bluebruce

In a court of law, I'd expect so yes. But I think the appeal is to the EFL themselves, so there's probably more chance of me being sucked off by my favourite pornstar by the time the appeal is done. Fingers crossed on both counts though.

What's confusing me a bit is that Nicko is talking about the clarity not being provided before the 11pm deadline. But I'm sure I read something about that needing to be when the deal in principle needs to be in by and shown that all forms were completed, something like that. Then the actual full-on deadline is 1am. Now I can't remember precisely what the extra 2 hours was to resolve, but if not for fixing little pedantic issues like this, then what for? If it's true (grain of salt, Nicko, and he couldn't get the age or position of Brierley right for his article) then the EFL being pedantic bellends actually is partly to blame. The club shouldn't be making mistakes like spelling names wrong though, or not checking all boxes were ticked. The relegation clause part is just a complete joke though if true. It's a bit like if I signed some deal to buy a house on the condition that I only do it if I win the lottery, and then they ask me whether I buy it if I go into debt.

'Blackburn’s bid to sign Rochdale striker Ethan Brierley failed because the youngster did not tick boxes saying he was British and white.' They should listen to more Michael Jackson. Then they'd know 'it don't matter if you're black or white'.

U21s lost 2-1 at home to Peterborough U21s in the Premier League Cup. Our goal a penalty, though so was one of theirs. Seems a bit embarrassing on the face of it, did anyone watch to be able to explain how the fuck we managed that? Although a glance at the lineup shows a lot of names I don't recognise, looks mostly like a u18 side so I'm guessing we underestimated them before the game and/or needed to rest players.

WWWM, I assume you mean the same quotes OEB posted. That doesn't read like 'we are going to pay LOB's wages for 6 months anyway' to me. I don't see how that could happen, and if it were, the minimum the club would expect from Forest would be to not slag them off in the media. I should think 'support mechanisms' refers to trying to appeal the decision and chatting to the player to make sure he's alright, that sort of tosh. Perhaps even offering counselling if it's affecting him that badly (I doubt that will be required). Just corporate jargon about basic HR type support. We're shit but we're not dumb enough to pay 65k p/w for 6 months for a player we can't use.

Uhh that describes Brierley as a striker. I thought he was a midfielder? If he's wrong about that basic info (I've no idea) then I wouldn't put too much stock in the rest. Edit - just had a closer look and it also says he's 17. I thought he was 19?? And yep, everything I can see online says he's a central midfielder aged 19. Doesn't appear to have played even one game up front.

He's facing the music, but it remains to be seen whether it's a light elevator jazz or screeching death metal.

I don't think so. Only talked about the Rochdale lad I believe, saying we are still going to sign him for what was agreed. Which is also a little mad as I believe he is out of contract in the summer so would be free. However, 80k is a lot to a club like them and very little to a club like us, so it's a case of being ethical, slightly repairing our reputation, and ensuring we still get the deal sorted in advance of the next window rather than another club jumping in.

Especially if it involved any criticism of the EFL themselves.

I know, that's why I followed up my post to basically say it fell through. The poster I initially quoted implied it was abandoned in favour of LOB.

Because he's not a legal expert and could phrase something in a way that could be misconstrued if quoted in the appeal. It's common to not go into details publicly before a legal case for this kind of reason. I would also imagine those details do involve things that cast us in a bad light however you phrase them, things they might not mention in the appeal (like Sylvester fell asleep with his thumb up his arse so they couldn't get him to sign anything) but until we find out specifically what happened, I can only speculate. If we don't get the details after the appeal is done, then I'll agree it's to save face.

In fact I'll follow that up, I just read the comments back. He talked about Lewis O'Brien and then said "At the same time we are dealing with a striker who we were still waiting on the club to make a decision on so those two things are live." So we were looking to do both deals, not one or the other. And we were waiting on another club to make a decision. They obviously decided no.

Well not everything is lucky or unlucky. Some things are just standard business with no luck involved. Some things are incompetence, or skill. I think the skill is in short supply here though, when it comes to the administrative stuff...

Yeh that comment I heard. It should have been followed up on, but I assume it just went the way of the Kone and Undav deals, rather than it was abandoned in order to pursue LOB. It would be moronic to do the latter.

On the first quoted para, good point that if they were heading to Brockhall anyway it might make more sense to do it there...all I can think is the facilities may be better in Manchester, and that we don't have a club doctor anymore (I think that's right anyway). I don't know exactly what's involved in a medical or whether you need a doctor rather than a physio to conduct it. On the second para, the bigger question for me is why we even agreed the match for Tuesday night. It didn't enable TV coverage, it was 3 days after the last game and yet 5 days until the next game after, and most of all, it was on bastarding deadline day. Numerous fans on this forum identified that it seemed stupid, so why can't professionals in the industry? The very least they could do if they insisted on that day for some reason was make sure that ALL staff who might have even the least bit involvement in transfers, apart from the manager, stay at fucking home.

I think tempers are high, and some people are letting emotion override reason and the ability to view things from multiple angles. Some people are running with anything that sounds like a defence of the club on even a small point, and assuming the poster is defending the fuckery of the last few days. Which almost nobody is doing. I hope posters manage to remain respectful, because we're all in the same boat and it has a big fucking hole in it.

Only because they haven't seen the whole sad tapestry of ineptitude that has been the last decade+ at Rovers.

Has he said that, that we ignored the striker target in order to pursue O'Brien? That's fucking idiotic if so. Not seen that comment from him so far though.

O'Brien didn't get them there. He got Huddersfield to the playoffs. Forest bought him as part of their 'clear the decks, replace the lads who got us there with better and splashed the cash' approach. Then within 6 months decided they don't need him. They also let him finish his training session before asking him if he wanted to move, for some bizarre reason. It is of course, primarily (and by some way) still our fault. I just think they're being a tiny bit hypocritical by saying they care about the lad and haven't done anything wrong. But they're not my problem, the shambolic operation at Ewood is.

Dunno why any of that was directed at me (quoted my post anyway). I know we messed it up, I used the term cockup in the same post you quoted. Doesn't mean I won't continue to look at things with balance. And I certainly don't feel sorry for him. As you say, although LOB would have been an excellent signing, the position wasn't the priority, striker was. I get that targets fall away and you can't control it, but we have needed a good striker signing for both the windows GB has overseen, and all we have mustered was Hirst, who was dogshit and is now gone. It ain't good enough however you slice it. The only thing in GB's favour in that regard is he hasn't been here all that long and there is probably a fair bit of work to sort out our shambolic recruitment. By this window though, I expected him to have been getting to grips with that. I know we have financial constraints too, but there ARE cheap gems out there, there always are. The problem is it takes skill to source them, and our recruitment department in general must still lack that. Between now and the next window, that should be where our recruitment focuses...on finding better recruitment staff! And of course a free agent striker of reasonable ability wouldn't go amiss.

What other clubs are impressed with the honesty and interview? Where are you getting that from?

Yeh, people in senior positions can't wait to throw themselves under the bus. He's not dropping breadcrumbs to try and get himself sacked, he's just explaining what the day entailed. He probably only mentioned it to try show we were taking care of the player (as the overall cockup certainly wasn't taking care of him) and that various things go into a deadline day. When he said there were things outside of our control, I hardly think he means he intends to submit in the EFL appeal that the waiting service took too long. Whilst I'm on the topic of these things allegedly outside of our control...I do understand why he isn't talking about them yet, and agree. It could damage the appeal (hell, I think the interview already did that, by acknowledging we shoulder some of the blame and that he takes full responsibility). However, once the appeal is inevitably rejected, we sure as shit better hear what these supposed factors were. The local journos better not forget to follow up.

Yep, sounds pretty pissed off at us, and he's right to be. That said, I think he's foolish to assert it isn't their fault whatsoever. It's at least 90% ours, probably more like 95% or more, but why would you keep your player in training when an offer has come in on deadline day that he needs to decide on, and travel, do a medical and sign forms?

And I think you're reading into it what you want to. Why would anybody, and I do mean anybody, be stupid enough to go and have a sitdown meal a couple of hours before the deadline when they still need to travel? Extremely unlikely it was something like that. Eating from lunchtime to 8.30pm? Wtf are you talking about? He was in Nottingham at lunchtime...they only got the memo that the wanted to join us at 1.30/2pm. Then obviously he had to travel to Manchester, and do a medical. Stop making things up. He made a passing reference to making sure the lad had some food in his belly, you're trumping it up into something it's very unlikely to be. The whole process has been enough of a fuckup, there isn't any need to fabricate things in order to criticise it.

Interesting. Take whatever we were paying for 6 months of O'Brien and slap it on top of BBD's contract offer. Unlikely to make any difference but might as well try.