I don’t listen to it, but on the odd occasion I did in years gone by, they seemed to find it hard enough to fill the air time in a normal season. I mean how many phone ins on Arsenal’s goalkeeper can you have? But what the feck did they do in lockdown?

They should, but many don’t... but they are straight out with the platitudes after moving on, ‘so happy to get going again after a tough season not getting the games I’d have liked’.

Yes from agents, from Nixon type hacks, from someone in the club as we need the cash. Its not a sleight on Sharpe, from his point of view it simply fills a page of the paper in the close season, which is hard enough. It’s all part of the ecosystem of the murky world of transfers.

What’s fine? They can print anything like about whoever they like. JH however believes that when they print stories like ‘clubs linked’ about our top players without naming said clubs, it’s just the paper doing the bidding of agents and the club to get an auction going. Considering Sharpe has never broken a transfer story from what I can recall and gets half his info from places like this, it’s not exactly far fetched and probably common practice. Fair enough if folk want to call it ‘conspiracy’, but it’s how Nixon and his ilk have carved out a career. Naive to think otherwise.

Smallwood, a whole hearted player on the pitch, giving up a year of a time limited playing career to sit on a contract for 12 months, shows that ‘playing football’ isn’t the be all and end all when you know you won’t see a deal as lucrative again.

Maybe he’s happy living in Wrea Green and taking the cash?

You’d think with everything that’s gone on this year, that that odd section of society that seem to obsess about no marks like his missus, would have moved on. Celeb culture generally seems to have taken a hit .

He did it way into the PL days, though maybe not right to the end of his time here.

To be fair, JH’s point is about the club’s top assets, the likes of Pope, not deadwood.

Will it be like Gazza’s ‘The Real Me’ VHS? https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/love-islands-olivia-attwood-fianc-22445928.amp?__twitter_impression=true

He did it pre every game as he ran towards the Blackburn End ‘Colin, show us your arse!’ ? ‘Wahhheyyy’

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit, as the EFL seem to have a very fast and loose relationship with their own rule book, but it’s an open and shut case, in reality. The fact Barnsley have got involved says they will impose it.

Doesn’t Sharpe purport to be a Rovers fan? Or his ‘second club’ when growing up? Which is an improvement to the motley crew of scousers and southerners we’ve had since Andy Neild.

Blackpool didn’t go into administration. They went into receivership, key difference.

Unless there is anything in the rules that says ‘12 point deduction... apart from if there is a force majeure/dodgy stuff going on in the Philippines’, I don’t see how they have a leg to stand on. Dodgy owner doing dodgy stuff with his business doesn’t impact the EFL rule book, the league are simply making a reactive ruling to a club going into administration, they are not forensic accountants or the fraud squad, if it does get overturned then the rule is finished.

Here we go. Paul acting like a 10 year old again. Shame, as I actually said I enjoy his posts when he puts some meat on the bones like he did yesterday. Can’t help himself though. Here’s hoping this ‘foreign scouting network’ is bearing fruit, been about 5 years. I said we get linked with and this place posts a plethora of players, in particular foreign players, how many have we signed from abroad this past 3/4 years, but how many links and how many of these links get a Sharpe mention? It is obviously largely agent talk, who says this one isn’t? Or simply nicked from brfcs, Sharpe and Crooke know less than half the folk on here (though I also said, twice, feel free to quote me if they do as we need some cosmopolitan-ness), so I take no notice and don’t put much credence in them. Others do, and good luck to them. Though after the triumphalism because Sharpe adds a cryptic line to his piece, like he does every summer, I’d also expect hands up every time one of these players don’t sign. Fairs fair. Fair enough position to take, and to be honest if it’s going to be page after page of willy waving and Chaddy kissing arse because of nameless LT links, I’ll just wait until the ‘5 minute warning’ and leave you guys to it, which is what I usually do, kicking myself really for getting involved, as these threads are always more heat than light and an ego trip for pound shop Nixon’s.

Amazing he still gets airtime 8 years later. Can’t think of many other folk that had one brief (alas not brief enough), failed job in this country nearly a decade ago yet still gets on the radio and in papers...

Just ring ClubCall

No problem with actual snippets, keeps the thread moving as largely feck all happens for weeks on end in the close season, even if it’s just ‘I’ve heard we are looking at a young keeper’ etc. But that’s new from Paul to put that amount of meat on the bones, previously it’s been just emojis and ‘if only you knew’, ‘there’s stuff happening mate, but I’m not telling’ and such like which adds what, exactly? Anybody could post that. If he keeps up with the post he put up earlier which actually discussed the type of targets (but no names, so confidences kept) we are looking at, then great.

Yeah, strange set up all around, like the LT but even less insight (who knew that was possible).

‘Absolutely trash me’, bloody hell you don’t half take yourself seriously, it’s a message board, not a libel case. Why would I want you to ‘blow up friendships of 20 years’? I’m merely saying that hinting you know all this stuff, but ‘I can’t tell you’ is a bit cringe, you’d actually be protecting your mate by saying nothing at all (though some mate that would chuck away two decades of friendship over tittle tattle like this) but you can’t do that because you love the attention. All this because I said random foreign names thrown on to a forum don’t seem particularly credible (though I also said feel free to quote me if one does trap, we need some cosmopolitan-ness in the squad), it’s just the way it is in July on football message boards, good luck to anyone that gets excited by it.

It is silly season. I take no interest in links, they either sign or they don’t. I think they are largely agent planted stories, if that upsets J*B and the like, then so be it, though I’m sure he has a thicker skin than that. However, a lot of folk do hang off the words of anybody with info, or even those who hint that they may have, look at a professional grifter like Nixon’s twitter for proof of that. But you don’t post anything, apart from innuendo and ? Either spill the beans, or protect confidences and say nothing. Posting ‘I know all this stuff... but I can’t tell you ‘, it’s childlike.

I’m always relaxed, but cheers for the advice, I’ll go and find my colouring book. ’I wish we could play like that, aren’t they brilliant’ would have sufficed then, instead of stating that we will be phasing out our talisman as we continue to try and ape their style - a heads up, that may just get a discussion going .

‘I know something you don’t know’.

I thought you were? As you talked about the system TM favours a la wide forwards and how Dack doesn’t fit into it, so will be phased out. That sounds like you do think it’s a serious plan, not a light hearted wistfulness of what ‘can be’, but ok, dream away.