It rankles, for sure, but just to play devil's advocate here... It's a year not a few months. £18 million not £16 million is what was widely reported, rising to £22 million dependent on clauses...I don't know how many of them will have been met by sale time, probably a little based on appearances as he wasn't expected to slot straight into the first team like he did, but most will go unmet unless there's a clause that if he's sold for a lot the other clauses are automatically met or something. Doubt we are that savvy with negotiations though. They took a financial risk of £18 million on him, whereas we will have spent far, far below £1 million on developing him, and probably less than that even with the new contract he signed. They've also been in the fortunate position of having the platform to make him into a £50+ million player, a fee we'd never have obtained in this league in a month of Sundays no matter how well he played. As I say, just devil's advocate...it certainly smarts to see them make such quick and easy money, and more than we'll have made.

Seems an odd time for a buying club to go in for him too. Price sounds similar to what they'd have paid in the summer, before his injury, and before the run of indifferent form he had whilst he was carrying his injury.

I've no idea who any of those three players are. U16s? U18s?

Dunno about just before the game, but a few days before it I was seeing odds of about 5 or 6 to 1, I forget which, for us to win. I use Oddschecker rather than a specific site, so those were the best odds around.

Think the odds were about 6 to 1, you'd have made a killing.

I can't get the game working so I've no idea. If he had an awful miss then it's worth criticising. But Dolan gets criticised in general far more than he warrants, and if someone thinks that and is tired of seeing him get pelters for every mistake, that's not 'wokeness', it's a difference of opinion, regardless of who is right about his ability. Having different views on football being 'woke' is as stupid as that Daily Fail article the other day saying our sandwiches are woke because they have chicken in them and not enough have ham 🙄

Yeh that's not what wokeness is. And someone defending one of our own players, having a different opinion to you on them, that's certainly not wokeness.

Wokeness? Wtf are you talking about?

Christ, surprised we have any u21s left at this stage! I guess some have recently returned from their own short loans though?

I think Tyjon is the one coming through at U21 level. That he's 16 isn't really the point, he's made it onto the first team bench a few times and even played briefly. Probably have some more first team appearances by the end of the season. If he's as good as made out, he needs regular U21 football to keep developing, so I'm not really concerned that there isn't someone getting in his way. Next year it will probably be Harvey Higgins pushing into the U21s, if not this season.

Yeh...in terms of going back to Rangers! Doubt you meant this at the time but...

I'd be happy to make it bigger to accommodate it.

What's Latin for 'ran by a shower of villainous bastards'?

We don't know how bad the pitch is currently? Chaddy man, it's literally been called off by the ref. That's how bad it is!

1-1 draw, goal from Murphy-Worrell. Not gonna lie, that's a pretty disappointing result against the likes of Colchester U21s, even with all the players we have out on loan. Looks like QPR drew with them too though. We're second in the 4-team group, behind QPR on GD, ahead of Preston by a point, Colchester by 2. Not sure how many go through.

Definitely right to extend his loan, going well that one. Any idea how many he has played? Stats at that level don't seem easy to find.

And every single one of those is a first time finish...some very good improvised goals there actually.

6 out of those 7 were first touch finishes.

The Academy is probably Premier League level. The squad is Championship level. The majority of the rest of the outfit in general (excepting the occasional genuine professional in our midst) is amateurish at best, and the owners would get told to fuck off by the Dog & Duck reserves.

After his comments about the fans not understanding how things work...I wonder if he's realising we're exactly the ones who knew how things worked here and he could have saved himself some trouble if he'd asked us.

But the thing you keep overlooking is we didn't reinvest the money from him. Sold a player for 8 mill, didn't reinvest it, not even in the summer as your other post says we were promised. Not to mention Graham was only a loan at the time, we weren't guaranteed to be able to sign him permanently, someone else could have come in. Plus he was 5 years older than Rhodes. It wasn't a good window.

We paid a fair bit for Markanday, he doesn't count as a homegrowner. I was talking about academy players. I think Duru can make it aye. His opportunities seem to have dried up lately though which is a shame.

The best prospects in the Academy at present seem to be Harvey Higgins (I suspect he's going to get poached too early), Igor Tyjon (also a risk of that), Duru, Litherland, and Atcheson (on loan at a bizarrely low level given the praise I've heard for him). I suspect that's a good enough crop tbf, but that the best two prospects there are going to be gone too soon and we might get one or two squad players from the rest.

Graham I'll grant, but Watt was shit. I don't remember who we signed in January in League One, but we had high relative spending power in that division and the owners at that time were at least semi-serious about getting us out of that division. They've never shown they're serious about getting us out of this one, which is a lot more expensive to do.

Doesn't seem like any vindication of our playing style or Carsley...I couldn't be arsed to watch but I saw the stats...weren't we fucking awful in the first half and didn't manage a shot on target? Sounds like we were failing to break down a poor side until they got someone sent off. That's a stretch, and not just because we don't have an U19s side. However you slice it, England are one of the better teams in world football and couldn't get through Ireland until they had 10 men. I think it's fair to say the youth side of an average Championship outfit would get pummelled by them. Heck, one of their players who has only recently broken into their team was hands down our senior team's best player last season.