I'm starting to suspect it isn't just bad luck and his bones are weak. Onset of some sort of osteoporosis type condition maybe? Hope not for his sake though.

There are the mystery foreign keepers too, who for some reason couldn't be named after we missed out on them. They get referenced a lot though.

Nobody is 'rewriting' history here. The general consensus at the time was he was pretty good and a serious improvement on Bell. Rewriting history would be if the consensus was he was meh. This, however, is just people having a different view of a player to you.

Chanka Zimba? Didn't seem to make sense that we let him go. We have since spent (presumably) to bring in McBride for that youth striker spot, so I hope we rate him higher than Zimba.

Nat Phillips has been linked, so yeh I think you've imagined Matt Phillips. Edit - the rumour I mean, not his existence.

If Dack won't take less than a contract like that, you can rest assured he will be sold, probably in January when we will still have 18 months on his deal (after activating the extension). We can't afford a 40k pw player anymore in this league, especially since it raises the wage demands of other players hugely.

Fresh on the back of the Kipre debacle, it would make sense for the timing for doing such a thing to be now.

I agree it's very important to tie your talent up. But all of that comes with improved wages, signing on fees, agent fees. Which makes it harder to get those 5 or 6 players and may result in not getting them all, or getting worse ones. It's all a balancing act on a limited budget.

There is a difference between the manager wanting 5 or 6 additions and thinking he needs 5 or 6 additions. We don't know which is the case.

Fairly sure this isn't the signing JB was on about. Nixon was saying yesterday it had already been done, so there'd have been no need for secrecy. It was also implied it's a midfielder.

That sounds like a clue...

Why would he be getting nothing at all if he's under contract? You mean when his deal expires?

Unless it's a crap signing or won't improve one of our over stocked areas. In which case, tell the entire press.

At this rate we will probably hit that within the hour...

And (following from my previous post) if that's the case then it would really have been a 12 million quid deal, but we will only get a cut from the 10 million. Which is us getting shafted.

Probably not I'd guess. Which would be exploitable really if you think about it. Say a selling club wanted to avoid paying the previous club their cut. They could arrange with the buying club for a loan with a loan fee of say, 10 million with a purchase clause of 10 quid, and keep the lot.

The issue would be on what the two clubs want there. WBA likely do want a stronger squad option who might really challenge for the shirt, and we likely want to stop pissing about in the loan market for this key position. I don't think WBA are looking at this one as just an investment or they could have done it already.

Ffs, Holtby already needs bringing off after about the 60 minute mark as it is. I've not noticed him being a slacker but if he isn't working as hard as TM would like it could be because he's trying to be impactful with the fitness he does have until it improves. Obviously this raises questions as to whether you want him on the pitch in the first place if he only lasts 60 mins and doesn't give you the work rate you want...but he signed the guy.

And what source have you seen saying it was only 200k?

Or ya know, maybe they'll just be happy their club made two good recruitment rather than lamenting their loss in a point-scoring battle on a message board. Can you imagine that?

I knew somebody was going to pop up saying something like this, but honestly I was hoping to avoid having to explain the extensive differences. I still can't be arsed tbh. Short version though, if you think ourselves and Preston should have had similar expectations after coming out of League One, you're selling us short. They'd been down there for 4 seasons not 1, and we had a lot more financial muscle. Personally I didn't want him sacked at that point anyway, and I wouldn't say the majority of this board did.

They seem an overly demanding bunch. I remember one telling me Grayson had taken them as far as he could, in what I think was their first season back up from league One where he had them halfway up the league and the season wasn't that far in. I was thinking he didn't know he was born and asked what he expected.

4 million for Wigan? Fuck it let's just buy them.

Most of the posters between your post and mine here seem to have thought you weren't joking...

Not these days though. Might as well say it's a 500 of 'insert fantastic player from 70s' or whatever.