering how much investment the rest of the squad needs.

But that's not what I'm talking about. You repeatedly said his legs have gone and that he's not the player he once was. Based on very little as he wasn't in the team. Personally I think JDT could have given him more opportunities prior to the world cup but I'm pleased that he's left the door open for Dack to work his way back in. I'm sure that people within the club weren't saying, his legs have gone and that he can't play the way JDT wants to play. But that's exactly what you were saying.

Quite hopeful for 3 points here. Play Dolan and get the front three pressing and I can see us forcing them into mistakes. We tend to do better against possession based teams who play out from the back regardless.

I agree. However living on the south coast there days that is a bargin and a half. Struggle to find a pint less than £5.50 - £6.00 these days. It's insane.

Yup. And challenges multiple times on it. Repeatedly said his legs have gone and he's not the same player anymore even though Dack was getting zero game time and therefore zero evidence to back up his opinion. Its clear to see now that Dack is back in the fold that he's the best footballer in our squad. And that's been the case since the day he signed.

I tend to agree with you here Chaddy. Even if we take who is right and who is wrong out of the equation, O'brien (and potentially the club if we win) suffer because of the appeals process set out by the EFL. It seems their appeals process is purposefully cumbersome to put clubs off going to the lengths we are going too. The stage one appeal should be independent. It feels like a time wasting loop clubs have to jump through to reach a genuine appeal through arbitration. We've already seen in the media that the club were hoping the arbitration appeal would be sped up, but the EFL are reportedly sticking to the time scale of a maximum of two weeks for them to put forward an independent representative, when putting someone forward at speed is within their control. By the time a genuine, independent resolution has been found we'll be close to a month and potentially 6 or 7 games missed should we win. Without getting into the nitty gritty of where accountability lies, this process is evidence enough that the EFL are not managing situations such as these well and not treating the player at the centre of it all with any kind of professionalism. Their process lacks any accountability to their stakeholders.

I think it's Whartons biggest weakness. He can hit a decent diagonal but if that's not on he's very likely to play a dangerous pass into the middle of the pitch and not find his man. He's also pretty slow decision maker and I always feel he's liable to have the ball stolen from him. Hyam isn't going to pull up any trees with the ball at his feet but he's significantly better than Wharton in my opinion.

He's grabbed his chance. He's a huge step ahead of where he was at when he got a few games at the start of last season. Regular playing time at this level is only going to develop him further. When comparing him with Wharton two things stand out for me. He's more comfortable on the ball. I feel a lot of teams press our Right Centre Back more to pressure them into playing it to Wharton. I'm always nervous when he's on the ball as there is always a suicide pass in him. Secondly he is more composed than Wharton. Wharton seems to have a way of playing and that is to constantly engage his opponent into a battle, leading to him being caught out of position a lot. Carter seems a better judge of when to apply pressure and when to drop. I'd be happy for Carter and Hyam to be our centre back pairing for now and seeing how the relationship develops. Outside of Carter I thought Jrc was good again last night until his injury. At one point he moved for a few minutes into a deep lying DM almost dropping in-between the centre backs. It was only for a couple of minutes but in that time he showed the type of play I'd expect from Morton. He also shows some fight, which is so important in the middle of the park. Jrc is a good footballer. Both his and Carter's recent form have been major bright spots for us. The more I see him, the more I'd like to see Jrc start instead of Morton. Morton has some talent but he needs time out the side. He's been utterly abysmal for months now.

I'd stick with Dolan up top for the majority of the rest of the season, possibly interchanged with Gallagher if he ever finds something closely resembling a big of form. Dolan doesn't look a threat but he does bring something to the party. His development has been interesting and for me he's really matured as a footballer. He knows when to press and always puts a shift in, whilsy he's so agile that if a defender drops a shoulder he can react quick enough to still steal the ball. On the ball, he's got a good touch and can twist and turn with his back to goal so the ball actually sticks to him. Get it into his feet and he's actually not bad at linking up our play. We all went from who's this incredible kid we've stolen from Preston, then a lot (myself included) thought he became a bit of an ineffective step over merchant. His maturing play has gone slightly under the radar. If he can develop more and become a threat with goals and assists he'll be a real asset. He's not the answer to our striking woes right now but considering the alternatives he's the best we have. Credit where its due though and hopefully he can continue to grow as a player.

It's clear that Pears has actually become a decent goalkeeper. Probably our best player on the night. The rest were pretty average except for Travis and Morton. I couldn't decide who was worse until Mortons stupid flick leading to their goal, obviously compounded by Trav having a winge on the floor rather than doing his bloody job. I actually think a draw was a fair result. West Brom weren't all that, but we are devoid of creativity. I thought we had no chance of an equaliser.

Personally I think Wharton has looked shakey. He's getting pulled into a battle with their number 9 and needs to be a bit smarter. He's already lost a couple and when he does there's no cover. We've been workmanlike. It's a poor game which is compounded by there seemingly only being one ball in the stadium. Every single restart is taking forever.

You called?

It's groundhog day. I always know I'm going to get a little less work done on deadline day. I can't stop myself checking on here and Rovers have kept it going for 15 days now. And it's annual review time. Do the EFL not understand the impact they're having 😂

GB came out and said there are things we can do better. I think he likened it to a player getting a harsh red card, in that we may not agree with the decision but we can't give the officials the option in the first place. Quite right and quite right that he took responsibility. I do think part of that was a PR exercise too. He went onto say we wouldn't be appealing if we didn't think we had a strong case. The amount of time this is dragging on for suggests we do otherwise it would have been turned down by now. I'm sure you knew all this anyway, but GB and the club being entirely to blame fits straight in with the narrative you seem to search for in many things relating to the club, in that you love to criticise. Don't get me wrong, there's been plenty to be unhappy about in recent years even if it was better than the atrocity of the half decade preceeding it, but some people's views just aren't objective. For me the structure we're putting in place and having an ambitious, communicative DOF is a big step forwards. But that doesn't fit into the, everything is negative narrative. Criticism is important when valid, but it loses its impact if the club can do no right.

My thinking exactly. Say they'd made the decision last Thursday or even end of day Friday, there's a good chance we'd have been willing to move on and not seek compensation should the deal be approved. As it stands if it were approved I'd be quite annoyed if we didn't seek compensation for the games missed. Like you say, if it wasn't going to go through, surely we would have heard by now. The only other option I can think of is that behind closed doors the EFL have hinted to us they were going to turn it down and we've let them know we'd be bringing in lawyers and taking things further which has spooked the EFL, thus causing a longer delay. Its the only scenario I can think of which makes any semblance of sense right now.

The EFL have messed this up so badly. They are making it worse for themselves with every passing day. The only way they can get out of this is if they can come up with a genuine reason the transfer shouldn't have gone through and logic says if there was one, it would have been rejected long ago. Right now, if they block the transfer, they risk being taken to court. Allow the transfer to go through and we are well within our rights to seek compensation for three games missed because of their error. It's not been mentioned much yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the PFA get involved on O'brien behalf. He is also well within his right to seek compensation. Everyday that passes this just gets more and more messy.