Do you go around your ex's to see how they play then? 😂

Whilst I think he had a better record than suggests, I don't think that second statement is close to true. The current debt is about 200 mill. I don't think we were getting anything like 100 mill from selling Dack, Brereton, Rothwell and maybe getting a bit more for Armstrong (even that one is predicated on if he was fully contracted at the time, rather than the actual timing being any different). More like 35-40, assuming we didn't replace them.

Exactly. I'm finding the misinterpretation a bit baffling personally, but hey. I never said it was proactive, ambitious, etc, and I went to pains to point out that I wasn't backing Venkys, that they're incompetent, and that the need to put money in was necessitated by their incompetence. Yet still people seize on things and go off on tangents. Fact is, Venkys have spent 200 million (ish, I don't have the exact figure). They haven't put any money in since November. Their ineptness plus putting money in has put us in the shit situation we have been in. Their ineptness plus zero money being put in will only be worse (unless it results in them fucking off of course, but that's a great intangible for now).

That's what the books say.

So what's the 200 million they've injected if it's not support? Don't get me wrong, they're a fucking cancer but it's not in doubt that they've supported us financially, even if much of that need is from their own colossal fuckups. The fuckups aren't going away, so I'd like the money to come back.

True, but Wharton won't be at Palace long. Will depend where he ends up.

You think none of those 14/15 players are the keepers? Tbh I'd agree with him on that if it's the case (he seems like somebody who is happy with all the players no matter what, but I'm sure that's a facade). But I can't agree that 14 or 15 players are trustworthy tbh. And I don't think he's getting any money for keepers without a keeper sale. Even that may be optimistic given our recent history... priority will be replacing Szmodics though, with whatever crumbs drop from that sale, if any.

Come on Chaddy, you know there's nothing 'deffo' about it. Remember you've made plenty of predictions with that certainty before that have proven wrong, as we all do. Personally I think the odds are low that we recruit there. Money is likely to be limited, and we already have two keepers we spent fees of 500k upwards on. One of them got a new contract last summer and one was signed last summer. There are many areas of the pitch that need improvement especially when we lose Szmodics and the loanees. I doubt the club will see it as a priority within the constraints, and I don't expect them to move for a keeper unless they sell one. I can't see who we would sell one to.

In fairness, we haven't been battered game after game. We've mostly just had shit keepers in the sticks. A quality, consistent keeper would have had us at least 10 points higher in the league, probably up to 15 points when we consider some of the horror shows and the added confidence from them not happening, which would put us anywhere from 13th to 9th at the moment. Of course, when you take out Sammie next season, it probably puts us right back where we are! However, I would agree Johanson is likely to get far better offers than us, especially at that bargain bin price. He was being very well spoken of earlier in the season, and I think I heard he was being rated in the 5 million bracket?

Never said you said it would. Point is if he is fit enough to warm up with the first team but didn't play, he really should be in the u21s the next day. Not going to develop just doing training and warm ups.

Not sure why that stopped him playing in the u21s.

My point wasn't that it can't happen, it's that it's unlikely. The bookies agree.

I'm still standing by what I've been saying for about 3 weeks I think. We'll scrape up by the skin of our balls, primarily because other teams around us suck, and go down next season. We might enter the bottom 3 briefly on the final day, but I don't see it very likely we go down. Only need one of three shit teams to fuck up. Two of them need at least a win, too. Those same two have LL and DD results from their previous two games.

You can feel sure of that, but you can't actually be sure of that. We have said this after all of the departures you mentioned, and yet somebody always has. You do feel like eventually that luck has to run out though.

It really was stupid to keep putting him in when he kept having to be brought off the game before. Pretty obvious his body was about to give in.

Twats and cunts.

I'm not a tin foil hat type, but all the court timings have been suspicious to me. The whole thing started in a summer window and we had to change all our plans about halfway through it, with the new plan being almost nothing. Then we got the funds released, outside a window, which kept the lights on, probably paid for our minor outlays, and gave us hope these court meetings would be routine in discharging the funds, settling our nerves. The next one was set for near the end of January, so that we couldn't do much before then due to the uncertainty but then should be able to have a little splurge near the end. Instead it got delayed to March and we sold a player for 18 mill but still spent nothing. The March one wasn't suspicious as such, but did buy time agains major widespread discontent whilst giving the impression it would be sorted soon and the summer could be 'normal'. Then it got delayed again, which seemed really strange, until August. Once more falling in the middle of a window, except this time we won't be able to do anything in advance of it really. But once more it will keep some of the suckers happy with notions that it's gonna be released soon and then we'll do business. I expect another delay or even a rejection (oh but we will appeal don't worry!). Maybe we do get a small approval for it, covering what should have been the January cash injection, whilst having to wait for the newest tranche at yet another TBD (To Be Delayed) court hearing. It all makes me question whether Venkys really have made an enemy of the government or quite the opposite. The court hearings and their timings all seem perfect for owners who don't want to invest more money but would like to keep a chunk of the plebs from getting restless. I'm sure there was a comment from Waggott or the club recently claiming that all of this won't affect Rovers anymore, but that it's affecting their whole business. Which is not only an immediate contradiction, but as far as we've heard over here, the entire thing happened because of us (or at least the iffy accounting they used after buying a house over here saying it was a Rovers business expense essentially), and wholly revolves around sending investment/supporting funds abroad. Which we require, and some of their businesses may, but a lot of their business won't.

At least I might get slightly less people, when I tell them I'm a Rovers fan and mention the venkyscum, asking me in shock 'they still own you?!?' Ahhh, if only reality matched the perceived reality in their heads, where apparently Venkys fucked off years ago....

Technically even earlier than that, in 1881, though seems 1888 was when the first true electric car was made. I'd heard about these Victorian era EVs before, and that they were actually viable competitors to combustion cars for a while, but I couldn't remember how they ended up not making the grade, so I looked it up and found this article with a history of the EV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle Some interesting highlights include setting speed and distance records early doors, notably the first road vehicle to break the 62 mph barrier, in 1899. In the 1910s there was a vehicle with a 110 mile range, although it could only hit 20 mph. And exchangeable batteries (where you just swap your drained battery for a fully charged one) were proposed as long ago as 1896 and was provided between 1910 and 1924. That's a concept that still has some legs these days, as this is what a company called Nio do to get around charging times (I don't think this one will pan out in the long term though). Also, the first crewed vehicle to drive on the moon, the Lunar Rover, was an EV. Why did they fail? I'll just give the cliff notes to avoid boring people with another lengthy post. The decline started in the 1910s and 1920s. More petrol was found. Many more roads were built, so longer journeys were possible the EVs didn't have range for. Charging infrastructure wasn't really there on the scale needed for long trips. They were best suited to cities because they were slower and couldn't travel as far. Gasoline cars overcame some of their disadvantages - they no longer needed a time-consuming and dangerous hand-crank to start, and mufflers made them quieter. Henry Ford mass produced ICE cars rather than EVs, making them a lot cheaper. Some of these same problems exist in the EV landscape now, but not as extremely, and they're being constantly worked on. There were no climate change issues to further spur this on. I can't help but think though - if the lithium-ion battery had been invented way back then, instead of lead-acid, would we all have been driving EVs now our whole adult lives? Of course, this was in the days before effective renewables, so we'd still have had a lot of (but less) pollution.

That's actually something I'm interested in myself, as I've wanted instrumentals for a relatively underground artist for something I intend to do later in the year and I don't think I'll be able to find them ready-made. I've been assuming something like that must exist, but hadn't got to the point of looking it up, so appreciate you mentioning one you've worked with that can be relied on. I see it's free too! Can it be used to keep some vocal elements in place, like if you wanted to keep the chorus, or some kind of 'background' voices etc?

This is one of the things that worries me most personally...I'm an actor and I decided that this year I'm going to start doing a bit of voiceover work. Not as a main career unless it took off more than I expect, but still. I'm concerned that (as is typical for my luck) I've chosen pretty much the exact worst time to do this. I'm going to have to be careful reading contracts and making sure I can't be cloned (though it will probably happen anyway), but moreover this seems to be an existential threat to the voiceover industry. You already hear a lot of clearly AI-generated voices on youtube videos, and maybe some that are less obvious. Of course, for a time the work at the top end will still be mostly real people as there's a certain level of artistry that an AI can't match yet, but I think the bottom end I'm starting out at will be swamped with cheap AI voices fairly quickly. If your budget is small why would you use an actor when you can just get an AI to generate it? It won't be as good but it will probably be close enough to suit their purposes. Give it, I dunno how many but let's say 30 years or probably a lot less, and even screen actors will be replaceable with AI generated images and sound without anyone being able to tell the difference. The question then will become whether people are happy to watch that sort of content or will insist on seeing real people. Will they even know which they're watching? I guess with celebrities maybe, but how will you know that actor didn't just phone it in and give the company permission to use them as an AI instead and bank the money? And how will actors reach celebrity status in the first place if they are competing with much cheaper AI that do whatever they're told at all times? I imagine it will follow the usual pattern of technological change- at first lots of people, especially older generations, won't want any truck with watching films like that, then over time it will just become the norm. Most of my work is live, and that's not going anywhere any time soon (you'd need expensive hyper realistic androids or holograms that haven't even been made yet), so I'm not overly concerned, but it does make you wonder. Tech is wonderful and I generally embrace it, but art doesn't really feel like an area we should give over to machines. That's before we get into the whole Skynet kind of thing...

I don't really see it as a pessimistic outlook. A 1 in 5 ish chance of going down if we don't get any more points has me feeling fairly relaxed. Not out of the woods yet though, but I kinda fancy us to get a point against an after-the-lord-mayor's-show Coventry. If Leicester manage to wrap up their promotion before they play us, a point against them might become a lot easier too. I actually think we'll be fine, after knowing since January it was going to become a relegation fight. But I do think we'll be leaving it til the final day, as we never do things the easy, non-squeaky-bum way.

Funnily enough, without checking any of the odds of the required or doing any actual maths, I'm in the match thread after Sunday saying I think we have about a 20% chance of going down if we don't get any more points (told my mum the other day I reckoned it was 20-30%). My instinct and your method seem roughly aligned.

He didn't notice. Before the game he said it wasn't 'must win'.

I think that when Eustace said he was a 'no excuses' coach, what he meant is that you don't need excuses when you just pretend that everything is always absolutely fine and live in la la land instead.