bluebruce

I always get a bit anxious playing lower league sides in the cups. We've had plenty of embarrassing scalpings before.

I'll wager Bradford are an easier team to score against for our regular forwards than WBA though. But I expect Tyjon to play tonight.

The lad had a baseball cap on all preseason. I'm convinced enough to consider it fact at this point.

I think we should Occam's Razor this one actually - our internet team are shite.

I wouldn't be surprised if VI wasn't too impressed with the hair transplant gone wrong as a reason to miss a proper preseason, and the relationship may have deteriorated from there. Just a guess of course.

Well we are favourites, just. The odds suggest the bookies don't really know which way this is going (or at least, after they've had betting in from fans they've weighted it so it could be seen as going any way).

I'm too unlucky to risk betting on Rovers to win. When we balls it up I'd feel it was all my fault 😅 Those are generous odds for us to overcome a League One side at home though.

If he's better than Toth at 18 he's going to be the next Raya.

That's from League One to the Championship though. I was talking about the increase in TV money for Championship clubs before the start of last season that you mention. Regarding the figure, I'll be honest, I plucked it from AI because I couldn't be bothered to look thoroughly. It's a little lower than I thought I remembered hearing (which was about 2 mill in my vague memory). But I do remember at the time of the announcement thinking it really wasn't all that much of an improvement all things considered. And if 40 million of sales barely touches the sides, neither will the TV deal sadly, under these clowns. Somehow we always seem to need to cost cut, no matter how much we have and no matter how much extra money appears.

Yes I came here to post this. Aggregating over oddschecker with the most generous odds for each outcome: Rovers win - 2.6 (to 1) Bradford win - 2.9 Draw - 3.55 I mean come on. I know the cup is a leveller, there is the potential for (both sides) to rotate squads and they're in better 'form' in the limited game time so far...but we are a whole league above them and at home. I do think we could potentially slip on a banana skin here, but I'm a bit insulted those are the odds!

Pears did for a bit, tbf. As much as I'm not a fan.

The extra revenue from Sky in the new deal really isn't all that much. It's an increase of between 500k to 1.5 million per club. Meanwhile more games are televised which means lower crowds. The EFL are terrible negotiators.

And I'm surprised I'm beating our eagle-eyed Exile to this one (although just had a look in the outgoing loans thread as I typed that and of course he's popped it there), but Charlie Olsson was sent out on loan yesterday to Oldham for the season. They play in League Two after promotion from the National League last season. So I'd say that's a good loan for him, though I imagine they're expected to struggle (drawn both games so far though), so there probably won't be much tolerance for a fairly inexperienced kid learning the ropes. He'll have to be on it from the off. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cj6yypglzpzo

Former ingrate - sorry sorry, former Rovers youth product, Rory Finneran, explains why he buggered off without a care for the club that developed him: https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/ex-rovers-youngster-finneran-explains-095808095.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALoW4t9ACw8mY0MEny2-ha0MzMLmBrrvMshr5KhabcWUkaX3rLGdmkAQ0Je3MKhvltM02tpD6Ta3_9Bby-fPa80X2EE6dpOXzRbsZOQBy0mbnTbg7G3n37WJaQg81DyefYq-PF6B-KycQKH1wwBgD5RNM_OxBXvs2U0XsZSBPqEl

Those new signings do indeed need to gain fitness though. This is absolutely the game to do it.

I wonder what came over them 😂

How old do players have to be to count as youth players in the ESC/GBE context? Don't tell me they made that fuzzy too 😂 I'm assuming it's the same as squad registration with players under 21.

It's not that I don't see your point, I just think it could as easily viewed as a plus for the lad as for us. And maybe he gets lucky and it lands at his feet in the 6 yard box for a chance to make his name. Ideally you do it in a game where we are winning convincingly and you can afford to give him 5 or 10 minutes to make his mark, but since this needs doing ASAP and the next game is Brum...probably not! I think Tyjon's debut was only about 30 seconds and it will have been a proud moment for him anyway. Admittedly his wasn't to clear an administrative problem. What I know about the process btw, I probably learnt about 70-80% of it from talking to Wilsden.

Yes that's what I meant, wouldn't need an ESC slot, the work permit would be a formality essentially. And yes I had L1 or L2 in mind, nobody in the Championship would bother. Wow didn't know they only got 2 spaces, though can't imagine they have the scouting networks for it to really matter, generally. Outside of some bigger L1 clubs.

Well unless I'm misremembering, it would also allow him to be sold to another UK club, as once you have the exemption thingy you don't need to reapply at another club. So it would increase his pool of suitors, helping him get a move, plus put 'Championship experience' on his CV rather than 'signed but never played a game'. I also think it's less disrespectful than the alternative - outright cancelling his contract to make way for the deal, which is absolutely what will happen if we need the space and he isn't exempt from needing to use it.

Fantastic post, well put. (Except perhaps the very last point, I'm starting to not believe the club's line on that in a literal sense, but I won't go into that now) That list really shows how rare good CMs have been for us, and yet I'm sure certain posters will still say they expect a Travis level replacement.

He was demonstrably out of favour and a bit out of form, so we got lowballed by a club who had no money anyway and probably scared them off with our asking price. Then he had a very good season after. Think we would have no issues getting 2 million. 3 might be a more drawn out and potentially unsuccessful affair, but that would be my asking price. If we were actually going to reinvest a bit.

What I meant is I outlined in the other post (dunno if you saw it) why I think we'd have a very good case at an appeals panel. I think it would constitute exceptional circumstances personally. As for Pasha, the more likely we are to not be able to do the purchase after dragging it out, the more 5k will look like a bargain to him 😂🤡 You would have thought that. I'd also have thought they'd be interested in protecting domestic youth players getting their own opportunities.

So even though he would have already made his senior debut for us, he could make it again in a sense, in the league? That's a bit better. This whole thing also means we can sign anyone under (what age?) play them off the bench for a minute in the league and automatically qualify them. Silly stuff. The only limit is how many slots we have free at the time to do so.

Or we could just go to the appeals board. I'd be surprised if we couldn't get it through, for reasons I outlined in more detail 2 pages back. I'm certain he's been reading, or somebody has fed the notion back to him who has been reading here. He isn't a good enough journalist to think of it himself and look into the regs thoroughly.