bluebruce

Absolutely. I actually suspect one of our current squad is, though I'm not going to say who and it's only a hunch. But there's a fair chance statistically that amongst our senior and youth teams right now, one or more will be gay.

Thanks as always for sharing what you know. But these two statements seem incompatible? I'm confused how they can never refuse to sign a cheque, yet turn off the taps and require a player sale to buy players. Even if the reason was to avoid FFP rather than not wanting to part with money, that still sounds like not signing a cheque. And was still a bizarre decision (though, bizarre decisions are their forte), as we had a real opportunity to earn the mega money of the Prem and make FFP irrelevant for a while. Even if we had spent a bit more (but not too crazy, say 4-5 million) there is the likely BBD sale in the summer to largely offset it.

No, pitch costs are exempt from FFP.

Feels like back injuries have been unusually common too?

Am I imagining things or do we seem to get a disproportionate amount of injuries all through the club, even at youth levels, which I thought would be rarer? Maybe it's just more common for young players than I think, or it's actually not happening here as much as I think, but I know until I was 19 I never had a single injury (then I became a total Vince Grella ever since lol) and not many of my teammates would either, especially longer term stuff. Granted these lads will put their bodies under more strain than we did, but it seems a lot for young lads who have been used to a fair bit of training for years. We've had 16 year old Ash Phillips miss seemingly about half this season, Butterworth and JRC both had a lot of serious injury issues when they were in the youth team, and it was reading the LT article just now about how Whitehall (who I've considered promising in the past) and Saadi are being offered new deals but due to injury made 0 and 16 appearances respectively for the u23s this season. Obviously the first team had a lot of issues too in recent years. Obviously some injuries will always happen, I just wonder if there is something in our training methods or facilities that is contributing to the frequency of it.

Still not learnt, if that's the case. Tbh I suspect it's exactly because we don't have a manager that this decision has been taken. Thin squad, they have played senior games for us, and who knows if the new guy will like the look of them? I think it's a 'just in case' kind of thing. Magloire should definitely have been released. Butterworth I can see some logic to keeping based on past promise, but personally I'd have released him. Don't think he has the right mentality or the fitness.

It's not weird in the slightest. Players that can play successfully with men at 16 are very few and far between. Of course there are examples, there's examples of nearly anything. That doesn't mean this one will be one of the exceptions. It should be taken into account that it could potentially be too much too soon in this case. The mental effect on such a young lad if he doesn't adjust well under that pressure, and the physical effect on a player who has had injury issues already, should also be considered. As far as I've seen, nobody is saying there's no way he can play in the first team yet. I may be wrong but I've not spotted such a remark. People are merely advising caution, and not to rely on him as a CB option for our first team when counting our squad depth. If he breaks through this year, and he very well may, that's fantastic. If we throw him in, and he sinks, and we didn't recruit a tried and tested CB because we assumed he would be good enough, or if he just has injury issues again, we're going to be feel very foolish. For the record, I do want him introduced this season, but very much on a test-the-water basis at first. Played in some friendlies, named on some benches, played in the cups, and if he impresses see if we can bring him along further. In fact I was hoping, and I think the club were too, that he would get his debut this season just gone. I think the injuries are what put paid to that.

Apart from Elliott - who was evidently special from day one and had been bought at 16 for millions - the only other 16/17 yr old I can recall us loaning in was Rekeem Harper. That was in League One, and he was shite for us.

But his age is 16.

Fair enough, I could have been thinking of Pears' fee. Now you've said this, 150k is in my head. Undisclosed transfers annoy me. I feel like the stakeholders deserve to know what's spent, but that's a whole other discussion. Tbf, Goddard was highly rated when we snapped him up from Man City. I haven't heard about him having shite games, and that in itself isn't bad for an 18 year old in the u23s who doesn't even get to play regularly enough to find the rhythm. I agree the rotation is daft though, at least one of them should have been found a non-league loan if at all possible. Did Raya no harm. We have Pears, Stergiakis, Eastham, Dowling, Hilton and Goddard all on the books and 18 or older. Surely that's very excessive for young keepers and there really isn't room in the first and second teams for all of them. I think they're all under contract anyway, I'm sure someone will correct me if not.

Steve Kean resigned because of fan pressure, Venkys didn't even can him.

Not a clue really. His highlights reel (I know) had some very impressive saves, we paid something like 2-300k for him, and at a young age he had already played 75 pro games, plus a few for Greece u21s, turned down Roma and Olympiakos in favour of regular football and been nominated for the Golden Boy (best young player in Europe) so I think a lot of us thought he was going to be our number 2. Then 10 days later, Mowbray signed his mate's son, who we know is piss poor (though tbf, had played at this level for Boro) and the lad hasn't had a look in. He doesn't seem to have consistently impressed onlookers in the u23s and gets rotated with the other young keepers. I can imagine it being a bit dispiriting for a lad who has turned down big moves before to play regularly, that we almost immediately brought in another number 2. Needs to pick himself up and fulfil his potential or unlikely to make it here.

Greek keeper, Stergiakis, isn't 'gone or out of contract'. His deal runs til next summer and then has a one year extension option.

It's at least as likely, probably more, that we get a crap manager. Oh good thing we don't play any games, let alone the most intensive part of our season, in the winter then. Oh wait...

Why are you so sure? Why are you so sure? And yes Wharton is ahead of Carter for now.

Lenihan might not be here and Ayala is a sick note. You also don't have to be a starter to get game time. I feel like you didn't read my post apart from the bit you quoted as I already addressed all of this.

Why won't he get that here? For starters he has had some game time here before so he's already on the cusp. And as things stand we may have just injury-prone and old Ayala, with Wharton as our CBs next season. Given Ayala's track record (and Wharton's to a degree) that would mean Carter playing in the majority of games. We may even want to play 3 CBs again. Even if Lenihan stays or we sign another CB, there's a solid chance Carter can improve markedly on his previous number of appearances. He has also covered at RB on occasion, for us and I think for Pompey. If he's good enough or going to be, he'll likely break through fully this season. Why would he suddenly be more eligible for game time in our first team after a season of repeating what he did at Pompey and Burton? The same question marks will remain until he is given a run in our first team. To me it's simple - unless the new manager doesn't fancy using him or we end up signing a bunch of CBs we probably don't have the budget for, he stays until at least January when we reassess. On a related note, if we never kept young players at the club on the basis of them not having broken through as regulars yet, nobody would break through.

Let's not do that, and it isn't on our side if we loan him out for one of those two years. On the first point, it saves us bringing in a squad CB in a summer where we already have a ton of work to do, and he may be close to a breakthrough, having already 'completed' League One twice. As you say, he has performed at a higher league level than Wharton had before he came through here. On the second point, sending him on loan for a season will leave us with one year left on his deal. As we should absolutely know by now, that's a dangerous point to let someone's deal reach. It would mean if he broke through successfully in his one remaining season with us, he would either leave for a free at the end of it (would be above compensation age) or be able to put us under a lot of pressure to inflate his wages. If he does leave for a free after a good season next season, our entire time developing him will essentially amount to the equivalent of having loaned a PL youngster to develop for someone else. Yeh he has played a few games for us before too, but meh. It's time to see if he can hack it here properly. Squad role at first, and if he impresses enough he breaks through like Wharton did.

Spent half of last season injured and has yet to play a professional game. Letting Carter go on the assumption he will come through would be inordinately risky. I appreciate you didn't say that, it's just inferred a bit from the post you chose to quote when saying this. Not that I disagree, we should be looking to bring him through, but this should be in a fringe capacity until he shows he is ready. Sub appearances, cup appearances, and some starts if he shows enough in those. He is already contracted for 3 years, which begins when he turns 17. Hopefully includes our usual one-year option too. For now, Carter must be considered ahead of him in the pecking order with the experience from his loans and playing in our first team. Selling Carter for 500k at this stage would be idiotic. I can only hope Portsmouth are just stabbing in the dark with that figure and haven't had any encouragement. I get the feeling Carter is turning into our next Wharton, hell his loans were a league higher than any of the ones Wharton got and he has impressed both times. We are short in that area, especially if Lenihan leaves. It would then just be injury-prone, ageing Ayala and Wharton. We're going to need to bring in one, arguably two (if we stay with 3 CBs under the new boss) CBs as it is even if Carter stays. 500k wouldn't go very far even if we got it all back to reinvest (spoiler alert, we wouldn't) and a replacement worth their salt would probably be senior and earning more in wages.

I hope we're not going to find out.

Sadly still needed as there are enough of those bell ends to make homosexuality something a lot of people feel they need to hide. I was in a musical recently and near the end of rehearsals the lead actor came out as bisexual. I was very saddened to hear him tell me his family were not supportive about it at all, and even his mum was quite nasty about it. He lives with her too, so that's extra awkward. Hopefully we reach a day when coming out is really just a formality of sorts, then not too long after that it stops being necessary at all, as genuinely nobody cares unless they're attracted to you. Probably still a way off, but progress has been made, in the West anyway. There is still enough of an undercurrent of homophobia that we haven't had an English player come out since 1990. There have been countless thousands of men playing in England since then, there will have been hundreds and hundreds who were gay but didn't feel the environment was safe enough to say it, and that's damning.

Hmm, I wonder what it was about last year's record-setting death spiral that could have made them unhappy?

Wow. Just wow. I shouldn't even need to explain how ridiculous that is.

He says he has turned down much more lucrative offers whilst at Braga, so it may just be that they haven't offered him what he has found he can get in the open market. Rather than something already being lined up.

That's actually a hilarious read. I'm on the third part and he's signed Richie Smallwood. 'Richie Smallwood doesn’t even have time to get a match rating, but still gets a yellow.' He seems very happy with him. 'Richie Smallwood is booked on his debut. The fans will come to hate his performances, which usually consist of him being subbed on, fouling the opposition, and getting a 6.4 match rating. He is my Granit Xhaka.' There are far funnier bits in there, but obviously I'm focussed on the ex-Rover. The last version of FM I played was the same one he seems to be using. Not surprised he went for Lenihan, who for me became a liability by getting booked and sent off far too often. But was still a part of my Premiership title-winning squad (as a rotation player and to fulfil homegrown requirements, but he could hold his own and developed a great partnership with Tosin, who was very good for me and got England call-ups.)