Exiled_Rover

I raised this point in the Academy thread - I don't know how the likes of Sunderland, Boro, Bristol City et al hang on to their Academy graduates and they aren't poached from the crib like ours seem to be. Sunderland have just sold Watson (the guy who scored the winner in the Playoff final) for £12m to Brighton and everyone seems to think Rigg is the best thing since sliced bread.

Inter embarrassed themselves last night. Heads went down at 2-0 - the other three goals were scored against players going at 60%. I also didn't appreciate Ferdinand trying to paint it as a win for football - PSG have the biggest wage bill in Europe and have spent over £600m in transfer fees the last two years alone.

Having dealt with HMRC in the past it doesn't matter if it's their mistake, you'll still end up paying.

I genuinely think the Celtic and Rangers fans would eat him alive, but he'd earn a fair whack.

Again, Broughton tried to re-up him and Dolan billy-big-balled him. He's left a lot of money on the table the last two years because he's backed himself to do better. Let's see how it plays out for him.

If his decision making was better I'd be happy with 7 from a wide man with Dolan's skill set. He works his socks off and can hold up the ball, but he doesn't stretch the field. Hedges is a L1 player at best.

I'd have too much professional pride and respect for myself to even do that at Burnley.

Is that their plan for the whole stadium?

135 years of existence, really. The last 15 years we've been in purgatory.

Eustace literally walked out of a club in the playoffs for a relegation threatened club in January. Why anyone thinks we'll spend any money in the summer is beyond me. The writing is absolutely on the wall.

Yes, but they listed Neville's house as a company property for farming et al, which it obviously wasn't, for a massive tax break. If you stumbled upon that sort of casual fraud wouldn't you thoroughly investigate the company too?

Yep - players and HMRC are still being paid so there's nothing to see here as far as the EFL are concerned.

As I understand it we're at the inconvenience stage, and have been for 2 years - it's become an impediment for the Venkys because of the money that would sit in a Government account awaiting the resolution of this trial. They clearly know they have a very, very good chance of losing this case and that money, which is why they're so reluctant to pay it. Which again begs the question, why not just sell Rovers if you're so reluctant to fund them? It's one less overseas liability you have to worry about - and one that absolutely detests you to boot.

Broughton tried to get him to re-up from that improved offer (whatever it was), but he turned us down. By the sounds of it he hasn't really been interested in renegotiating since then. Who knows how much money he's left on the table in the short term by taking this approach - certainly several thousand pounds a week for two years.

What is there currently to celebrate?

What are they spending the money on? Certainly not the team.

I'd be absolutely astounded if he gets a PL offer, he's miles off that standard.

I think he's Plan A. A 6'5" aggressive, athletic CF who wins the vast majority of contested balls and brings others into play. You build around that and let the others (Cantwell, Winger, Winger) start taking over the game.

Easy enough to resolve, fire Ismael.

What was our style of play when Ohashi was upfront? Watch the ball come back at us time and time again? We had the balance right at the start of the season - start the games with Gueye and then bring Ohashi on as a sub on 70 minutes when the defenders were tired.

I've genuinely no idea why fans don't like Gueye. He was our best player at times last season and completely unplayable for defenders.

Exactly.

He was arguably our player of the season.

Derby came in and took our manager. What hope do we have of stopping a player going there?

I thought they were all pretty good signings, especially considering the outlay. Gueye was unplayable at times, Ohashi scored 10, Toth has taken the gloves off Pears (we hope!). Sadly Kargbo got injured, but he has the pace we've been crying out for. Alas the person that lined those all up left in October and you saw the calibre of player we brought in during January under Gestede et al. We're fucked.