Just think if he had impressed more he should have been in the u23s.

So what?

They're the same age. But one is playing in the u23s and one in the u18s. The former is clearly ahead of the latter, at the same age, yet we have given more security to the latter. It doesn't make sense on the surface.

Another weirdly short contract, this time for Burns. 18, been in the u23s this season, scored 7 in his last 11 I think it is. One year deal with a one year option. Meanwhile, Alex Baker, 18, been in the u18s this season, guaranteed 2 year deal.

Need to crack on though as next year that will be the situation.

Been thinking he might end up at Brentford. They would suit him much better, although their scouts may raise question marks over his consistency. Be interesting to see if that changed in a different system though.

It was better. 'Much' better is maybe a stretch. It was decent apart from the core weaknesses. The terrible two in central midfield, and for much of the time, like today, a flimsy defence. It was briefly solid in the centre of defence at least, but then we promptly lost Hanley and Duffy. I can't recall if that was before or after Cairney left. Cairney wide was a criminal misuse of a player by shunting them wide. TM would have been proud of it. He was actually more effective even there than the current incumbents though. Was fuming when we sold him on the cheap.

Oh and I think it was this thread where somebody said Arma's 28 goals in the league was hardly exceptional or something like that. It happens to be the joint 4th most goals anybody has scored in a Championship season ever.

Could be, although that's on the assumption that there is only really a market for one Championship striker to be bought by a Prem club this summer. Looking at it another way, if Toney was to move for silly money, we would be in our rights to argue that Armstrong should also move for a lot (obviously we've weakened our position with this one year left on his deal thing, unless we have another 1 year extension clause up our sleeves, but a generally comparable player moving for say 35 million should strengthen our hand)

No 30 year old injured CBs please. Got stung on that already last summer.

Another article on Chapman, lancs live seem to have verified it too with a club source if I'm reading it right. I'm now wondering if he had to have played a certain amount of games for us this season or we had to activate it by a certain point or something and nobody remembered that part of the clause. Including his agent, which would be odd. https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/blackburn-rovers-chapman-contract-situation-20612928?fbclid=IwAR1V-EUqkYUoOktGz95DKjNom7g9aAq6mmmcWyYjixFav_FmRg0ZRgFepLQ

Uncle Tony knows, he knows all about the kids and how good they are, so he ignored the excellent opportunities for the rest of us mere peons to see. God I'm really starting to hate this man.

Oh they're terrible at it, and ignore us as soon as its convenient. But if there's one thing that has marked the coventrio era, it's spin.

The LT have previously said there is. Mowbray has said there is, Chapman has said there is. It also makes sense given how short his initial deal was (2.5 years), the age he was, the supposedly 500k ish I believe we were meant to have paid, our love of 1-year extensions and with Mowbray clearly having seen him as one to develop rather than an immediate starter. I'm pretty sure the clause is real. Perhaps what Sharpe has been told is we haven't activated it and have offered him a new deal instead. Potentially this may have been done so that someone comes in for him but has to pay a tribunal fee. Maybe we feel we will sneak out more for him this way, as the tribunal might consider what we paid for him initially. League One suitors won't be intentionally paying in the 500k range, but since the fee was undisclosed they might get taken by surprise in what they're ordered to pay? Just a thought. Or it could be so we can turn around and say 'we tried to keep Harry but his deal was up'. They seemingly only bought him cos of fan pressure so I can see them spinning the optics.

Funnily enough, the playing style described is similar to what we attempt, and we looked good using it at the start of the season. Our problems are numerous though, including our lack of movement, incision, directness and ruthlessness when we win the ball in our own half (or in the centre but with a few bodies to beat). That and having assembled personnel that largely don't suit it and are played out of position. Oh and our absolute lack of spine at the back. And our thoroughly uninspiring manager.

I reckon we are about a month from announcing season ticket prices under this shitshow. As for the letter this thread is about, well sorry to the writers of it, you've clearly put time and effort in, but it isn't very good. Amongst other things I won't go into, it's just unfathomable to write such a lengthy open letter to the owners right now and not ask for the dismissal of Mowbray or Waggott. Especially frustrating as this seems to be the most publicity fan views have been given in a long time, so an absolutely wasted opportunity. Spending that energy and opportunity on asking shit owners that make lethargic decisions to stop being shit owners who make lethargic decisions, when they've fired chief execs for questioning them before, is absolutely pointless. You might as well write to TM and ask him to stop playing strikers on the wing and over-obsessing over possession.

Sorry to quote so many of you, but I think there has been an awful lot of misreading of the tweet (or accepting the paraphrased version which I don't believe to be accurate). I'm fairly sure that Sharpe is referring to his own, and possibly the fans', expectations, or just all around expectations (his, fans', manager, staff, owners, the bookies, whoever). They ask him what his predictions are for next season, and he answers that he doesn't think expectations will be the same. He doesn't reference the owners at that point, but they're spoken about in the questions either side of that one, which has probably led to the confusion. The fact he first says we will see what the summer brings, suggests to me that the expectations in question depend partly on our summer business. If it were the owners' expectations, those shouldn't change regardless of how cleverly we move, as they'd set a budget in line with a goal and expect that goal met from that budget. He also only says 'I don't think' in regards to it. He is only speculating, and I don't believe he is talking about the owners (or at least not entirely), so we should probably stop talking as though this is a direct line on the owners' expectations, because it is probably neither of those things.

RS is Rich Sharpe. LT reporter.

That's a waste of nasal evolution. The rest of us can smell his bullshit from miles away.

How many times have we gone on to do better the next season though? I can't hark back past the 90s for personal experience, but the times since then have been very few and far between.

Was that not before the retained list came out?

Have there been journos saying we are keeping him on? We already said on our retained list he is leaving.

You can already play senior players in the u23s. If I'm remembering rightly, you can play up to 3 players who are over 23. We just seldom do it, except when someone is returning from a long injury layoff.

It is outstanding. As roversfan99 said, take out the penalties for all of them and he tops the league for goals scored from open play. How is that not outstanding? Whether he is a PL striker is irrelevant (though, he is for me...he won't notch 28 up there but he is an average or bottom half Prem level player for me) as we aren't in the PL. If you'd consider 10 mill for a player who just scored as many as he did a laughably great deal, I'm glad you're not in charge. And given who we have in charge, that's saying something. Properly contracted English players with pace and that many goals are worth closer to triple that. Thought Dolan did fine in that role but I don't think we can expect that every week from him yet and there are other places he can play. I compared those two because they are the alternatives and there is zero evidence they could hit even half those goals. Wide they may be, but Brereton fluffs more chances than Arma, and though Gally should be given a chance there when Arma is out (and actually has been on occasion), he is a very long way from proving he can do the business there. The point was simple, that we have no proven source of goals without him. Nobody honestly believes either of those could get close to his figures. That's a much bigger problem than Rothwell not being there to make 1 or 2 barnstorming runs a game on average, 90% of which lead to nothing.

Would be the right thing to do (from the owners) if it weren't for FFP. Sadly the owners have the convenient excuse of needing to cut our cloth accordingly because of it. What happened to Sheff Wednesday shows that trying to find a way around it is a risk these days.