Crikey. Even for this forum, that’s niche.

Jobs for the boys. We identified strong targets but for numerous reasons couldn’t get them over the line -> last minute loan -> repeat.

Assuming here, but if Ayala is the Spaniard I was told about and the one Mowbray said was nearly there we need to be on the phone to his agent saying we’re going to pay him more money. Superb player at this level with 3 years left.

Apologise — I’ll tweak the wording now, although the point would still stand. If the answer to ‘can you finish top six?’ is ‘yes, we could do, if we sign the right players’ then I think it’s only fair and reasonable to go for it. But it requires accountability and honesty - if the answer deep down is ‘even with the right signings it’s very unlikely’ then that’s a different discussion. For what it’s worth, unless we have the budget left to sign another back up keeper, a starting centre back, a reserve centre back and a starting left back at top end Championship level, I do not think it’s possible for us to challenge the top six.

You’re probably right, but I would hope with clear communication the fans would back academy/younger players. I know that if Mowbray came out tomorrow and said we’re going to gamble on our youth until January, they’re going to need support but we could end up with some local superstars emerge, I’d be willing to give both him and the players some time.

You’ve just questioned whether someone can be confident of finishing in the top 6, then in the following paragraph said that with the right reinforcements you are confident we could mount a serious top six challenge. That should answer your own question, because you’ve just done it. It’s only opinion, but just to be clear on exactly what I would do. If Mowbray was told he had, let’s say a 2m increase in budget across the board, my first question would be ‘is that enough to challenge the top 6?’. If the answer was yes, great. If the answer was no, that’s fine too, but I would say OK - let’s keep the budget how it was last year, develop our youth and keep the 2m in our pockets. Let’s see where we are in January, because finishing 7th gives us nothing that finishing 20th doesn’t.

My approach as chairman would be quite simple - I would ask Mowbray if he was confident we would finish in the top 6 with the footballing budget allocated. If he said no, I would immediately remove a large % of the budget and ask him to play/develop the kids. If we are struggling in January the budget is still there to bring in enough quality players on short term loans to ensure we don’t go down. As long as we don’t go down all we have done is given opportunities for our own young players to either shine and become valuable assets or prove they are not currently up to the job.

I doubt his demands get lower as we get closer to the deadline, in fact I suspect they get higher. The closer to the deadline you get the more panic is involved. Certainly as a professional footballer just leaving a multi year contract on — for argument sake — 25K a week, he isn’t going to be worried that he hasn’t earnt a wage in 6 weeks.

I personally think we have a club wide issue with how we recognise success. As far as I’m concerned — and if I was Chairman — I would be saying if we don’t finish top 6 we may as well finish 21st. 7th and 21st both equal the same thing. It makes zero difference in this league, the financial benefits aren’t the same as the PL where each position is worth X amount more money. I would rather finish 21st playing JRC, Nyambe, Wharton, Dolan, etc than finish frustratingly close to the top 6 and then have to send back our key players when their loans end and rebuild.

I’ve no idea, wasn’t he on 35K a year at Boro? Our highest earner I believe is Mulgrew on circa 15K, so I doubt we will ever pay anyone close to 20K more than our highest earner. The problem with high wages is it instantly effects your FFP whereas transfer fees can be set across multiple seasons. For what it’s worth I don’t think Alex Gorrin, the Oxford midfielder is even the right name. If you look back through the thread you’ll see I said I was told it was a Spanish player, then told separately that player was Alex Gorrin. I think the ‘Spanish player’ was probably right, but Gorrin was guesswork gone wrong. I was told today via Twitter DM that we where very close to Mowson but Bristol came up with a higher wage contribution that we couldn’t match. Not sure how true it is, but if it was true I would find that worrying.

I’m not sure our budget is as bad as I predicted. I noticed today Jacob at the Telegraph was saying that FFP has been relaxed, although I still can’t find any official confirmation of this and wonder whether he’s got UEFAs guidance wrong like many on here did. Unleaded posted saying we missed out on a player we had bid 600K for. We offered 900K for Kipre. Unleaded has got a long history of getting transfers right before anyone else, so I’ve no reason to doubt that we did offer money. I genuinely think they start with very high targets, get so far down the line then beaten financially at the post, then revert to loans to try and plug the gaps. The problem with loans IMO is they’re only any use when used to get you over the line. Like Villa did with Abraham. If they’re not going to make the difference between mid table and top six, or top six and top two, they’re really a waste. Someone posted Tosin cost us upwards of 1M, I believe that. He made a difference, but not enough to break us into the top six. We may as well have finished 17th with Wharton or Carter having the chance to develop.

The key really is posting info with an asterisk next to it. If someone tells you to categorically not mention where/how you found out info, it’s very hard to say enough, without saying too much. If I had posted “Heard there’s something coming imminently, although it’s second hand info now and could be wrong” I would have gotten away with it. Well, until people replied saying “hedging your bets there!”.

You’re right — I did predict that reply coming back! In all seriousness ‘brace yourself’ has taught me a hell of a lot about transfer windows without learning very much. It must be pretty crazy being involved in them, especially with big name transfers. DG told someone, in my company, over a month ago he was signing for Sunderland. Nothing for weeks, then he signs. If he knew then, why does it take so long to be announced? The person that told me the ‘brace yourself’ info was part of the Rovers transfer team. Transfers do not happen without this persons involvement, in terms of ‘sources’ it’s pretty much golden. But then nothing, nothing on Wednesday, or Thursday... whilst I’m banging my head against a wall wondering what on Earth is going on, here we are a week later and seemingly nothing on the horizon. Do I think he was lying to me? No, that would be very odd. The reality — I assume — was someone was set to sign, then something happened. I’ve no idea what, or why. Really, unless you’re right in the middle of it, the info you get is second/third/fourth hand. To be fair to Rovers, when we do sign someone recently it’s totally out of nowhere, so we are doing well and keeping things under wraps.

Bump!

We’ll see - I’ve been looking into it today with a few others. I was given two separate pieces of info - the first being we’re due to sign a player on Wednesday morning that is Spanish, I shared it with a few other people to see if they had heard anything and the name I was given is Alex Gorrìn, Spanish defensive midfielder from Oxford. I now don’t think Gorrìn is right... but I’m convinced there was something in the first bit of info I got. So I’ll still hang my hat on us signing a Spanish player imminently. And I may well be wrong!

No, I was told they weren’t releasing season tickets until they had an idea about what % of the ground can be sold by the government... exactly like the statement they released today. Although to be fair, I did get told Danny Graham has signed for Sunderland about 2 weeks ago and that didn’t happen!

I’m a bit stumped, to be honest. I was told the player was at Brockhall on Tuesday, everything was agreed pending a medical, I had assumed it would be announced by now. I’ve sort of said all I can... I said this morning the players name I was given is not a defender, he’s actually a central/defensive midfielder... but now Rich is back from his holiday and speaks about a ‘central midfielder not being ruled out’ right at the end of his update, which to me sounds like any midfielder is miles away. Really odd. It’s that specific I just can’t see how someone has made it up. But Rich seemingly knowing zero about it raises real question marks.

OK OK - I said I’d post, the Celtic player wasn’t the one we where told about. So let’s roll the dice and see what happens. If what we where told is true — and that comes with ifs and buts — we will announce another player imminently, who will play in the first team, is not a defender and is not British. If it isn’t announced soon I suspect we’ve been sold a duff, so I’ll tell you the name.

Serious squeaky bum time here let me bloody tell you. We’ll see, until later... adios.

Until there’s some sort of a delay, at which point I’m out of office.

???

But... defenders are coming!

I posted on Thursday what he’s doing - buying time hoping for a PL move.

I wish, I’d love to post but wouldn’t want to upset anyone. It’s only tomorrow away.

Nay. Not Kipre either, who’s pissed Mowbray right off.