Probably a lot more confident and understanding of the senior game since then after regular first team football in Scotland. I'd have hoped for that sort of effect with Garrett and O'Riordan if they'd played regularly, but we've wasted 6 months for them both now. If Markanday can carry his League Two form into League One, maybe he can surprise some people in the summer. People are quick to forget how much football is played in the mind.

Wow, I didn't know that, that's ludicrous. Is that a rule or just elitism?

Might depend a little bit on which Diaz showed up and if Armstrong has learnt how to pass to teammates. But in theory, and injuries permitting, yeh we could walk it with that side. Our defence, at least with the way its organised, is one of the best in the league. Our CM pairing is one of the best in the league. With those attackers added in we would have the pace and finishing to be utterly lethal on the counterattack. Our only remaining weaknesses would be keeper (I'm sure I'll take flak for that but currently Pears is an average Championship goalie for me, who is having a mostly solid/good season with a great defence in front of him, but isn't a top 6 quality goalie) and cover for CM. That aside, we would be pretty rampant. We have far more professional clubs and more money than Spain too, that's inexcusable.

You should be saying which way is right - it's clearly theirs. There's a reason no English manager has won the Prem.

In that league they might have occasional use for someone who is just a strong, fearless, aggressive lump. Agree, Sanderson is already clearly far more athletic. He also seems to be fairly strong, fearless and aggressive. I'm sure time will reveal the flaws in his game that have seen him fall out of favour, but so far I'm definitely happier with him than I would've been with Hanley. Maybe we'll even come to regret not making it a permanent while his stock was low...or maybe we'll be glad it was just a loan. That's why an option would've been nice.

Random musing, and no sense crying over spilt milk and all that, and I'm certainly not suggesting it's possible, but I reckon if you added Armstrong, Diaz and Szmodics to this team, we'd be challenging for the title.

Wonder whether they're up or down financially from bringing him in to replace Sanderson. I'd rather the player we've got though. I wonder if we've been sensible enough to put an option to buy in there...wait, answered my own question when I used the word sensible.

Dolan will only walk for free if a foreign side signs him.

I'd be pretty pleased with my guesstimate if it's out by 0.5 or less either way. Still, I might need to be right more than once to make a career! Good. They've been on a crazy winning run so I feared he might struggle to get his first chances. Lets hope he hits the ground running then.

Of course, I only mean in that general vicinity, but also I'm mostly just knocking up numbers for fun. Will be interesting to see if it's anywhere near accurate, but football seldom works like that. He could as easily score at a better rate for Chesterfield as he could go on to not score at all for Orient in just a half season where who knows if he'll even be given much opportunity. Our other League One loans have gone dreadfully this season, hopefully this one is better.

McFadzean meant to be likely to be heading to Chesterfield. It will surprise nobody if Siggy is sold this window, but if he actually is injured then I doubt he'll be going anywhere til summer. I won't. I have no real feelings on BTA one way or the other, apart from his goals record looks a bit too slim for my liking, I just don't take Lampard's views one way or the other as mattering overmuch.

A team in a higher league may be paying a higher wage contribution than Chesterfield were, yes. Although I'd imagine it's at least as much to do with testing him in a higher league. For potential resale if nothing else.

Markanday's goals record for us is 1 in 7 (5 goals in 35 games). For Chesterfield it was 1 in 3.4 (7 goals in 24 games). Using that incredibly basic and scientifically unsound gauge, you'd expect him to land about a goal every 5.2 games playing at a level inbetween the two. Lets see if that ends up being ballpark. (Completely ignoring that 4 of his 5 for us have come in the League Cup not the league, and that the vast majority of his games for us have been off the bench, as I can't be arsed to calculate all that...well ok I did it anyway, adjusted for 90 minutes, he essentially averages about 1 every 8.38 full games for us in the league going off just last season and ignoring his tiny cameos in prior years, and 1 every 3.34 in the league for Chesterfield, so you'd expect about 1 every 5.9 games in League One).

Markanday loaned out to playoff-chasing Leyton Orient in League One https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2025/january/16/markanday-makes-orient-move/

Markanday loaned out to League One playoff chasers Leyton Orient. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2025/january/16/markanday-makes-orient-move/

Should be able to. He should be able to do a lot of things though, but he seems incapable of most of them when he's not on a football pitch. Being good at the sport and having knowledge of it don't always translate to being wise about it. The fact he has been crap at management means I don't really respect his views on players, as being able to spot a player is part of being a good manager.

Apologies if this has already been answered, but the fee Cov paid to WBA was reported as being 2.25 million, rising to 3 million with add-ons. He had been bought for just 300k from Salford, so it represented a decent profit, but also he was in the last year of his deal which would have brought his value down. Thomas-Asante transfer fee revealed after West Brom exit

Didn't know that. Mind, it was 2 seasons ago, he would have been just turning 20 and perhaps needed that first team experience to understand the game well enough. Given how he plays now I can easily imagine him being too rash back then. They also only gave him 5 league appearances to judge by and settle in. Mostly off the bench. When he did start, he played LM it seems. Same applies to his smattering of cup games. Also Bolton fans are generally bellends!

Lampard is a crap manager.

I'm glad all those big chances fell to Colby Bishop instead of Lang. Bishop made Gueye look like Shearer last night (even with Gueye's missed chance clear on goal).

I'd imagine Beck would cost double that now. Ironically we've given him the platform to massively increase his sale price. The time to negotiate a fee was during the loan talks. We'd only be able to get him if we went up now I expect. The general principle of investing in players like that though, I totally agree.

I didn't even notice Forshaw. Thought he was pretty anonymous in his cameo.

I know he's on about the standard of football. But it stands to reason that if the financial power is equal (per club it's higher there) it's likely the teams are on a similar level. Albeit German clubs don't overspend stupidly like here and pay more sensible wages. Since we don't play European football against each other at this tier, and probably none of us are watching the 2. Bundesliga regularly, I don't think there's really any other way to compare.

Can't find the more recent figures, but in 22/23 the 2.Bundesliga clubs had 785.7 million Euros in revenue. Championship clubs had £749 million. There's not much difference in the financial heft of these leagues, and there are only 18 clubs sharing that revenue in Germany. They're stronger sides than you think.

The 2. Bundesliga is a pretty good level. Probably on par with the Championship. Not sure he was given a proper chance here tbh, by manager or fans. But ultimately he didn't deliver so I totally get why he was moved on.