Carter needs to be playing more frequently than he did before we sent him on loan last season, or he's unlikely to develop (obviously he needs to impress enough in his games to keep his place though). Ayala's injury issues and 3 CBs would probably mean he had enough chances to shine. Sticking him at RB wouldn't be the worst against better attacking sides though when we need to be more cautious, you'd think he will be better defensively than Brittain and less likely to roam up and get caught out.

Ahh ok that's fairly savvy then. It's still a 10 million quid commitment plus whatever signing on fee he has, so I'm not sure it would pay for himself a whole 10 times over. Once you're already in the Prem, is the difference between one more season there and instant relegation really a whole 100 mill? Guess it might be, sure I read the parachute payments increase if you were up there for longer.

Yep, 200k a week is a whole, decent first XI in the Championship (which they must have forgotten they are probably favourites to return to) at just over 18k p/w per player. It's a damn sight more than our first XI will be on.

True, I really wouldn't want us to only loan a CB this summer though, think it's essential we get at least one in permanently, especially whilst there is money. Might be the only chance to spend a decent amount on a CB we ever get!!

Don't worry, I won't hold you to that...I'm sure others will though haha! Is that because Swag said 10 mill was left over from Armstrong in Jan that was barely touched? 800k for Markanday and Hedges would put it to 9.2, and didn't he say some of it would now be absorbed into the FFP shortfall? So personally I'd expect no more than 8 of that to be available at best (probably optimistic tbh given how much we like to swallow up unspent transfer funds). Or...we are spending some of the Brereton money in advance. Probably keep a mill or so of that free for loan fees like you say

What, as well as a CB in the 3 million ish range like we've been looking at?

Not how football usually works though.

True, although his main pre-existing knowledge will be of players with eligibility for Wales. Which I think he said was 3 or 5 percent of the players in England. Hopefully he has identified some gems from amongst those, but any he has are likely in one of the Wales squads already. He will have seen other players during scouting too, but he won't have focused on those so much. But you're right, anyone he really rates he will probably tell us right away, and will have time for a bit of communication with the club's recruitment team, so it shouldn't have a huge impact him starting late.

Only time will tell, but Wharton hasn't played at the San Siro for 90 mins in the CL. Or in fact played any senior games at all, despite being at Championship BRFC where it should be easier to get games than at Premiership and Champions League Liverpool. So for now I'd think Morton is further along in his development. He might be here for the holding role anyway, making his competition more Travis and Garrett than A. Wharton.

What I will say for Gus is I read (some of) the article someone posted of an interview with him, and he sounded like he knows his stuff and has a football brain. Hopefully that means he adapts well to club recruitment.

Odd comment from GB: "We wish to thank Dave Adams and the Board of the Welsh FA for allowing Gus to join us so promptly.” But he isn't joining us promptly? He's joining next month. It sounds like he is leaving at the end of his contract and therefore we have nothing to thank the Welsh FA for? Edit - Or could be a notice period as 1864 says above. Although that still doesn't sound like we need to thank the Welsh FA for any particular promptness.

Tbh slightly disappointing the Head of Recruitment has to wait until next month to arrive (which is vague...start of the month, end of the month?). We couldn't agree a compo package for a few weeks' wages? Would think the Welsh FA are in no rush with 'recruitment', meanwhile we are in the middle of a pivotal transfer window. It's already a bit late in the day to sort out our HoR, let alone it taking even longer. Then again, perhaps that's it - too late for him to have much impact so just let him start preparing for the next window. GB has Park's list, our database and whatever ideas of his own to go off. And I'll be honest again, I'm not sure about his CV for the role. Sounds like he has basically spent his career with the Welsh FA, and recruitment for a national team is a very different animal to recruitment for a club side. Then again I had the same reservation about us being Mark Hughes' first club team managed, and that turned out ok. Just think we have a few too many of the new management team trying their hand at something for the first time. DoF has no experience of being one. Manager has a couple of jobs under his belt but hasn't managed in England. Now a Head of Recruitment that hasn't recruited for clubs before (far as I know) and is joining very late. You can certainly get away with some inexperience if you have the quality, but for all three to be new to this in one sense or another is a slight concern for me. Hopefully it proves a non-issue.

Not necessarily close, but it was going on for a while at least, fair point.

New Head of Recruitment announced (the Welsh bloke): https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/july/22/welcome--gus-williams/?fbclid=IwAR0bq_BaYlEFUE4Xr-avBApIeoeDRg0VMBl29e403BzGjrNFQDaB7Xhrz6U

Wasn't the claim last week that it was close to done? That doesn't seem to have been the case.

Love Manure a little less eh?

About time someone went with mostly Rovers players!! The first list shamefully didn't include any, but had 3 Manure scum! Now take Schmeichel off your list, put Friedel in, wash your mouth out with soap, drop that loser Cafu for Salgado, drop that also-ran Sammer for the mighty Le Saux, and pat yourself on the back!

Styles isn't renowned for his defensive qualities. According to a Barnsley fan he played as a 'LWB' that was really a left midfielder he was so high up the pitch. Doubt he would shore us up at all in that role. What he is good at is attacking.

The LT said it was only aware of a bid in excess of 1 mill for Szmodics. This (possibly unreliable) site says 3 million has been rejected: https://punditarena.com/football/ronan-calvert/blackburn-rovers-transfer-sammie-szmodics-james-brown/ It's believed he cost P'boro just under 1 million, so Fry saying there have been bids 'way above' what they paid for him suggests it's closer to the 3 million claim than the 1 million. I'd be getting cold feet on this one at 3 million personally, let alone the higher fee we would need to reach. That's about what they got for the more highly-rated Dembele isn't it? They've been relegated since then... Has anybody seen a fair bit of this lad to say he would be worth over 3 million? It does clash a bit with what someone said about most of our budget going on a CB.

Despite how he has set up his teams formation-wise in the past, comments from him have indicated he doesn't think formation is the be-all-and-end-all (I can't remember the specific comments but they gave this impression) and that the only reason he hasn't played with 3 CBs or 3 mids (I forget which it was tbh) was because we don't have the numbers there yet. So I'm not expecting 4-2-3-1 too often personally, but if we do play that then I'd argue it reduces the need for CBs and for CMs and ramps up our need for attackers. However, very good point about the pressing game, which we know from comments we will see. It essentially becomes 3 games a week (as I've argued before and I'm not going over again!) at times and that's very demanding on the midfield and attack (and probably wingbacks if we use those) when they're using a high press. This doesn't affect the back three as much. I didn't factor this into my discussion with RF99, but it does shift the recruitment priority a bit more towards the midfield. From hearing that we are targeting 2 CBs and only one mid as well as managerial comments I still think we are more likely to field 3 CBs than 2. Course, we don't know, hell maybe JDT isn't even fully sure how it will pan out yet. It will be interesting to see! Agree I'd rather sell Ayala and replace him with somebody who is more likely to be fit most of the season and probably takes a smaller wage. I suspect Barnes is in our CB options until we sign one, then will probably go off on loan.

Great work having the meeting and giving us so much detail about it Glen. I don't want to sound ungrateful for that or like I'm criticising you, as I'm not, but I noticed some of these questions in particular didn't get answered. In the first quote you asked a terrific series of questions about the contract renewals, and really he has only answered one. You then put TBC after a brew, and I was hoping the rest of the questions were answered in the next part but you moved on to the next question. Was this an oversight due to writing so much and splitting it up, or did he really only answer that one out of the lot? In the second quote, I noted that he didn't answer whether he knew Honeyman, who still has clients at the club, was former MD of SEM Kentaro. I'd be interested in whether he did actually answer that, as it does seem relevant to me that someone involved with the prior stink of corruption still has their claws in Rovers players.

Seems to me that this was simply the Rothwell money. Reports ranged from it being about 3 million to 4.5 million (I think I even saw someone the other day claim it was 6 but that seems far fetched). Mowbray publicly stated we had two players lined up to replace him but the Rothwell sale wasn't approved so we couldn't do it. The numbers tally very well for it being these two.

The worry in the back of my mind is....that is the plan, it has been put into action, and we are spending it in advance.

That's not really what I was saying. Obviously being bobbins isn't a requirement. What I was saying is, there are three categories of players broadly speaking. More age groups than anything else. The young uns, who are often untested, or if they're experienced are pretty damned expensive. Established players. And players with loads of experience, generally 30+ and generally not good assets to buy unless you're already tooled up, have money, and need an extra push to get you over the line. You don't seem to be a fan of young, untested players, hence us having this discussion, so I assume us signing some 19 year old from another team's academy wouldn't suit your needs. You do seem to quite like your old grizzled slow vets, as I've seen you praise Johnson a fair few times, so I may have assumed wrong with the other post in that regard and you'd in fact like us to sign some old fart (who I would probably consider bobbins if they're like Johnson, and would almost certainly cost a fair bit in wages to barely feature). I wouldn't want to sign such a player, generally speaking. My point was though, the experienced but not past their peak players mostly fit into two categories - too expensive for this kind of squad role, or too bobbins to be a definite improvement on two very promising youngsters, or worth reducing their opportunities to appear. You don't really find many decent mid-20s players with Championship experience available for loan at a reasonable price. I suppose essentially I'm asking you, what sort of profile of player do you see us being able to sign or loan for a 2nd CM recruitment this summer? Not asking you to name a player or anything, just what sort of age, experience, quality are you really expecting we could manage for that position on our limited budget? As personally I can't think of a 'type' that would be appealing. Not saying they're physically not out there mind. Thinking about it, we've talked about loans too, which I'm not against for a 2nd CM if the budget covers it...and maybe we can get someone who has already had a season out in the Championship, but quite often we're looking at someone with about the same experience as Garrett and Wharton have. If it is someone who has had a year in the Championship, they're probably looking to feature more than being 4th choice in our 3 (or even 2 potentially) man midfield. If they're not, then they probably bombed at their prior stint in this league.

Buckley was fit for most of the season too. Not sure it's luck, rather than Buckley and Trav just not being that injury prone. Travis has been known to be out for a couple of months before though. Agree midfield was an issue whenever one of our main three weren't available, when we used three in the middle anyway. Less so when using 2, which is always an option. I think that affects the team less than switching from a back 5 to a back 4, as all you really need to do is drop an attacker (Dack ideally) a bit further back until someone is back. It's not really 'a reasonable role with immediate effect'. It's a reasonable role if somebody gets injured. It's even possible to go the whole season with this almost never happening to the whole midfield 3. If that happened, Edun and this new midfielder would mean Wharton and Garrett got almost, or perhaps actually, no game time at all. 'When they're ready and if they're good enough' well what if they're ready and good enough now? Whether we can afford 2 does matter though, indeed before whether we need 2. We seem to be willing to pay I would guess about 2 million to land Styles. If the budget doesn't stretch to a second, one option is to not sign Styles, and spread it over 2 CMs the club wants less, which I'd consider quality dilution. Of course, you're more talking about not getting a second CB, and I refer to my previous comments on that. Agree Carter has proven himself a bit more than the two young mids, but he's also further up the pecking order for that position once we assume a CM and a CB bought and Ayala out for his usual 2/3 of the season. After that it's kids with actually less experience than Garrett and Wharton (Phillips, barely even played u23s). In fact assuming 3 CB and 3 mids it's only 5 players for 3 positions total in CB (Ayala, Wharton, new guy, Carter, Phillips) vs 6 in CM (Buckley, Travis, new guy, Edun, Wharton, Garrett). With more injury record amongst the CBs than the mids.