I'm sure a significant portion of their thinking is that they will weaken a promotion rival though. They also seem to be trying to buy more than just Rothwell.

You have missed something. Mowbray has already said Hedges is not Rothwell's replacement.

I'm not interested in how good a stripper he is.

In fairness, players of Rothwell's style are rare beasts. I'd settle for someone of overall similar ability (or better/more consistent) and with an attacking mindset. Ideally with a bit of money left over to fill other trouble spots.

Fee agreed apparently but he hasn't officially moved yet. 2 days ago Birmingham were said to be making their third bid for him, 1.5 mill. Article same day said Birmingham's bid was higher than Bournemouth's, but the player wasn't interested. So although theyve presumably made a higher bid since, it sounds like they're not paying much given how highly he seems to be rather. Also may be a case of Bournemouth making lower bids than other clubs were willing to make, to get star players from teams who have a lot on the line.

Eh? Waggott said publicly the contract offers were no longer available? Not so sure about that, I'm sure we would have heard. It would also be stupid.

I disagree it has been well handled because of two things. Rothwell should have been forced to hand an official request in, to lose his bonus, and we should have told Bournemouth the price for them is a lot higher than the price for a team we aren't competing with.

If I were in charge at Rovers, the only thing that would do is get the deal cancelled if I couldn't get a replacement through. Course if I were in charge there's no way we would be selling a key player for 3 mill to a rival for promotion at this stage of the game. No way whatsoever.

Great post. Too many people soullessly seek money. That's understandable when you barely have any but a bit sad when you have plenty.

Stop comparing normal jobs to ones where the person is already being paid exceedingly well and is potentially jeopardising the prospects of all of his teammates.

Saw an article before that said Bournemouth have agreed a fee for Dembele, rumoured by some to be our Rothwell replacement. Don't they already have quite a lot of attackers? If that's true, I don't think Bournemouth are really interested in Joe Rothwell at all, they just wanted to unsettle us. Previously I just wanted to get promoted and didn't have any feelings one way or the other about who else went up. Now I really hope Bournemouth stay down here for the foreseeable. Fuck them.

Unless it's 7 million of add ons, I couldn't give a shit.

I will be absolutely fucking furious with that. I wouldn't sell for 3 million to a team that don't directly compete with us, let alone to the main fucking team we are competing with right now!!! If Mowbray forces the owners to accept that he has gone right back to being a fucking moron. Better have an exceptional replacement lined up.

If the LT article is accurate, this saga should basically be over immediately. He isn't interested in Chicago Fire, and there is absolutely no way we should sell anyone to a direct promotion rival for anything less than absolutely ludicrous money (I'd put it at 10+ million in this case frankly, which won't happen). Tell him it's not happening and he can either man up and give his all, or sabotage the quality of the move he will get in the summer.

Well, look how quickly opinion has changed on wanting Rothwell to stay. And they've had months of knowing Hedges wanted out.

(From the video, not a regular watcher of him) Turns fantastically well, which could be useful for starting counter attacks. Good close control, first touch and a bit of flair. Guessing he has an inconsistent side, or would probably be beyond our reach. Meant to have cost them around 3.5 million from Liverpool.

Nah nah, that's how you get our goalkeeper booked.

That's not individual fans being fickle though unless the same fan does the same thing. It's just the people who rate him praising him whilst he's doing well, and the people who don't staying quiet. Then they pipe up when he wants out.

Disagree, if we are selling for 6 million I'd rather pay for a proven replacement and use the loans for the areas we already needed to fill, unless there's enough money left to buy there too. We want players who will feel incentivised to get promotion, and that's more likely from ones we own. We are also in a unique position to get better permanent players than we will be if we don't make promotion. But we do have loan spots yes. The limit on loanees is 5 in the matchday squad. We can have far more in total. So Poveda basically doesn't count. We currently have Khadra, Zeefuik and Van Hecke, so really we have 2 loanee spots available with the capacity to field all of them on matchday. Poveda might become available near the end of the season, but if there are 5 loanees ahead of him at that point it's Leeds' problem.

You don't pay the player's remaining wages though when they leave without a transfer request. You pay their 'loyalty bonus' out (or what's left of it if it's the type that gets paid gradually the longer you are 'loyal'). But you're right it's more cowardly/greedy still to do it that way. I'd insist he puts a formal request in. He will do it if he wants out that badly.

Even with Premiership money on hand, it seems very odd for them to want to pay 6 million for him. He will be free in 6 months (plus will have shown whether he can stay consistent by then). It's not like they're really in the relegation fight or challenging for Europe, so it seems a bit wasteful from a cleverly ran club. I suppose if we went up there's a chance he wouldn't be available for free, but if we don't, well his agent clearly isn't letting him sign our offer if so much more is on the table.

Sorry but how does that help us? He's already here, and plays in a different position to Joe, so doesn't help us short term, plus he will be going back at the end of the season so doesn't help us long term. If Rothwell leaves he absolutely must be replaced.

We aren't realistically going to finish above them. But I still can't help but check their scores...

An acceptable result with so many important players unavailable. Just a pity about most of the other results.