Goal was by Lyons btw. Lineup: Hilton Charley Doyle, Sam Barnes, Hayden Carter, Sam Hart Lyons, Smallwood, Buckley, Mols Paton, Vale (probably not positionally accurate) A stunning 27% possession for us...

Did it while waiting lol. https://tv.wolves.co.uk/live/

Link?

Do you want setting up?

I'd still keep it though. Just because it hasn't been churning them out recently, except Nyambe, doesn't mean it won't in future. It has before. It'd be very short-sighted to shut it down now and hamstring ourselves for the future. Especially when Academy spend is exempt from FFP. The sensible thing to do would be to look at our processes of recruitment and development to change this story around. As I think you've suggested before. No harm in hoovering up rejects from other top academies too though. Also worth pointing out, Buckley has been with us since 6 years old. Jake Garrett is meant to be highly rated, still 16 years old and been with us for a while. And is it Zak Gilsenan? Similar boat. Think Jack Vale has been with us a while. JRC did come to us from Manure, but would only have been about 15 at the time. Magloire been with us since about 15. I think Scott Wharton came through our academy (though can't seem to verify for sure), and although he's probably not working out for us, he seems to be at least a League footballer and may operate at this level in future. Point is, we still have a bunch who could come good yet. A proper academy system takes years to bear fruit, and I'm sure a lot of parents and agents were discouraging youngsters from signing for our circus for a while at one point.

Who is that in reference to?

At kid level, someone looking promising barely seems to mean anything. The amount of youngsters touted for great things at 13-18 who go on to achieve absolutely naff all is astonishing. You've also got to ensure they get senior game time to develop, which we are pretty bad at on the whole. When they're getting to the 18-21 range, it's still a risk but you have a clearer picture of the type of player they're becoming. If you're buying them for 500k to 1.5 million, it's likely to also be because they've had some of that game time and you don't have quite as much development work to do. In fairness I'm not suggesting we have ignored that approach either. We've tried with Davenport for about 500k. That may have worked out but the injuries he got means we'll never know if it would have. Unless it still does, in time. Young yet. Chapman at some 300-500k I assume. Bit of an odd one because TM has no intention of starting him and has only brought him onto the bench due to injuries it seems. Rothwell at about 200-300k, which has been a mixed bag. IMO, one of the biggest reasons he hasn't pushed on is a recurring flaw of TM's, not playing players when they're clearly in form, nor dropping them when they're clearly out of form. So much of football is momentum. We also had a bash at it in League One with Samuel (again, injury means we'll never know quite how that could have turned out...even so, he currently seems a more useful player than Brereton, and should probably be getting some time off the bench at the moment, in his actual position...another thing for him, being played in the wrong position). Bell, who was borderline adequate in L1, but appears to be utter gash on toast at this level. Still made a lot more appearances than BB though. Then there was Dack at 750k who has been an absolute revelation. Not sure if I'm forgetting anyone (there's Gladwin too, but again, injuries, and nobody quite knows what he cost). But that's six players (seven with Gladwin), combined cost of maybe 2.25 million. Some might still come good. Dack has been absolutely key and at least before the injury, was worth about £15 million. Samuel has contributed more goals than Brereton despite being almost constantly injured. Albeit at a lower level. We might get some money back on him this month. Bell has played 48 Championship games for us, to BB's 29 (which were mostly off the bench). He has been largely shite though of course. Rothwell has featured in 56 games and scored double what BB has for us, from midfield, and double the assists. He isn't doing great at the moment but I'm sure most would agree he is better than BB. We also picked up Nuttall on a free and sold him for about 500k, funding a quarter of that expenditure. He contributed 2 Championship goals, double BB's total, in half the games, as well as his League One and cup contributions. So yeh, I think that 2.25 million ish on a few players worked out a whole lot better than the 6-7 million on Brereton. Plus we got 500k back from Nuttall. Even if you take Dack out of the equation it's still better, for 1.5 million, though no major standouts. I'd like to hold out some hope that Brereton might still come good, but it looks less and less likely.

Well, Travis was mopped up from Liverpool at 16. Raya at about 17 from UE Cornella in Spain. Lenihan at about 17 from Belvedere in Ireland. Of those, just Nyambe came all the way through our Academy. So the poster might potentially have a point about just mopping up kids from elsewhere at 16/17. Still rather we ran an Academy too though.

Mowbray wants to emulate Brentford in the market I find it odd to see how much he rates Brentford for buying cheap and selling at big profits. Did that not give him pause for thought when selling Raya? That maybe, just maybe, they knew what they were doing paying that price for him? The talk of buying cheap potential is odd again when you remember Brereton and Gallagher. I'd like to think it means he has learnt from those mistakes...but I doubt it.

Not sure Rothwell has dictating play in his toolbox. He can play some lovely passes sometimes, but his vision is the tunnel kind, generally. Agree a formation change is probably needed in Dack's absence though.

I think disingenuous is comparing my suggestion to what we did with the Portugeezers. That was 3 (not 10) gambits that were put to us by agents who were polluting the club. I'm talking about properly sourcing genuine talent and taking a series of calculated risks, a la Dack (who was a little over a tenth of the cost of Brereton). Not this all your eggs in one basket approach a la BB then again with Gally. If you're buying potential and you're not in the Prem, buy it cheap. It's hardly just that BB was a risk, it's that he was a stupid risk. Nearly every man and his dog was saying that with foresight, not just hindsight. Any time this club spends 7 million, it needs to be spending it on someone for right now (and hopefully a few years into the future too, not on a 31 year old or something). Yes all transfers are risk, but it's all about calculating your risks. Whoever calculated this one would fail a Maths GCSE.

Can't disagree there. It was an awful decision that I strongly criticised. But now we have Walton, temporarily, and we need as much of an improvement as we can get. And then another one in the summer, kicking the Canadian out.

Much more bothered about our goalkeeper and defence situation. Followed by our goalscoring options.

Have I missed something? We haven't signed Bialkowski as far as I know. It's a rumour, that was reported a few days ago and doesn't seem to have come up again since. I'll take an upgrade on Walton for now. Which he is if we get him.

He's playing a blinding hand of poker. Tomorrow we are going to sign Assombalonga, Maddison, Bialkowski, Rudd, Pontus Jansson, and an entire back four. Funded by selling Brereton for that 45 million Rathbone says he will be worth. FFP fixed. Superb bluff, that interview. In unrelated news, Beyonce is going to suck me off until I'm dry, and Trump is going to top himself on the grounds that he has 'realised [he] is an absolute dick'. Happy days.

Sorry Chaddy but you're one of the last people who can lecture others on needing a balanced approach. Your stance is almost always in favour of whatever the club or manager are doing. I'm not saying you don't sometimes criticise them, but it's very rare except in periods where you're on the verge of wanting them out. There absolutely are people who are unbalanced in terms of criticising everything the club or manager do. But there are also people unbalanced in terms of desperately defending everything the club or manager do. I'm sorry to inform you, and don't mean any offence by this (sometimes your blind optimism is a little lifting amidst the gloom), but you're not sat neatly in the balanced middle of those two sides.

I didn't make a point that clubs aren't willing to spend big on League One players. I said it's a general trend, that they're more reluctant. I specifically said that players do move for that kind of money, but it's the exception not the norm. I also referenced Dack being rated at higher the season before (still think it was about 1.5 without looking it up, as I seem to recall it was about double what we paid. That list, if the figures are correct (lot of undisclosed these days) shows 29 players, ever, moving from League One for 2.5 mill or more. Of those, 12 went to Prem teams. That's a very different level of financing, with Prem team interest bringing a whole new level of financial demand from the seller. It's also a very different level of requirement on the pitch - Maddison is best compared to what Championship clubs will pay for League One players, both for financial and quality reasons. Three also went to foreign top flights. So that's 14 players who went to Championship sides for 2.5 mill or more, ever. You don't have to be one of the best 14 League One players in the last few years to be good enough to excel in this league. 5 of those 14 were 21 or younger when they moved for that money, clearly bought for perceived potential because they were doing well as kids. Again it's a different kind of buy. I do agree it's a bit surprising he hasn't moved yet. But the Posh chairman last summer or Jan was talking about a deal being close with a Championship side. Deals can break down for all sorts of reasons. IIRC they wanted most of the money up front, which clubs are reluctant to do these days. I bet if his release clause was more like 1.5-2 mill he'd have already been gone. And I bet even more that next season he will be playing in this league or an equivalent. Just because someone hasn't moved yet doesn't mean they're not good enough. If you spend your transfer windows going 'well nobody has bought him before for this league', you'll find clubs gazump you for bargains all the time.

For me, this only gives evidence to the lie. If it was really the case that new players have to get up to speed with our system etc and this takes time, he wouldn't throw some players straight into the team. It tells me it is face-saving bollocks, for when he doesn't want to play someone for one of various other reasons (like one of his besties playing there, or because he has over-stocked the position, or was only buying the player as a squad filler, etc).

I think we would probably get around that. Maybe fractionally over. Maybe a bit less. Sad state of affairs. On the other hand if one of them knocks a few in before the end of the season the maths changes. It would take a hell of a lot more than that to reap the big profits they kept talking about though! I think most of us feel certain we will never get close to our money back on these two. Those deals will never cease looking insane. I'm down with investing in potential, most of us are, but you don't spend nearly your whole budget two summers in a row on potential. Potential is scattered all over the country and the world, far far cheaper than that. You could buy ten promising players for one Brereton and expect at least 2 or 3 to come good.

I'd do a victory lap of the UK if we sold those two off at a small profit.

Yep, we were linked. Maddison can play all across the midfield, so if he performed well there's no reason for him to be dropped to the bench.

You're doing him a serious disservice. Just the League stats: 2015/16 - 11 goals, 13 assists. 2016/17 - 9 goals, 17 assists. 2017/18 - 8 goals, 16 assists. 2018/19 - 8 goals, 15 assists. 2019/20 - 9 goals, 6 assists (so far). I don't know if you think he's a striker or something, but he isn't. Those goals are at least primarily from midfield. Attacking mid (in what I assume is a broadly Dack-like role) and RW. I think he has been moved around in the past, CM, LW, occasionally striker I think. I think continuing those stats in numerous different positions over a season is even more impressive. The goals might not be Dack numbers, but he's an assists machine. 'A few assists' is like saying Dack scores 'a few goals'. That many goal contributions over the last four-and-a-half seasons is definitely lighting up League One. As for why is he still down there, his contract has a 2.5 million release clause and Peterborough have been insisting on it being met. Fairly sure he has been transfer listed since last summer? But 2.5 million is still considered a lot to gamble on a League One player. Players do move out of there for that kind of money or more, but there aren't too many. Point of reference, we paid 750k for Dack. If I remember rightly he had been available for about 1.5 million the season before after winning League One POTY and nobody bit. Since the summer, he has only had a year left on his deal. See Bauer for how clubs deal with League One players on the last year of their deal. If the fee is fairly big, they'd rather wait, as they know the player will step up in the summer for free now they know higher league clubs are looking. Sure we can all agree that Dack and Bauer are good enough for the Championship, but neither we nor others were willing to pay in the millions for either.

No, he won't.

He's not too old. He's 32. Peak age for a goalie.

I remember it being said some years ago that our academy focused a little too much on physical development rather than skill. This might explain why we churn out so many good defenders vs attackers. Then we hoover up the ones who escape through the cracks of the elite clubs' youth systems, who have been schooled heavily in technique, for our young attackers.