I'm pretty sure we have all given it a rest and moved on, please don't reinitiate it.

We shouldn't have sold either player for what we sold them for, we had our trousers pulled down, but the Brentford promotion is reputed to have earned us an extra 2 million, not a 'few hundred grand'.

I mentioned continental competition a few times, I just put title winning under that without referring to it explicitly because I was already talking a lot and it shows under the same table as qualifying for continental competition. I didn't know there was something about promoted sides, didn't see that. I saw mention of domestic cup minutes in the preamble, but didn't see the specifics of how it works (it's a large document) nor a table for it like the other scoring. Since I was just trying to present which are the most reliable markets - ones where most regular starters for all teams in that league will qualify - I tried to leave all that other stuff out for the most part. Yes regulars from top sides in Band 4 leagues will also qualify if their team finished as expected etc, but often those players would also be beyond our likely grasp. I don't think we could shop for a Galatasaray regular anymore, generally. I don't know quite how international scouting is structured to know whether it's worth keeping tabs on a handful of clubs in each Band 4 and below league, versus watching a whole league. The calculator is handy though, I was thinking whilst writing that, for the sake of scouts, a database of eligibility is something someone should do. A calculator is the next best thing, and cheaper.

Agree, I think he went there for that reason too. I've just had a proper look through the full regs on the FA site. I was writing a detailed explanation of the system as I went, but as I've gone further down I've noticed more ways to get points that contradicted what I was writing. It's a complicated system, and I do think Kaminski would have qualified comfortably after all (I make it 10 points for being in a Band 2 club and playing at all, another 10 points for playing 90-100% of the minutes for a Band 2 club, plus some other points for European qualification and playing in Europe etc, and you need 15, so he's more than 5 points over...if I'm understanding it right), so I retract my earlier comment on that and how difficult it would be overall. It's the added points earned for playing at least one game that I had missed. The regs are complicated enough that I think it's why the reports I've read on it haven't explained it clearly, and this in itself might cause issues for our scouts at times, checking the detailed criteria for whether the player even qualifies in order to know if it's worth scouting him, or not being sure a player will qualify until the season is over (waiting on their club's league position, how many games they play etc) which could waste some scouting time. On reflection I think it isn't as bad as I thought before (again, depending on if I'm interpreting these regs correctly), but it will certainly make some lesser leagues virtually worthless to scout, and I think the regulation complications may cause our network to be a bit less efficient than it would otherwise be, for reasons stated above. Band 1 - Germany, Italy, Spain, France, England (top tiers only) Band 2 - Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey (top tiers only) England (second tier, including England just for completeness) Band 3 - Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Scotland (lol) (top tiers only) Band 4 - Czech, Croatia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Greece, Columbia, USA, Australia (top tiers only) Germany, Spain, France (second tiers only...not sure where Serie B ranks, can't see it so it might be Band 6) Band 5 - Serbia, Denmark, Poland, Slovenia, Chile, Uruguay, China (top tiers only) Band 6 - everything else If you play 90-100% of minutes (not games, minutes) for a team in the bands, before anything else is met you earn: Band 1 - 24 points Band 2 - 20 points Band 3 - 16 points Band 4 - 12 points Band 5 - 8 points Band 6 - 4 points As you can see it's impossible to qualify in Band 4 unless you also have continental minutes, your club qualifies for continental competition or you have decent international game time (would have to be in a top 50 nation if that last one is the only extra you have). With the budget we have, we need bargains. Players who qualify easily from Band 1 are probably beyond us. Band 1 squad players who qualify probably are too, mostly. Players from Band 1 clubs who aren't named on a team sheet for them (youth players or loaned out) will struggle to qualify. Looking at all this it seems our best scouting markets (Europe only for now anyway) would be Bands 2 and 3: Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, Russia. Some of the clubs in those leagues might not really be worth trying to sign from, but regulars in most of the teams in them would hopefully be within budget and likely to meet the criteria if not injured or dropped. If you're looking at anyone from Band 4 or below, they're going to need to be an international (and the lower the club band the higher rank the international side would need to be, and/or more international minutes played) or from a club currently in or qualifying next season for European competitions. Or have a British passport. There are also points that can be earned in youth football, that looks complicated too and I won't go into it or read it all, but it looks possible to earn enough points that way (maybe with senior games added in), so we could do with someone keeping tabs on youth internationals and in youth continental competitions. So it's still a vastly reduced pool (5 nations and some top sides in the other leagues, and the occasional affordable international), but probably not 90% smaller as I initially thought. I do feel more relaxed about our chances of still landing the odd player through it after giving a thorough read, as long as we organise our efforts well. It is a problem though Chaddy, it's still harder than before and a smaller pool with more intense competition. I'd say you were about half right with the leagues we should scout, but Austria is Band 4 so probably not worth it. German top tier a bit beyond us, some of French top tier might be in range. Their second tiers are Band 4 and have no possibility of European qualification, won't be packing any top 50 regular internationals, so pretty much no point. (And yes everyone, I wrote a lot, I'm detail-oriented and type fast, spare me your pithy mockery)

I didn't say it did, did I? They generally have a pretty good grasp on what staff roles are though. Harvey was head of Player Analysis. That's not from the game, that's from news reports when he left. FM clearly decided the closest role they have to that is Chief Data Analyst. Whichever way you slice it, either role very likely relies on analysing data, my point being, we already had someone who was data focused enough as head of recruitment that they gave him a secondary role that appears to have included data analysis. The more I hear the more I suspect Harvey left because Mowbray ignored a lot of his best suggestions, but likely has an NDA preventing him talking about it. It will be interesting to see how Sunderland's recruitment goes compared to ours in the next couple years. Define 'plenty of players'. We can sign players with British passports, not many of those on the continent. We can sign players who have played a bit in the top 4 leagues, or played once but are internationals at a reasonable level or for a crap international side but play a lot (I think those would sometimes qualify anyway). Most of those will be out of reach. We can possibly sign some ever-present players from the second tier of leagues (Belgium, Holland top flight etc) but I think they'll need to be in European competition and/or internationals at a better level than the top tier leagues. And some of those will be out of reach. After that we are struggling I think. Certain leagues are no longer worth scouting at all really, other than possibly for regular internationals when it's a country in the fifa top 50. As one example, a player who played every game for Greece and every game for a club in the Greek top league, but a club who didn't qualify for Europe, would NOT meet the criteria. You keep acting like it's not a problem, but it is. Our realistic European pool just got a LOT smaller. To pull a figure entirely out of my arse, I'd guess it's about 10% of what it was before. Premiership teams, as ever, are barely affected. But even then, if you think of when we signed Nzonzi, or Samba, back when we had a real European scouting network, I'm pretty sure neither of them would have come close to qualifying.

When are we expecting Tony to first use the excuse of 'there won't be much movement in the market until the Euros are over' ? I'm gonna go for in the next 1-2 weeks.

It's not harsh at all. Whether intentional or not it was reckless beyond belief and he ended someone's season. His foot was very high. He absolutely clattered him.

🤣🤣 so, you wouldn't recommend him as next Rovers boss then?

Tbh it's grossly unfair to accuse Joe and Andy of derailing the thread (derailing the thread being a BRFCS summer transfer window tradition anyway, as discussions naturally flow to other semi-related topics). The thread was derailed by another Buckley discussion. Joe and Andy contributed to that discussion in their own way (whether that's your way or that of other posters is immaterial, it was relevant in its way to the discussion happening). It was then a joint, sustained effort to continue to derail along the lines of data use, spurred by people criticising the posts they made and the value of data in the game, which, as people whose careers seem to revolve in varying degrees around data use, they naturally defended. Which prompted more criticism, more defence, etc. Then you derailed it onto an even less relevant tangent with that post, then I continued that derailment with this post 😛. It's now starting to look like the Paddington crash up in here (too soon?).

I've heard he's a total machine, a real star, treks all over the pitch, but I know he'll never be Captain. Need to sign someone with a surname like Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Archer for that.

I assume Harvey was already pretty data-focused, he wasn't just head of recruitment he was also head of Player Analysis. Sounds data-related. I know on my FM game he starts as chief scout and chief data analyst as his secondary role.

You've both misunderstood me. Especially Chaddy, who I've already had this discussion with. I didn't say it was impossible Joe, I said there isn't all that much use in it for a club our size now. Not the same thing. Sure, we can still find some gems potentially but they just got a lot harder to get out of the mine and we weren't exactly ripping it up with European successes before were we? Didn't you post up what Kaminski's points would have been when we signed him and he came up short? Apologies if I'm misremembering and please correct me if so (maybe you said only just qualified), but if that's right then that's basically our only success from it so far and it would no longer be possible. That was a lad playing regularly in a decent enough league belonging to the world's number one ranked nation, in a side that just finished 2nd in it and had been in European competition that season. He was good enough to win our Player of the Year in his first season. If that doesn't cut the mustard anymore it's going to be very difficult outside of people with British passports on the continent. Only a few leagues earned better points than the top tier in Belgium when I looked at the points system - Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. I read that Mbuemo and Pukki wouldn't have qualified under the current rules. I know there are ways it's a lot easier to qualify, like being a regular in an international side in the top 50, but the point is our market is considerably reduced now, with probably just as much competition vying for the gems, and we have barely had anything from it before the restrictions.

That's the Head of European Scouting I believe. It already occurred to me that they might just bump him into the Head of Recruitment role after interviewing however many dozens of people applied, in another lazy jobs for the boys move. Especially now there isn't all that much use in European scouting for a club of our size with the Brexit rules.

I believe in the proper use of data in the game but I have to say roversfan99 is entirely right with the statement that data is useless on its own. For starters if it's on its own then nobody is using it so by definition it's useless. But less literally - if the person with all this data at their fingertips doesn't know what they're doing with it, how to interpret it usefully, how some data interacts with other data, which data is relevant and which is misleading...then yes it's useless. In fact it can be counter productive in the wrong hands. In the right hands, it's very valuable, can save you millions on players and can aid significantly in bringing success. For one thing, we are supposedly all about data now, but with the dinosaur in charge it hasn't got us anywhere. Meanwhile Barnsley have probably done it right judging by their far greater success with far more limited resources.

I'm always confused by this reading of what happened with Dolan early doors. The problem wasn't anything to do with Dolan, the problem was Mowbray brought in an even younger lad that we didn't own and played him instead, terrified to have them both playing at the same time on opposite flanks. That was what killed Dolan's momentum, hampered his confidence, and I more than suspect during his time out he was discouraged from playing with quite as freedom. You keep going with players who have built up momentum, especially very young ones. All sorts can happen to their mindset when you don't.

Why would Travis only just fit in there without injuries? He plays pretty much every game he is available and fit enough for.

Someone who can play both CB and LB to a decent level would be very handy. Assuming he can do both reasonably well, that is.

I have something rattling around in my head about a case where a club, possibly us or someone we were dealing with actually, made a case for a player's value in a player swap deal having been artificially deflated to skirt a sell on, and that they should pay more for the sell on. Course I can neither 1) Guarantee my mind hasn't fabricated this, nor 2) Remember how, if it happened, it turned out. Just thought it might trigger someone else's (better) memory if it was real.

His wiki reads a bit better than you're giving him credit for. Broke through at Leeds at what I make to be about 18. Their Young Player of the Year and third in Player of the Year that season. Next season was their Player of the Year (fans, players and local rag clean sweep), still aged about 20. Seems like he may have gone off the boil for a bit after to end up at Barnsley and then loaned to Oxford half a season later. Seems to have got him back on track though, and in the 19-20 season he was their Player of the Year. I don't know the player really but he sounds like he puts in a defensive shift? If so, the fact he has 8-9 goals in three of his full seasons at the age of 26 is fairly impressive for that type of midfielder. He could be a bit more box to box or all-action than I'm thinking though. And although you said excluding this season, it wouldn't be fair to ignore that he has just captained, been an integral part of and finished 2nd in player of the season for a club that were this season's biggest over-achievers by far. None of which matters as it doesn't seem at all likely to be one we will be able to pull off. But compared to some of the trash we have had in midfield, it seems a good punt on a free if we could.

Fucking hell, if he goes for 20 quid I'm going to jail for murdering all decision-makers at the club! 😉

I hope we do. I doubt we will be able to negotiate anything like Newcastle's, but if there's a valuation difference a sell-on could bridge the gap, and make it pan out longer term as less of a problem that we had to sell him for less than if he were fully contracted. I don't see us getting more than a 20% clause though.

Apart from that selling him before our first league game rather than a few days before the window shuts might be optimistic, it would only be history repeating really. It's quite common at other clubs tbf, the more the player costs (especially when that's high compared to what the other club/s want to pay) the more likely the buyer plays the waiting game until the selling club is under pressure (which builds more when the player has one year left on their deal) to bring the price down. I've never really expected an Armstrong sale to be wrapped up early doors tbh. And if it does drag on as I expect, I certainly expect the club to leak that he might be close to signing a new deal, to flush out buyers.

Unless they've just fallen out with him because of his behaviour (the drunken scrapping, removing that he was a Pompey player from his social media) and/or resigned themselves to him leaving a while ago so are lowering him to make themselves feel better about him going. I've seen that clearly happen with some of our fans at times. I'm not optimistic about Curtis from what I've seen and heard though.

I'm confused that you're confused by his confusion. He clearly stated he is confused, don't confuse the issue by being confused by that confusion, it's confusing!

Kaminski has a one-year extension in his. I doubt any of the others do. That's a far scarier loss of value than this summer's already concerning turnover. We best pray they don't need replacing under embargo, or this manager.