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.

Thanks O2G, that's very helpful. Shame, you could have checked it out for me 😂It will need a bit of planning, and dosh, getting down there and back. Public transport down, at least one maybe two (if he doesn't fully charge it for me) charges on the way back. I can't really just go take a look because of the distance, I'll only go if I'm buying. It does indeed look like it only has the Type 2 charger. I'm seeing mixed things online about how long that takes to charge, anything from 1 hr 15 to 2 hr 30...so it took you about an hour did it, to get I'm guessing a 10-80% charge? What year model was yours again? I think I can live with the real range it probably currently has, though I'd feel more comfortable if I can get him to fully charge the car and confirm for me what mileage the car claims, so I can deduct an appropriate amount to get a realistic estimate. But I'm more worried about how much it might fade in the next few years...I'd say I need it to have practical mileage for me for the next 4-5 years, and the motor to be ok, for this purchase to make good economic sense. The motors generally last 100k to 200k miles apparently, so I'm confident on that front, and the batteries are the same, but it just sounds like it might have lost a lot already for only 38k miles, makes me wonder if it has an inherent flaw (or maybe somebody just abused how they drove and charged it). But they do say most battery degradation occurs at the start anyway then slows down a lot. So after 6 years owning it from new, you didn't think the range had dropped much at all? Do you know how many miles you had on the clock? Shame it doesn't have either a much better charging speed like the later ones, or another 50 miles of real world range compared to what I suspect it has, or I'd definitely take it. And without knowing its real range it's hard to figure out how much I'll need public charging. Which costs money and time. Yeh I knew webuyanycar would be lowball, they only offered me £500 for mine and I was thinking more like 1k (without accounting for the body damage they don't know about yet), but I'm more concerned by the way the seller claimed they'd offered him more than double what the site says, doesn't build trust. However he seems ok with me paying him just a £300 deposit and getting the rest to him like a week after I've taken it, which builds a bit of trust. I can check its MOT history, mileage is accurate and it's only had tyre issues, the usual amount. AutoTrader have their own checks, and it shows as not stolen and never been written off. Not sure I can check more than that without paying for it. Yeh for some reason I thought the EV vehicle tax that will probably still happen under Labour because they're having funding issues was something like £20 for most EVs, and only higher if they were classed luxury cars (above £40k). But it looks like that's just new EVs on their first year. Looks like this Zoe would pay £165 as it stands. Which is still about £155 cheaper than I'm paying on my old Peugeot but definitely less of an advantage than I thought and won't fully offset the increased insurance. Home charging is definitely the way, and I'd been thinking of going with Octopus, who I think also use renewable only, but good to have a list of the alternatives to mull over. The more I have to use public charging the less I'll benefit. One thing I've thought though, is that if I decide in the next year or two it's not enough range for me and I'm wasting too much time and money charging, I can probably sell it for similar to I'm paying, as it's going for about 3k less than the market average. This is a big decision for me, a lot of my savings when I'm already slightly cash flow negative (the main reason for that though is my bloody car costs!). Could be a massive cost-saving in the long run, or could be a big mistake if a big part fucks up or the mileage drops to unmanageable levels. I guess those kinds of things can happen with any car though! Especially a cheap piece of shit that I can afford lol

If the quoted price is correct, and the plan is to develop him to sell on, it's not a very good plan. Kaminski was a pretty top-end Championship keeper, and although we admittedly weakened our negotiating position by senselessly keeping him out of the team behind an inferior goalie for ages, we only got £2.5 million for him. As far as I can see, the most a keeper moving from the Championship with no Premiership experience has cost is 5 million Euros. Karl Darlow, aged just 23, moving to Premiership Newcastle from Forest. He'll have had the 'young British player' premium though, although it was way back in 2014. Championship WBA paid 7 million for Sam Johnstone from Manure and he hadn't played in the Prem but he'll still have had the 'big club prospect' price tag. Championship Leicester also paid about 7.7 mill Euros for Hernansen from the Danish top tier (Brondby, who presumably were playing in Europe). There are some other (lower value) examples of more than 5 mill being fetched by keepers from foreign leagues moving to the Championship, to clubs flush with parachute money, but 5 mill is the current ceiling for Championship keepers with no Prem experience, and that was for a Brit and hasn't been fetched for 10 years now. Not to say it's not possible to get that kind of money for that profile, but it appears to be very difficult. I'd hope he's more just being looked at as someone who could be our number one for a few years and improve substantially on Pears.

Obviously it's your life, so just reply when you can, but I'd really appreciate those comments as things have moved on apace! 😅 I've found what seems to be a very good deal on one, all the way down in Dagenham though so will be a mild pain to collect. 2017 model, 38,000 miles done, just £4.5k! Apparently other buyers looking though (which I believe given the price...it should be going for about 6 to 7k+ really with those numbers), and would have already sold it yesterday if he'd been able to prove it was battery-owned not battery lease (says the papers have come through today from Renault to prove it). Getting a few red flags though... mostly because I called him to ask about the battery (more on that in a moment) and also why the price is so low. He said he went off the site's estimate for a battery lease version since he didn't have proof yet that it was battery owned. But is fine with selling it at the quoted price because it was part of a bunch of cars he got in a good deal. He also said webuyanycar had offered £5,700 for it. So why sell it for 4.5k? I thought I'd take a look at whether they were offering that, so I put the reg on the site and first it said they couldn't find the car. Which is weird, as the MOT checker finds it, with the correct details and quoted MOT date. So I entered the car details manually, and they offered about £2,200. Which is genuinely a pathetic price considering autotrader shows the market average for this car with this mileage being about £7,500! So webuyanycar are being cheap, but I also think he's blagging me about what they offered to push a sale (a used car seller being less than honest, who'd have thought...). I also don't think he's a proper dealership, autotrader listed him as EMM Car Sales, but during the convo he mentioned the car was parked on his drive. So if something goes wrong quickly (MOT is good til August next year though) I might struggle for any recourse. Then there's the battery...a mild concern perhaps. The car has a stated range of 250 miles, but on his description he said 'give 150 miles almost on full charge'. This was the main reason I called him initially, and he said that was his estimate based on what he'd got out of it. He said it was currently showing half full battery and 90 miles (which tbf, there's a photo of that on the listing too). He said he has been running it with the aircon constantly on too, so thinks it might get about 150-180 miles in the real world depending on use but admitted he doesn't know much about EVs. And tbf, Renault themselves 'state real world ranges of 186 miles in summer and 124 in winter'. So it suggests the battery hasn't degraded too significantly, though still seems a bit more than I'd expect for 38k miles based on what I've read about them, though it's also 7 years old, and time has an effect too. Guessing his battery would show a range of 180-200 ish if he fully charged it, which is down at least 20% on what a brand new battery would display fully charged. My main travel is to Manchester (50 miles), so there and back isn't an issue, except maybe in winter. But I often then stop at my mum's in Darwen (30 miles from Manchester), and either go to Manchester or Preston the next day, and sometimes back to my mum's and do it again the day after, or sometimes home to Blackpool. So there's definitely potential for needing to public charge in winter at times, which will occasionally bring costs closer to petrol costs, and isn't very quick on these models. Also, I only do about 8k miles a year but the battery will still degrade further over the next few years, and I worry that could make me need to top up in public more often. There's also the potential to need to go further (I'm an actor, so though I have two steady gigs with just local travel, god knows where future work might need me). I probably can't piss around on deciding though, I reckon this one will be gone in the next day or two if I don't take it. Any input greatly appreciated.

At a cost of around £300k (I think it was a release clause thing too but can't remember for sure) and having just been the top scorer in the U21s Euros and in the team of the tournament, he seemed like a shrewd and intriguing signing at the time. Turned out to be crap though of course.

The Dutch use Euros. Which are almost as valuable as the pound.

It says 'several', not 'seven' million. Several million Euros would also be extreme (not sure what number that would be considered to be, but definitely more than the 2 million previously quoted, and it makes me think 4 upwards). But it could be lost in translation. Even 2 mill is quite a lot for a keeper, especially when you look at what we paid for Kaminski. It really needs to prove a good signing if we are spending in that region. Though, it does anyway, as the other option is Pears...

He just asked why you used the tactic of saying that Eustace wants it, and why you keep using it, and pointed out he's giving his own opinion, not discussing Eustace's. Why have you then replied by going on about Eustace's desires again? It doesn't add anything to the discussion Chaddy. We all know what Eustace has said in public, it's publicly available.

But the rest of the time he plays like his hands are in his pockets.

Hang on though, BB was crap. BBD was superb.

I noticed that too. I also thought the vast majority were pretty average saves. Although he does seem to be good at closing players down, and that triple save was top top drawer. With a keeper it's all about consistency, and the bits you get wrong as much as the bits you get right, so it's probably even harder to judge from a highlight reel than other positions. I bet you could even make a reel of Pears where he looks top class. The Greek lad (Stergiakis?) looked like an absolute find from his clips. Did he even play a first team game?

Where did I say that you said that? I was quite clear I was talking about the post you quoted for that part.