bluebruce

Tbf, he said he wouldn't continue with his ludicrous argument that Gueye was worse than Brown and Varney. Which he did then continue with a bit after saying that but hey. I was bored of the repetitiveness of it, and he's welcome to his opinion, so I stopped replying and he seemed to stop talking about it too. The post today is, as far as I can see, just an argument that Gueye isn't a very good striker. Which hardly anybody disagrees with and is very different to basically saying he's the worst striker to ever pull on a shirt for an extended period. So he isn't still continuing a day later in fairness.

Especially since they're billionaires and pitch spend is exempt from FFP. Crazy that some fans don't see the failure to invest in the pitch, stadium and womens team is the ultimate proof they're not just hamstrung by FFP but actively don't want to invest.

Aren't those far better numbers (since we are only halfway through the season) than that wonderkid we lost to Chelsea?

There's no point repeatedly mentioning these deadlines. Firstly, they were never deadlines, just times Val would like to have players in by. Secondly, we all knew it wouldn't happen, including yourself.

We're putting a tit against the Trotters? Sounds like bestiality.

Not when you're only willing to reinvest 10% of the Gueye fee and maybe half his wages it doesn't.

I was talking about renewals.

Having better squads is all the more reason they should have been capable of goals. Those appearance stats really do mean sod all. Starting in different countries, Gueye isn't close to done with his career. Comparing apples and oranges. Nothing cast iron about it. In fact most people seem to disagree with you. If you would pick strikers who never score then I'm glad you're not the manager. Brown is the worst striker to have had as many games as he has at Rovers in my lifetime.

We all actually watched them. We all actually watched them score zero goals over a shockingly long period. We also watched Gueye score 8 in a similar number of games. Comparing them is a non starter. I don't care about their all round games, which weren't all that they're built up to be, when you are a pair of strikers who didn't score across nearly 70 games, you're worse than one who scored 8 in a similar period. And this ignores that Gueye did cause problems for teams at times when he didn't score, especially coming off the bench. Also you say you doubt the appearances would back it up, which I think is you saying their managers backed them more. Gueye only played 3 less games for us than the two of them put together. Despite only being here for less time than Chris Brown was.

Better without doubt than Chris Brown or Luke Varney, neither of whom scored a single goal for us in 41 and 26 appearances respectively. I've no idea why you would say otherwise except for recency bias.

Just because we can swap players in and out during this window doesn't mean the 25 man squad limit doesn't have to be considered at all. It means we don't have to wait for a player to physically leave before we bring their replacement in (the budget probably does though), but it does mean we can't just bring in 3 or 4 players and crack on. We will have to consider who is left out of the squad if we can't sell them before the deadline. Our resources are finite, we can't really afford to pay wages to players who won't be available to play for half the season.

The point you were replying to initially was about the new manager saying the squad is shite. What you're saying now isn't exactly the same...but players can read between the lines and would know they're being told they're not good enough players.

Gestede: Hold my beer!

So if he came in and completely demoralised the squad you'd consider that a good start?

Hmm. Seems a bit risky to enter this central league with that being the case so often, progress in other cups could cause the u18s to be overplayed too I would think. Maybe it doesn't land that way and has been considered though. Also strange the central league decides to have its fixtures the day after pl2 ones.

It doesn't even have to be as deep as all this. Our biggest problem has been refusing to sign up senior players to reasonable contracts. Exacerbated by an overreliance on loans to pad the squad out (often very poor ones) and a refusal to adequately reinvest received transfer funds, even though that can yield even bigger profits down the line. Instead we buy a load of cheap dross which very rarely works out, and you know what they say - buy cheap, buy twice. Because of all this, every window is playing catch up. If we hadn't been ballsing those three things up, we'd have been promoted by now.

The reason for what you say in your last paragraph is in the other two paragraphs.

We have fixtures two days in a row? How is that even allowed?

Exactly. There has been plenty of time before the window opened for us to get in touch with clubs of prospective players and see if there is a realistic chance of signing them. Whether it's the scouts or other personnel, the point remains the same - we have wasted time on this one. Honestly, it just reeks of the usual 'we tried' policy of bidding for players we know we can't afford so that we look like we have ambition. Then spending a paltry amount. We see this every January and most summers, it's hardly our first rodeo.

The likes of transfermarkt etc are not a remotely reliable show of value, if that's what you mean. A look through our own squad will show that.

Scouts aren't only supposed to look at players. They're supposed to have contacts, put out feelers. Have a general understanding of whether a player might be realistically in reach. Like you said 'that could possibly fall within their budget'. They don't really have a great sense of that if they've recommended someone who will cost 5 times what we can offer. I think the 28 year old striker one is fair enough to be surprised by, that's an outrageous fee to demand. But the young, promising Cleary was likely always out of reach.

The scouts are there to identify players we can potentially afford. We are nowhere near affording this one. Like Ricky said, we can all identify good players the club can't afford. That Adam Wharton looks alright. Messi, Haaland, Gyokeres, they should be able to fix our attacking woes.

I'm not sure you've noticed the weather the last 15 years.

They really should let him go. If they don't want to pay him off, send him out on loan until his contract ends. I don't care what level. These defeats sap the confidence of our young lads as they develop.