bluebruce

Not sure why nobody is talking about it (in here anyway) but we are meant to be close to appointing John Park as head of recruitment. Actually sounds like a good appointment for a change. Discovered Virgil Van Dijk.

Well, there are a lot overall, but in relative terms very few.

Frankly, I think they should. Yes his contract is running down but that's not much use to a club if a different club doesn't buy him. For me he is comfortably worth 25 million fully contracted. I'm surprised the interested parties haven't put bids in except Southampton not even offering 10. If there isn't enough solid interest he will probably have to go for in the region of 15, which frankly is an absolute bargain these days. Only a bit more than Gally and BB cost us. Bit of a joke really.

Dunno if already mentioned, but Doncaster supposedly interested in Pears and McBride. As loans presumably.

Armstrong was already our main striker and producing lots of goals in December 2020. Did you mean 2019?

That's not what the deal for Davies was. It was 7 or 7.5 million, Beattie went the other way but as part of that 7.5m. I think he was valued at 1 mill in the trade, so we will have paid 6 or 6.5 million, plus Beattie. Ripley was an entirely separate deal the same year for about 2 million apparently. He was nearly 31 at the time so that probably wasn't a bad sale. The Davies deal was a shocker though and always goes down as the worst ever for me. Amplified by the fact that even that same season Beattie had a much better season than Davies, who we sold back for a significant loss whilst bringing the even worse Egil Ostenstad over as part of the deal. And made worse again by the fact that eventually those bastards Bolton got him for free, at which point he went on to be excellent for them. Scored more against us than for us I'm sure, despite all the money wasted.

Your powers are formidable, @Fraserkirky!!

I'm very, very far from a Venkys fan or apologist, but that last part is simply not true.

Well that's exactly the problem, and could be glaringly so once crowds return.

I don't know what you base that optimism on?

It begins... https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19422711.blackburn-rovers-turn-opening-southampton-bid-adam-armstrong/

I appreciate the very specific scenario you're describing, but someone saying in all earnest that Brereton should have been in the starting lineup for Chile instead of Sanchez feels like the most concrete evidence that we are all living in a simulation 🤣 Hell, even on my Football Manager game (a simulation) - where I sold him to Everton for 11 million, which seemed far-fetched - he has ended up signing for Vancouver for just under 1 million, aged 23 now.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lancs.live/sport/football/transfer-news/blackburn-rovers-leshabela-leicester-profile-20955280.amp

I would hope you're glad Douglas has left too.

Douglas was an absolute liability at times this season, like Bell was last season and the one before. But he calmed down on that front, started being more effective in the final third and had a few reasonable games. So yeh we will have to just disagree.

Not for me. About the same. In fact if you just took their performances this season and ignore previous ones I'd say Bell was better this season.

Same was said about Douglas.

0-0 half time and the stats suggest a fairly even encounter, though I'm not watching it. No start for BB.

I dunno I think you might wanna fish out some Neymar highlight reels. I used to not see what the fuss was about either from what I had seen, until I watched some. I ended up thinking it was unfair what he did to some of those professionals, embarrassing them like that.

No.

Seems like Pickering has been bought with the same emphasis in mind.

And the way that Dack got two major injuries and never got to play in the Prem. I'm not saying he would have been as good as Grealish, I'm saying we will never know what he would have been.

I've seen less vague things in fogs.

So again, if it was obvious in training that any of them are ready to step up, why weren't they used in the dead rubbers? It's more obvious even in a game with little on the line than it is in training. If he had faith they were going to be ready for this season as legitimate squad players rather than just getting their introductions, they would have played in those dead rubbers. They didn't even come on as subs.

He isn't making the argument that they're not good enough though. Just that we can't assume they are and not make signings in areas we will be short. You don't assign a full squad spot to an untested youth player unless you've seen enough in training to feel really sure they're ready to step in regularly. Our illustrious manager has made it clear he doesn't have that confidence in them yet. So instead that means you drip feed them in. Injury crises, sub appearances when we are winning comfortably, that kind of thing, is the usual approach for blooding youngsters. Not saying we need a new X position player so how about we shove a lad from the u23s in and hope he swims.