RevidgeBlue

Can't agree with any of that. If the selling Club dont want to sell a particular player they can put whatever price tag they want on his head. It's not really up to you or me to decide if a price is unreasonable and if the interested Club dont want to pay it they dont get, unless they can reach a compromise. Now our scouts may not know exactly how much a Club wants for a player but I refuse to believe they haven't got a fairly good idea otherwise all the work they do would be completely pointless. And how long does it take us to ring up and find out what the asking price is anyway? Unearthing a player available for £5m when we only have £1m to spend isn't good scouting and having found out the asking price, we shouldn't have pursued it further by putting in a derisory offer, it just makes us look a joke. As for the more recent link - if any Club are willing to meet Barnsley's asking price they'll get him. I highly doubt it will be us so if it's not, that will be another dead end and waste of everyone's time.

I think it's fairly obvious that there has been a substantial softening in their attitude to a potential sale over the last two or three years IF a credible offer comes in. Let's hope there's some substance to the rumour and the potential buyers are serious players.

Fine. Any of them might work. The "Desperate Dan" we have at the moment definitely isnt working. Did you rail against Kean and Coyle being sacked as well? They have very similar records.

Any replacement might have a bit of ability though.

I think we have more specific problems than the general issues affecting the game tbf.

I like the lad and I dont think he's as bad as many make out. Hope he recovers his enthusiasm in a different setting and Ill be keeping an eye on his progress with interest.

On the face of it Keillor-Dunn looks like he'd be a good signing but will cost money and we have competition so probably won't happen. The lad from Villa looks a completely pointless signing but if guaranteed some game time wouldnt cost us much, if anything at all, so probably has every chance of happening.

Had a quick look online and as at 24 hours ago it appeared Norwich, Charlton and Portsmouth were after him. So you'd imagine that the existence of anyone willing to pay actual money for him would rule us out but theoretically he looks like he'd be a good signing for someone.

I disagree - I thought Broughton was full "aligned" and on board with the plan to sell anything that wasn't nailed down. Thought he was more than happy to turn us into the Crewe Alexandra of the Championship right from his very first interview. Weird we've had no "forget to press send" moments or missed deadlines since he left as well. But as with one or two other well trodden subjects, I know not everyone agrees. 🙂

Difficult to assess that until they've both had an extended run at the same level. Personally Id say Leonard's movement is better than Gudjohnssen's but the latter is more clinical in front of goal. Although Leonard may be improving in that respect.

Not getting at you but we always also generally target back up in various positions when many of the starting X1 aren't good enough to begin with. Again cheaper.

Cheap squad fillers in positions which aren't the priority. It's our modus operandi.

It's not going to be Norwich.

Genuine question: Is Gudjohnsen any better? Im not sure he is. Id definitely prefer it if we had both at the Club.

Another very good post. Hope you can stick it out until better times return.

Sorry to hear you're struggling with it all as well. I dont think there can be "an expectation of winning" unless you support four or so Clubs in England or Rangers or Celtic or Real Madrid or Barcelona etc. However even though I've voted with my feet some time ago the thing I still struggle with more than anything else about the Club currently is not simply the lack of actual success but the fact that there doesnt even seem to be any desire whatsoever within the Club win football matches or even try and be successful. We're simply a vehicle to exist so a few people who work at the Club and associated hangers on can hopefully make a very good living off it while it lasts. If I felt there was a genuine desire within the Club to be successful, I could forgive a lot. Everyone makes mistakes. But that desire and good faith (with the exception of Eustace and JDT) has been absent for a good number of years already now. If I felt at any point that the feeling of ambition and wanting to do well had genuinely returned Id like to think so would I.

I think this is the best post I've ever seen on here. So sad and so poignant. I hope you keep in touch on here from time to time and take care.

Anyone who doesnt see the need for a boycott or any other form of action should read Devon Rover's beautifully written post on the "Painful Acceptance" thread and take a moment to reflect.

"Little money" is relative. Armstrong and Szmodics turned out to be absolute bargains but still cost £3m and £1.9m respectively. Our ceiling for transfer fees recently seems to be generally around the £1m mark with the wages being even more of a problem so that would put even a top League 1 or League 2 striker out of our budget probably unless someone else is sold to cover it.

First of all, he is not the ONLY problem at the Club but he is a bloody big part of it, he's an atrocious manager/ head coach - and he is fully complicit in the situation we currently find ourselves in. The real test of how good or poor a manager he is imo came last season. Literally from the first minute he walked through the door, remaining in the play off picture no longer seemed to be an option. In the summer he was completely on board ("aligned") with Gestede and Pasha as he oversaw the destruction of the squad. After wheeling and dealing with eleven or twelve players both in and out we've been left with arguably the weakest squad any of us can remember and definitely the one with the least attacking potential. Hardly surprising when we went into the season with only two strikers that he was prepared to use. Frankly I don't believe a word he says either. He's been prepared to pretend players were close to signing new deals one minute then make out they'd changed their mind on a sixpence the next, sling unfounded accusations at other outgoing players or send them to Coventry in order to ease them out of the door, and been happy to sell a key player in the last few hours of the window without a replacement knowing the alternatives had a history of being extremely injury prone. Now he's (imo) pulling the wool over supporters' eyes by pretending players were coming in early and that we're after two strikers when (again imo) he knows there's no chance whatsoever of that happening. And it comes only a month or two after he told the owners they could repair the pitch instead of spending in January. The owners need to go, Pasha needs to go, Gestede needs to go. But by Christ this fella also needs to go. 4 home wins in 19 and 2 goals in (edited) 624 minutes of football.

We didnt really have three because VI obviously made his mind up on Gueye very early on and there was talk of him being sold in the last window.

It's not really "a budget" if no-one of the calibre we need will come for the wages we are offering. Dennis and Woodrow were presumably intended as short term fixes to try and keep us in and hopefully get us through the play offs. Is "a short term fix" what we need at the moment?

Waggott told someone I know during "the Rothwell window" that the owners had made a healthy transfer budget available in addition to the promotion bonuses which WERE actually publicised in the LT. So either Waggott or Mowbray were lying because if Waggott was correct there was no pressing need to offload Rothwell to raise funds. If Mowbray was discouraging them from spending at that point it would be at least be consistent with his behaviour of a couple of years previously when he freely admitted he had to get the owners to "calm down" following promotion from League 1. He wouldnt have the same problem these days.

The main similarity is that we have zero attacking threat no matter what combination we put out currently. Whoever would have thought that going into the season with just 2 strikers, one might get injured?

That's the risk you run when you play a weakened side.