bluebruce

I've noticed that's two interviews now where Eustace has said Sammie is 'in talks with Ipswich'. Not we are in talks with Ipswich. Sammie is. That rhetoric makes it sound like we have already accepted a bid. We shouldn't be allowing the player to have talks with Ipswich if they haven't had a bid accepted, as again it just unsettles the player further, and weakens our hand by showing Ipswich they're nearly there. If we have accepted a bid, dropping him from the last 3 friendlies makes a bit more sense. The first time Eustace said this, he said SS and SG were in talks with other clubs. It was only a couple of days later I think that Gally signed for Stoke. Sounds to me like his agent might be struggling to get Ipswich to meet his terms.

I don't think it's 0 games, but he hasn't played the last 3 I believe. I agree, doesn't make sense. 'He could get injured'. Right, well he could get injured training. He could get injured stepping out the shower or playing his xbox! He probably won't get injured in any of those ways, including a light hearted friendly, as he was pretty sturdy last season. Taking him out of the team for friendlies means he doesn't get match sharpness in him. That's no good for us if he stays, and it's no good for Ipswich if he goes there. It also sends the signal to Ipswich that they're unsettling the player, which gives them cause to keep the bids low. Foolish all round IMO.

Confidence can be built. And if you have ability, it should be easier to do so.

If 9/10 million is right, setting an 8 mill release clause is fucking stupid and detrimental to Rovers. If we want to sell him at 8 mill we will sell him for 8 mill. Nor would an 8 mill release clause stop clubs trying to lowball us. It won't. In Spain, players move for less than their release clauses all the time. Some people talk like minimum fee release clauses mean you can't accept a lower offer or something.

That's not true. The season before, BBD scored 7 goals from the flank, and looked far more useful than his previous seasons. Szmodics had been in great form in the final third of the season before. Who was showing momentum last season? If the new boys don't fire, I don't see anybody doing an AA/BBD/SS, even using them as the model for it.

I didn't say they were good leagues, or that they're good signings, I said they're stronger leagues than the Scottish second tier, which you said they weren't.

Became pretty much both-footed. Like MGP.

Maldini played there a fair bit.

But we do have Travis. So why is it like that? Are you referring to another position?

The Japanese top league and top Belgian league are both superior to the Scottish second tier, which is virtually pub football

For the sake of accuracy, they weren't told no because he was too old, they were told no because they wouldn't sign off on a two year deal. So what we've done instead is taken on just the second year of that deal, when the player has degraded further and stands more chance of suddenly becoming a liability. Genius. He had better be on much smaller terms than he was offered last year or it's just madness.

I shouldn't think so. Described on Wiki as a forward/attacking midfielder. Think he plays more in the latter role. Probably he and Ohashi are seen as replacing Szmodics. Which, obviously you'd expect neither of them truly will. Weimann's best season though was in 2021/22 when he scored 22 goals in the Championship for Bristol C. Scored 6 the next, and 4 this season. Dunno if that's because his role changed or age kicked in. Please don't let Fleck be seen as a Garrett replacement. Garrett is usually available, which makes him a good squad player to have. Fleck is the opposite.

Take a cold shower.

Scratch that actually, I've since seen that in winter the range can potentially drop to about 115 miles (probably less since the battery isn't new), and that's not going to cut it for me due to the inability of this older model to charge quickly. This is one of the problems with the older battery chemistries, they're nowhere near as resistant to cold as the newer ones (some of which are barely affected by it at all), and they don't charge at speeds of 250 kW like a Model 3 can...this one is limited to 46 kW, so charges at less than a fifth of the speed on a public charger. Shame, I was nearly ready to take the plunge, but with my current driving needs I'd say I have to be able to get at least 150 miles reliably in all conditions to avoid a faffy amount of pre-planning journeys. Guess it's back to trundling along for another couple of years or so til the prices of better EVs come down and my finances hopefully improve!

There's nothing to make up. The Fans Forum notes already show that Eustace and his team are looking for a GK.

Mr Shearer!

Much to my personal surprise (despite being keen on EVs), I'm actually considering buying one! I thought it'd be a few years away for me yet. But basically, my petrol Peugeot 308 (from 2008) just keeps giving me no end of grief. Spending several hundred a year on patching it up, and it still has issues. I've had it since 2017 but it's starting to feel time to give it up. My worry though has been, what if I spend a few grand and just get a car with as many issues? Whether immediately or a couple years down the line. So I thought I'd check out used EVs on Auto Trader for less than 7k (and 7k would be a stretch for me tbh, would be most of my life savings and I have small cash flow issues currently). There's only really two feasible cars that show up for that sort of price - Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe. The Leaf only has about 160 miles of range, which is a bit shy of my needs really, as I'll sometimes be away from home charging for more miles than that and they don't charge particularly fast. The Zoe has 250 miles of range though, which is all I'd need 99% of the time. Saw one for just 4k, but you have to 'lease' the battery, and although they'll replace it for free if it fails or falls below 75% capacity, it would cost me at least 1k a year to do, so fuck that. But I can get ones where the battery is owned for about £5,600. Similar mileage to mine, but 10 years younger. This is a lot for me, but then I started doing the maths. I estimate I could save about £800 a year in fuel. Vehicle tax would drop from £320 to £0, although most of this would probably be swallowed by increased insurance for a newer car. I'd also need to spend about a grand installing a charger at home, but after about 8 years the car would have paid for itself in fuel savings alone. Quicker if I start driving more for work. In the meantime, it would also likely be cheaper to service (less fluids, so about £50 less to service on average) and presumably I'll have less repair problems, especially compared to my old Peugeot, as there are far less moving parts and it's a decade younger. Maybe going from an average of £300-500 yearly on repairs to £50-150, for a while at least (outside of brake pads/discs, window wipers, tyres and coil springs, I don't think anything that has broken/worn out in my car exists in an EV). I assume I'll get somewhere from £500 to £1k for trading in my car too. I think all told, I'd be getting ROI (return on investment) vs persevering with my old Peugeot (without accounting for the bigger problems with it probably around the corner) inside maybe 5 years. And still have some sale value left over by then. I'm mostly saying all of this to illustrate that, depending on your needs, situation etc, it possibly is more sensible to buy a cheap used EV than to run a banger. Tbh I wanted to get by for a few more years before switching to EVs, as I think my income will improve and the value on the used EV market definitely will, but I'm not seeing much sense in buying another cheap combustion car that could have a dozen parts about to fail. There's only really one thing holding me back from taking this plunge - reading online suggests the motor is good for 100k to 200k miles, and the car is at 99k miles...the motor is about 3k to replace! But I could get lower mileage for more money. As I've said before, the batteries last a lot longer than people think, so not too worried there but I can't speak to this car's battery specifically. I'm probably gonna stick with what I have for the next couple of months, but when my insurance is coming up I'm gonna review my options and see what's on offer. Also, does anybody have advice on the best place to sell my old car?

Always said he had a powerful shot in his locker. If he'd had the football intelligence of a Rhodes, he'd have torn this league up.

Yes, but I found it endearing. In Japan, the equivalent ('san') is very commonly used.

Has to be a joke (from them, or you), built on them signing Gally and Ennis.

I feel like @wilsdenrover is the most likely to be able to answer this.

Dunno if it's been discussed already, but minutes of Waggot's recent comments from the Fans Forum: "Mark Hitchen inquired about the club’s thoughts on the state of the playing squad going into the new season. “Steve Waggott identified four essential ingredients to improve the senior squad and which the head coach and his backroom staff thought the squad lacked last season: pace, power, resilience, leadership. “With this in mind, four key positions had been identified in consultation with John Eustace: goalkeeper, left-sides centre-half, No 9, either a ‘7’ or ‘11’." Seems Gueye is the 9, Ohashi the '7 or 11', neither Baath or McFadz are left sided centre halves, which makes them both coming in a bit weird, but does suggest we might go for a left-sided centre half yet. Hopefully the priority right now is goalkeeper though, for me that's been the biggest need all summer even before Wahlstedt left.

Just finished watching this a few days ago. Powerful stuff, as anything well-made about WWII and particularly the holocaust generally is. Not the sort of thing I could binge watch though, I never watched more than 2 episodes at a time as it's quite heavy going.

Disney Plus. Not seen it myself but it's on there, heard a lot of good things. The concept doesn't draw me in, but the amount of raving I've heard about it, I'll probably watch it some day.

Or there might simply not be anything to make a decision on Siggy about. If nobody tries to buy him, we can't sell him. I'm yet to see any clubs linked.