Could the last one to leave please turn off the lights?

I'm so bitter - my dad was a Man City fan (still is in some ways, but he doesn't recognise the club they've become) from the 1960s/70s. I can't believe I was swayed over as a kid by those upstart Blackburn Rovers and their schools outreach programme when I was in primary school in the 1990s. I could be living the high life right now.

I personally think he's a wide player in a front 3. He's too small and not quite quick enough to consistently trouble defenders as the lone striker. However his vision and first touch is good enough to act as a pivot out wide - and he'd be a nightmare to defend against drifting in to the back post, ala Pederson. He could probably play as a 10 too, his link up play is quite good, but there's a long queue for that position.

I've lost count of the number of times I've turned to the fans around me, completely oblivious about the history of the mediocre clogger the Blackburn End is booing relentlessly, and remarked "I assume he played for Burnley at some point, then?"

I don't know who any of those people are.

The Blackburn End would boo him relentlessly.

I gather Leeds are in some serious financial trouble if they don't get promoted.

Are we planning on fielding a team this season?

That we're begging for Palace's table scraps? I mean it a good news story for him as he clearly hates us.

He'd be in a significantly stronger negotiating position this summer if he'd stayed (again assuming he's as good as they think he is - I've barely seen him play football) because Hyam, Carter and S. Wharton all had significant time on the sidelines with injuries last season. He'd have played a lot - if he was the player they think he is he'd have kept his place too.

I can and will. Players like A. Wharton, Jude Bellingham etc did it correctly.

We're not even the 25th most stable club in Lancashire.

I definitely think there's a player in there, but he desperately needs a run of games. He struggled to get up to the pace of the game at times when used (sparingly) as a sub - our poor recruitment meant he was held onto as a bit part player, rather than going out on loan to develop like S. Wharton and Carter did (and Leonard needs to too).

He's undoubtedly significantly richer, but yeah he's started his loan farm journey - he'll float from club to club for years.

https://x.com/_ElliottJackson/status/1793633374126612496

Even I don't have a Technical Director in Football Manager. I'm not a savage.

The last DoF was crucified on here for low risk punts.

"Commit now before you have any idea what we're going to do in the transfer market". I've always hated the 'early bird' scheme.

Because there is simply no money coming into the club. The money from season tickets sales (suppressed because the tickets are overpriced and the club do very little to engage fans) and the tv deal is finite, merch sales will be hilariously low and we're running out of quality players to sell. We're very much bleeding out financially, even with this atrocious playing squad. It's only a matter of time now with these guys in charge.

We're technically seeing every penny of it - they're hardly pocketing it. It's just being used to fund the running of the club, rather than being reinvested into the playing squad. It allows them to prolong the inevitable whilst this court case rumbles on in India.

Daft timing, except we needed to pay the bills until at least August and our CEO was out of ideas about how to raise revenue without selling players.

The sad thing is, with a little backing in January 2023, he could have been be playing in midfield for his boyhood club in the Premier League. We really are in football purgatory as Rovers fans.

Will play 4-3-3 I imagine with Travis, Tronstad (although I bet he's desperately looking for the exits) and JRC in midfield.

Tells me they don't expect to be able to put any money into the club so we're cutting our cloth accordingly - trying to limp along on the Wharton / Raya / Szmodics money for as long as possible.

It's not even a gamble at this point, it's suicide.