Yet we let two of our first team midfielders leave, and so far have replaced them with a youngster from Brighton, who doesn’t actually play the same position as them.

Manager is ex-Plymouth

This is underwhelming garbage. No strategy, no real direction, just desperately filling the squad with bodies. No way are we signing McGuire permanently if the figures are even close to what is reported. Just another loan to tide us over until May, and then the cycle will start again.

Roll up, Roll up 🙄

And here we are, deadline day.... Wharton leaving.... absolute fucking debacle with McGuire.... no other real links or rumours. And the fans are squabbling amongst each other 🤣 Venky's wet dream.

It's not honourable, it's downright barmy! Loads of transfers fail due to complications with other deals in a chain. It's the natural domino effect of the transfer window and it's why players are often haring up and down the UK motorway network (or in Odemwingie's case, sat outside a stadium) with very little time to spare. This notion of being honourable is bollocks, and in the unlikely event of it being true, would be astonishingly idiotic. PERHAPS Orlando were pressing for some sort of response before the end of the working day, but I can't see why, when McGuire was supposedly sat on an aeroplane already. No, something isn't right about this. My hunch is the Rao's have pulled the plug on it and Bayes' source is arse covering. Let's see if we spend anything like the value of the McGuire deal....

Very sceptical about this. Okay, so the Wharton deal may have been stalling, I'm not going to speculate on that for the minute. Who knows why or how that would be the case. Why on earth would Rovers immediately advise Orlando that the deal won't be happening? Based on timeline of events, it can't have been much earlier than 9pm UK time when we advised them. He's supposedly on a flight here so there's a nice natural buffer there, and clearly the Wharton deal wasn't completely dead. If, today the Wharton deal is dead, we have a perfectly acceptable reason for not progressing the McGuire deal. Instead, we appear to be in a position whereby we've sold Wharton and conveniently, the McGuire deal is gone, to the detriment, embarrassment and ridicule of the club. Prove me wrong Rovers, but currently this stinks. It looks to me like we can anticipate another 'not our fault', hard luck story in the next few days. Question: Who is Bayes' source? Was it him who conducted the cosy interview with Waggott in August?

This is such a strange take on the situation, I can’t really understand why you’ve bothered typing it out. The fact is, we’d negotiated a deal, presumably fee, wages and all that goes with it and organised travel for McGuire and his representatives, only for our meddlesome owners to seemingly take it upon themselves to veto all transfers in to the club at the 11th hour. Whether McGuire is any good or not is completely irrelevant at this stage. The only reason it would be relevant is if we’ve decided to sign another (seemingly better) option. At this stage it sounds highly unlikely.

Disagree. JDT was livid with the O’Brien palaver last Jan, clearly angry about the slashing of funds in summer, and now has this shambles unfolding in front of him. He can’t work in these conditions, an almost constant erosion and downgrading of the squad, lies, backtracking, embarrassment. If he’s any sense he should pack it in now. IF Broughton is also blameless then I totally agree, his position is untenable too.

If this is accurate then I can’t really see how JDTs position as manager is tenable. I’d be amazed if he’s still manager beyond the weekend.

It's all well and good listing those players, but which of those can come and get the ball off the defenders in tight spaces like Wharton did? JDTs style of play is heavily reliant on that, and as recently as Monday night their goal came from a Garrett mistake in a dangerous area. You say Travis' doesn't suit JDTs style of play, but which of those 4 (assuming Tronstad is a mainstay now) is going to play alongside him to great effect? JRC also had a couple of cameos in midfield before his injury and I'm not sure he has the discipline or know-how to play in a fairly exposed midfield. As things stand we've lost two first team midfielders (one the best player in the team IMO and irreplaceable with the current crop), and we've brought in a relative unknown from Brighton who struggled at Coventry earlier in the season. It's not good enough, and if we don't address it I'm expecting a real slog from now until May.

Not the point. The conditions were clear - if Buckley goes he needs to be replaced, if not, as JDT said yesterday, he's a good player and we need good players. All this nonsense about "should have played him more" is churlish.

Has Rigger deleted the post you quoted? I can't see it on the timeline. Perhaps realised it's one of the worst posts in the history of the MB. He was out for the last 3 months of the season, he's been involved in most match days and has played in the league cup, to very good effect. JDT is the coach, he was appointed to take charge of first team football affairs, and part of that role is to do with his squad what he sees fit. If, all of a sudden first team players are being sent on loan without his agreement, then it massively undermines his position. Travis was left out for a good portion of last season, and was brought back in when JDT thought he could best effect our performances. What's next? The team news gets faxed over from India? Waggott dangling (ooooh matron) over the box shouting tactics or making substitutions?

This is a massive concern. Seemingly no-one consulted with JDT, which I'm gobsmacked about (I know, I'm a fool). Whilst JDT doesn't take day to day responsibility for the transfers in and out, he has to have the final say on his squad. GB spoke very clearly about how involved he is in selecting transfer targets and speaking to players before any transfers reach a conclusion. To let a first team player leave without his say so is a shambles. I'm sure GB will address this in his usual post-window interview, but on the face it this looks like another deadline day cock-up and another nail in the coffin of the managers tenure. Conspiracy: was GB involved in the last minute Buckley departure or was it another cloak and dagger budget cut decision in an already depressingly belt tightening summer? There has to be some accountability, and GBs interview has to address who had the final say on this. If he wasn't involved either then it's further evidence that the owners are meddling in affairs they shouldn't be, probably via Waggott or Pasha, which totally undermines the DoF model.

He certainly didn't. He's already admitted "the project has changed". Whose responsible for that I wonder? I read today that we were 20th in the league for transfer fees spent this window. What exactly can we expect from this group with such disinterested owners at the helm? The coaching and playing staff are the only source of pride at this shell of a club - they will have off days because we're so reliant on whatever the academy produce.

I don't know if I've missed it already, but I'm interested to hear his thoughts on the window in the end. He got a striker.... Was it one he wanted?

Everyone take a breath. Last Sunday we put in a really gritty, excellent away performance vs Watford. Sounds like we could and should have been 2 up today before an extremely unlucky deflected goal. Missed some great chances and the game got away from us in the end. It happens... and it happened last season. The next two weeks is crucial for our season with a big game against a really struggling Boro.

They've not conceded at home since 29th October, winning all 6 games. They're also 4th in the form table since the World Cup break... we're 19th. This is a strong team with a good manager.

Not sure. I understand that in a small claims court you aren't liable to pay legal costs in the result of a loss, no idea about a court of arbitration. It's still a relatively big if at this stage either way.

So he's 100% missing the next 4 games (based on us having 2-weeks to put a case forward). The absolute earliest he could play seemingly would be 4th March, with 12 games of the season remaining. He's played 94minutes of football since Halloween, and hasn't played since he came on for 20mins vs Leicester in mid-January. We're 19th in the form table since the Burnley debacle, and have dropped from 2nd to 9th. We've scored 8 goals in those 10 games and didn't sign a striker in January with our two current incumbents having managed 4 goals in the league all season. We've also conceded 17 goals in that period, although they do include hammerings from Burnley, PNE and Rotherham. At what point do we write this one off? Having watched us all season, in my opinion we're not going up and we're not going to regain any semblance of form because frankly, we never had any. I can't pinpoint one part of the season where we played well - October was a good month but I can't pretend we played well vs Sunderland, Birmingham or Huddersfield when we picked up maximum points. I'd like to see O'Brien playing for us, but is he going to turn our season around and drag us to the playoffs? Everyone says he was crucial in getting Hudds there last season, but IMO the most crucial part of that formula was the manager. He's better than ours. Legal costs followed by relatively high wages at the end of it (if successful).... and will we gain anything at the end of it all?

If that's true (or 45% as recently mentioned), then here is a quick analysis of the figures. Leicester's last FA Cup home game was a 4th round tie 8th Jan 2022, vs Watford. The attendance was 25,710. This during an Omicron outbreak, a week after the festivities and two rounds previous to this one. It was HOWEVER a Saturday, so the fact our game is a Tuesday could have a negative affect. Let's anticipate therefore an attendance of 22,000. Prices are £22 for adults, £14 for seniors and Under 22s and £8 for under 8s. So at an average let's say £15 per ticket sold = £330,000. 45% that income is £150,000. The value of Rovers' offer is £10 x £2200 = £22,000 (MAXIMUM). The value of £10 is also assuming every person in Rovers travelling fanbase is paying the full adult fee, so it's actually likely to be less than this value. I understand this is a very shallow analysis and I've probably missed some key element of the formula, but it's the best I'm going to do. Very rough estimate sees Rovers sacrificing perhaps 10 - 15% of their income from tickets. From a totally objective position (outside looking in) you can't really knock it, especially when compared to what we usually anticipate from this regime. Taking in to account other factors I think it's simply another pretty transparent PR stunt following the complete balls up that was the January window - how much have they saved from not loaning O'Brien or bringing in a striker?!? They'll have to do a lot more than this to convince me that anyone in a position of power/authority at the club gives a single shit about the fanbase, and see us as anything more than walking £ signs and another box to tick to protect their own cushy number. I await the 23/24 season ticket campaign.... what was the 'loyalty' discount last season? A miserly £30 off an overpriced product valued between £399 - £530.... as long as you buy it 2 months before the season starts and before the club can be arsed to appoint a Director of Football and Head Coach.

Embarassing.

24 isn't exactly a whippersnapper... 14 goals in 120 senior appearances, 9 in 74 for Cardiff. That's pretty underwhelming stuff!

At risk of sounding slightly pedantic, we don't have a manager. We have a head coach, and he isn't responsible for signing players. He's spoken extensively about needing a striker, the recruitment team don't appear to have delivered on that. JDT has plenty of flaws, but we can't blame him for this one.

So, it looks like two short-term signings in Sorba Thomas and O'Brien, and maybe the young lad from Rochdale who's played very little first team football. Happy and desperate in equal measure to be proven wrong, but I have a feeling the first two will actually turn out to be more or less completely pointless signings in my opinion. Here's my logic - since Coventry away (over a third of the season) we're 19th in the form table, we're joint 18th for goals scored in the entire season, and we're now clinging to a playoff spot by our fingernails having been 2nd heading in to the World Cup break. So the question is - are these two signings going to get us in to the play-offs? On paper they improve us, but are they all of a sudden going to turn our form around from 19th to perhaps.... top 10, top 8 or top 6 form? We're likely going to need that to keep our play-off chances alive. We've all been watching us recently - we aren't very good, we struggle massively whenever we go a goal down, and we're a little too frequently on the end of a good hiding from poor teams. Our top scorer hasn't scored for 3 months, has already signed a pre-contract with another club and is a new dad... is he going to regain form or is his mind on other things? Dack is wonderful and thank God JDT saw sense with him, but if he gets 10 or 12 goals he'll have done brilliantly. Gallagher and Vale have 4 league goals between them in about 35 combined starts and loads of sub appearances. So, these loans are decent players, but in my opinion from watching Rovers all season and particularly since November, we aren't going to make the play-offs. In effect all we've ended up doing is paying good money for players that we'll never see beyond May. We needed a striker - if we haven't got one then there's definitely a black cloud hanging over this window. When JDT spoke to Broughton pre-window his absolute PRIORITY would have been a striker - him and the recruitment team have failed in that.