I wasn't criticising either of you. Just saying I'm amazed you both persist in these debates to the extent you do. I'm surprised either of you have the patience for it, and at times you're quite harsh in your tone towards each other, I'm kind of impressed it never devolves into an outright slanging match tbf. I'm not telling anyone what to do, but I wouldn't have the patience for the extended discussions you have, especially since so much ground gets repeated. I do think it probably goes on a bit too much, mostly with the repetition, and you both trying to convince the other of opinions you know they'll never concur with. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming for everyone else. But hey, it's a free forum.

Dunno if it's been mentioned on here yet, but De Lange has officially joined Marseille. https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2024/official-jeffrey-de-lange-joins-marseille-from-go-ahead-eagles/

He wasn't free, he was 'a low six-figure fee'. No way we spent 1.8 mill on Gueye, probably about 1.25 mill based on reports. I think early reports said 1.8 mill Euros, but that figure soon shrank.

Thanks. With a bit of a lingering sound at the end, almost like gay-uh.

Anybody know how you pronounce his surname? I'm thinking it could be 'gay', 'gway', 'guhway', 'gooeye' or 'gayee'. Probably end up being none of those!

Not up to Championship fitness standards perhaps. From the clips, it seems to be a slightly slower league. Their season started in February I believe, so it can't be end of season burnout.

I did have a looksie, but it appeared the cost of leases offsets the fuel savings, plus nothing to show at the end of it. Although I'd really like an EV for its own sake, and the environmental benefit is a definite positive, the main incentive for this decision right now is economic.

Makita power tool batteries? They won't have thermal management systems to speak of, so their charge rate and longevity are going to be much shitter than the batteries in an advanced EV. Truly modern EVs, from the right brands, range and longevity just shouldn't be an issue as I keep saying. We have fairly old Teslas now that have managed hundreds of thousands of miles before the battery is done. And ranges of 370 miles (generally about 320 miles real world range) are enough for me to get nearly halfway back from London before needing a charge, which can be done by the time I've had something to eat. But you live in Australia right? I get that it's different altogether out there if you're driving between cities. But infrastructure is improving, and cars are starting to be released with about 500 miles of range, with further battery tech improvements all the time. So hopefully in our lifetimes we'll all be driving some pretty impressive EVs. Yeh it's definitely a concern, if I needed to go to London in a Zoe for a gig, I'm very likely to need to plan a very lengthy charge on the way, and hope I get a bay fairly quickly. I have friends in London, and where possible I'd likely use public transport and stay the night, as driving around London is a ballbag anyway. But like you say, at short notice that might not be possible so it's a concern. Part of me has considered keeping the Peugeot as a backup for a long drive. But then I've still got to MOT it yearly, tax it (I could maybe do a SORN and activate the tax when I need it, not sure if that works at short notice), add it to my insurance instead of replacing it (or I could use Cuvva to insure it for a couple of days tbf). Just sitting around its tyres will get fucked and there may be other issues from not using it for ages. Starts to eat into all those fuel savings... Besides, only time I've driven outside the North West since I went back to acting full time 2 years ago is Newcastle, and that was just once for a £150 (plus expenses) gig I could live without. So, driving far could come up, but in practice it hasn't. But yeh the option is preferred.

I've either dodged a bullet, or missed a superb bargain. I guess I'll never know. But there are cars about a grand more expensive with nearly triple the miles done that still look like a good deal. Depends how I calculate what's best for my budget. An efficient petrol car would be cheaper to buy but more expensive to run, with more chance of needing repairs. When looking at a 5 year total cost of ownership, it's fairly unlikely I get a lower cost than that car I missed out on would've been. I have a decent amount of savings, but I'm slightly cash flow negative and hoping I can improve that to slightly cash flow positive within the year (especially if I can cut back on fuel). So I'm mostly trying to figure out what will cost me the least over a 5 year period, as I'm not desperate to save pennies up front, but don't have tons to play with. Yeh I think if your parking spot is too far from your home it's not worth you getting one as things stand, or probably in the next few years. Who knows how charging options and public charging prices (as renewable rollout increases) might change in the future, but for now, if finances are the main concern it doesn't make sense to get one without home charging. You could get a decent EV van btw, even moreso in the next few years, but again, unless you're flush with dosh it makes sense to keep what you've got while it's working. Cheap, used EV vans with decent range simply aren't available yet.

I wonder why I have a lot of anger? I read every word. Not agreeing with it doesn't mean I don't understand it. In fact you're the one who hasn't read/understood my post. As that anger isn't directed towards you. I made one comment that I don't get why you don't get it, then I explained it. Fuck Venkys isn't fuck roverstdt. I think it's also fair to say I'm one of the more balanced posters on here. But Venkys are an unmitigated disaster. The one thing they had in their favour, sending money to cover losses, is gone. There's really no middle ground to be had on this one. As you yourself tacitly acknowledge by saying they're the worst owners. Whether they're pocketing the money (which no, I don't believe, but by not sending the money which they allegedly can with a bond, in essence it's similar, but I don't believe the sales end up in India, but are being held in reserve here because Venkys might never send us another penny) or just using it to avoid any input, it simply isn't alright.

I don't understand why you don't understand it. Our situation, including the mountain of money they've squandered, is wholly and entirely the fault of Venkys themselves. They've also ruined our club, distressed and divided the fanbase, and we're supposed to be alright with them sucking money back out of the club? Fuck no. It's not ok they're not funding us anymore either. If they can't send money to us, they're less than useless, they're a serious liability (even when they do send money they're a liability). It was the only thing they had going for them. In ALL other ways, and I do mean all, they damage the club constantly. As for buyers, they've been persistent in refusing to even talk to interested bidders who could take on the burden (actually a privilege) of running this great club. Instead they've kept building the debt mountain whilst not letting the club function normally. Shit or get off the pot Venkys. You cunts.

I really like Sammie, and his efforts last season were Herculean. We are a mess and I don't blame him one bit, at his stage of his career, for wanting out to the Prem. I really wanted him to be able to leave on good terms. Club makes a fair offer because he is quality, we all move on. Thanks to Sammie for his efforts, and for a change I get to have a quality player leave the club and not feel bitter about it. I really hope he's not forcing the club's hand to sell him cheap by refusing or expressing his reluctance to train and play. I credited him with more than that. It will be sad if I end up resenting the way he left. It's also not helpful for whichever club he ends up at, or the player himself, if he hasn't had a proper preseason. All it achieves is bringing his price down.

Christ, that just shouldn't be allowed. Don't train, don't get paid. I hope it's actually hasn't trained 'much' like the other poster says, and that's because of the injury.

Agree with your post but your maths are off. 400k is 1% of 40 mill, not 0.01%.

I did consider a hybrid, but they don't really add up all that much. I'd still likely need a home charger at about a grand. Whilst an EV has less things to go wrong than an ICE car, a hybrid kinda has more things to go wrong than either, as it needs the parts from both. Plus it's kinda best of both worlds, worst of both worlds. If you're only using the battery range and charging at home, it's cheap, but then you're lugging a fuel tank and possibly some fuel around for no reason. If you go really far, you're not gaining much of that EV efficiency, and you're lugging a deadweight battery around once the charge is gone. I read an article that explained all this better than I am. A very fuel efficient car, with good reliability, would tide me over for a while. Mine gets about 34 mpg I think, hard to say though. My main concern is getting a car that has a bunch of problems like mine, whether immediately or in a couple of years. But if I can't find something I think is spot on, I'll probably just keep chugging along with my piece of shit until it collapses (hopefully not on the way to a show) or is too expensive to get through an MOT. That Zoe would have been perfect the more I thought about it, gonna keep checking to see if something similar pops up, but also keep an eye out for cheap fuel efficient, reliable cars. Like you say, if a good option appears you have to strike while the iron is hot, as I should have done. Emissions are a part of the equation, but I don't have the money to get too precious about that yet. I've covered the emissions costs of building EVs before in this thread, and how they're generally negated vs fuel costs at I think it was around 10,000 miles driven. Newer EVs are also moving away from a lot of these rare earth metals, but yes it's a concern that the extraction methods have human rights issues hanging over them. Sadly, so do many, many things in the world that we use on a daily basis (phones for one, and I think ICE cars use a smaller amount of some of these metals). There's only so much you can do to avoid them, but moreover, the car has already been built, sold, and sold on. My buying a used one like I was gonna won't make a jot of difference to the mines. Especially since somebody else bought it anyway.

I was just using your figures really, taking what percentage of the stated miles you got and applying that to if the battery showed the figures I mentioned. Anyway this ship has sailed and I'm back to the drawing board sadly - the car sold this morning. Apparently somebody came from Manchester to check it out, so I might end up driving past it on my travels 😂 I'll keep an eye out for something similar in future though, it was a hell of a deal but I can't imagine this was the only few days all year that something of that value was available at that price, I've only been looking at the site for a couple of weeks. I did worry that if I snoozed I would lose on this one. I probably would have pulled the trigger today if he'd have got back to me showing a range of less than 165 (so I could get a new battery on warranty, now or by next year) or above 180 (so it would meet my needs in the real world). It was just that little region of uncertainty inbetween that would have posed a problem.

I can live with Pears as backup goalie and he may still improve yes. It's absolutely unacceptable right now for him to be our number one. I've always been fair with Pears, praised him when he does well, criticised him when he does poorly. Overall, he simply isn't good enough to be our first choice keeper yet, and if he is allowed to put in even mediocre performances without being dropped, we'll be in trouble.

Thanks again. I've just messaged the seller asking if he can give the battery a full charge and send me a photo of the battery display. I think I need this to make my decision. If he gives it a full charge and it shows 150 miles say, then based on your estimates earlier I'll know in the real world I'm probably getting about 96-108 miles typically, and 78-84 miles in winter, which just isn't good enough. If it shows say, 180 miles, I'd probably get around 115-130 miles typically, and 94-99 miles in winter, which is probably just about adequate for my current needs and should only need minor public charging sometimes (maybe I can borrow a friend's car if I need to go further afield, or use public transport for London and stay at a friend's). If it reads as 200 miles, I'd be getting 128-144 miles typically and 104-112 miles in winter, which should suit for the vast majority of the time, and I'd be happy enough with that to definitely buy. Could probably get a few years out of that before the battery starts edging into insufficient territory. That said, the battery will have one year of warranty remaining I believe, and they replace the battery if it drops below 65% during warranty...so if it shows below 162.5 miles on the dash, I should be able to get a fresh new battery fitted free of charge! So maybe showing less than that would actually be the ideal scenario 🤣 I'd need to double check the warranty details though. Also for the 115-130 real world miles I'm expecting it would be capable of, as I suspect it will show 180 ish when charged, it occurs to me that I could probably cope by just changing my driving logistics. Instead of going to Manchester, then Darwen, back to Manchester, to Blackpool, which is about 160 miles of driving so I'd need to add about 40 miles on a public charger, I could go to Manchester then straight back to Blackpool, twice. It's less efficient in terms of mileage, meaning I'd drive about 200 miles, but I could home charge the extra 70-85 miles instead of public charging 40, and it would be far cheaper. Means a bit more driving but I don't really mind, especially since public charging means me waiting around anyway. Seems like you can get about 3.5 miles per kwh typically with these cars, so with a tarrif of say 9p like Octopus are offering (their ability to fit a charger at a reasonable price tempts me their way) I'd get the extra 70 miles for about £1.80. I dunno what 40 miles of public charging would cost, since it's so variable and I wouldn't be using the fastest chargers, but I know in my Peugeot it would be about £7.50 so I'm guessing at least £5-£6 public charging. Mad to think that 7,000 miles would cost me about £180 in this thing. Yeh I'm aware of the 10-80% general rule, but thanks, many aren't. I'd definitely aim to only put in whatever I need for my journey, as I want to maximise the cost savings of home charging. Is ZapMap integrated into the car's satnav, or is it just an app I'd need to download on my phone? This reminds me of one other minor point of concern I had. Currently, I use my phone's satnav and I have this very handy device that clips onto my heater/cooler and into the USB and charges my phone as well as putting it in a convenient position to read. In the Zoe, the car's satnav, which I probably don't want to use, is in this position. I think I could clip it to the vents just below though, or next to the driver door, it's just it would be slightly less safe as I'd need to look further down and take the road almost out of my periphery. I think it's a liveable issue though!

I fully buy into this...my issue is just I think it's one tier below where I think we should get Atcheson playing. With our youth loans, it almost always seems to be at least one tier below where we should be able to get them. Atcheson is highly regarded, turns 18 next month, and I'd have hoped he could attract a National League loan really. It's hard to learn enough about a player when they play 4 whole tiers below where we are, to decide where they should be in our squad. I do accept it may help him develop his game though, especially physically and in terms of grit, just wish it was a smidge higher level. I can't think of any of our players that have gone on loan to National League North and amounted to anything here. Not saying that hasn't happened, and I know it will have happened sometimes at other clubs, and hopefully someone can give me one or two examples of Rovers Academy players doing this then kicking on here. But generally speaking for us it seems to be the graveyard for players who are promising but maybe not quite all that. I remember Dan Pike seemed on the verge of the squad, a couple of loans to Fylde in the NLN and he vanished.

18 next month 😉

I mean, it's only beyond the point he can start as number one in this game. They could still start the next game or maybe the one after, if we get them in today or tomorrow. In fact the cup game could be a perfect opportunity to blood a new goalie. It's not ideal that we didn't get them weeks ago, but sometimes deals take time and I'd far, far rather we take time and get the right one but they miss maybe 3 games (if it drags on to next week) than get the wrong one to go into games from day dot. Once the new goalie is ready, I'd dislodge Pears immediately unless he's been playing out of his skin, and drop him as soon as he doesn't. Regardless of clean sheets or not making a high profile mistake.

I would agree with that - if Pears had demonstrated that he's a consistent, reliable keeper. He has done utterly no such thing. That said, at this stage any keeper we bring in shouldn't be starting Friday. It's too soon, they'd have had a day of training in the best case scenario. Not long enough to build any rapport with their defence, and would have only been in the country a couple of days. They wouldn't be at their psychological best or ready to slot into the team. As someone else said, if they ballsed up in their first game under those conditions it could knock their confidence for a while. So I'd be starting Pears on Friday now come what may. Even though I don't rate him. Then if he ballses it up (which is probably about 50% likely, the new lad comes in. If the new lad had arrived a couple of weeks ago, different story. What I certainly don't want to happen though, is Pears have that run of form he is prone to where he's not making huge high profile mistakes, but is making a consistent series of small mistakes (like bad positioning, palming it into danger areas) and gets to keep his shirt because he isn't doing a Wigan. That's happened before, like when Kaminski should have come back into the team.

Well, that's why they call it har-ass-ing...

Hah, I realised where I got the £20 vehicle tax for EVs figure from...that's for any cars (not just EVs) that emit less than 99g/km of CO2...that were registered between March 2001 and March 2017. Obviously the car I'm looking at was registered October 2017, typical, so I'd have to pay £165 (although looking around a bit more, seems like this figure is actually £190...all very confusing).

You'd hope the clubs will be able to settle in the middle there, at about 1 million. It's only a bit more than we got for Wahlstedt. It would be like paying about 200k to (you'd think substantially) upgrade Wahlstedt. If we're sure he's the right guy we should at least be willing to go to 1 mill. If we physically don't have it, well firstly I'd be surprised because we are talking about 3 or 4 more players...make it just 3 then and pay it. But still, we could try a more realistic version of what some jokingly said, the ole' FM trick of offering a substantial international bonus. He played for Netherlands up to U20 level so it's not outside the realms...albeit unlikely through playing in the Championship, but something like another million for an international cap, and maybe fill that 200k-400k gap with 'after 50 appearances' or something to let us kick the can down the road. Maybe those exact terms won't tempt them, but the point is you can get creative with the finances to get something over the line if you don't have the money yet or you're unsure he'll be enough of a success to warrant it.