Good post, one would hope it's a case of the owners stepping in and attempting to do the job properly as opposed to Waggott's original poorly researched, back of a fag packet, pie in the sky scheme. That said I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him and as long as he is still here I would never underestimate the potential for him to get involved with and profit from a property deal before disappearing into a happy retirement leaving BRFC with diddly squat. As far as the query as to whether a new training complex is really top of our list of priorities given the already excellent existing facilities I'd, I'd tend to agree it isn't. However spending on infrastructure is exempt from FFP so it is theoretically a chance for the owners to demonstrate their stated commitment to the Club without affecting the amount they're allowed to inject under FFP rules.

Absolutely, obviously no lessons have been learned in the past from giving out inflated contracts to mediocre dross or players getting past their best like Evans Bennett Downing and Graham and subsequently not having the funds to retain our better players. Gallagher should be written off as a bad job. Ludicrous to be committing funds to saddling ourselves with him for an even lengthier period when we seemingly can't tempt the out of contract trio or BBD to sign new deals.

Absolutely Ricky, if we're still in the same position by mid Jan there's only one decision to be made - keep the out of contract trio until the end of the season and sell BBD in summer if need be and if we haven't been promoted. Anything else would be desperately disappointing and indicate zero ambition.

I'll start the car and pay for the fuel.

We trigger the extension and unless they offer what we consider acceptable he stays put. See above post.

Wouldn't have thought a team in Spain would be able to offer anywhere near the £25m that might turn our heads either. Doubt they'd be in a position to get much past double figures.

Why not? The owners don't need the money per se. The Club shouldn't need the money for FFP purposes imminently as the training ground exercise was completed in the last annual FFP cycle and the Armstrong money hit the accounts in the latest one. And if we do actually have this rather elusive contract extension in our favour as is claimed, surely we could sell him in summer for not much less than what we could this Jan? I'd say what we can't afford to do is sabotage the only potentially viable chance chance of the play offs we've had in the last nine years or so!

Spot on Gav.

I don't think there's much doubt offers have been made JH. However if the players won't accept them, they might as well have not been made at all - the net effect is the same. So as I keep saying the key question is are the offers realistic? Waggott claims they are, the players (or perhaps their agents) don't seem to be of the same view. Don't suppose we'll ever find out who's being reasonable and who's being unreasonable but one thing's for sure, I find it hard to believe a single word that comes out of Waggott's mouth after he attempted to recreate his training ground scam here.

Somewhat of an exaggeration, we won the Premier League before he arrived at the Club so something must have worked back in those days. I think I'd rather have Dalgish or Shearer than John Williams thank you very much. In fact I'd rather have Terry Ibbotson or Tom Finn than John Williams. That's not a sleight on John as all were extremely able operators in their own different ways. The contrast between those days and now is unfortunately however only too apparent with Waggott "at the wheel".

There's no comparison whatsoever between say Wharton and Gallagher. You probably made the mistake nearly everyone did on here of writing Wharton off without ever having seen him play because Mowbray wouldn't give him a chance and kept loaning him out. By contrast we've seen plenty of Gallagher and you don't have to be Nostredamus to realise we've been sold an overpriced dud. He's 26, not 19 as BB was when he was getting flak, and he's as good (or rather bad) as he's ever going to get. In his first spell here he looked distinctly ordinary but his one redeeming quality was that he was very willing and had an ability to run the channels. Since those days he looks to have bulked up considerably and lost all his mobility. Match that up with having no anticipation whatsoever and almost zero technical ability and it's not a happy mix.

The issue isn't really WHETHER they've been offered new contracts, it's whether those offers are tempting enough to get said players to re-sign and seemingly they aren't. Not really going to be worth us letting them go for peanuts if we're still in the top 4 come January either is it?

We can but hope.......... Souness situation mark 2. Never thought we'd be so lucky as to have lightning strike twice mind!

Does that mean Waggott has been offered a new contract? I sincerely hope not.

Did anyone make the point to him that it would be completely pointless letting DL RN and JR go for a relative pittance in January due to the contract situation then spend a similar amount bringing in inferior players?

Real "can't do" person isn't he. Every time someone comes up with a positive suggestion he is there with a reason why it can't be done or might not work. Extremely rare he comes up with an initiative off his own batt which takes everyone by surprise and which could generally be regarded as positive.

Thanks for clarifying.

Personally, I don't think he is as good as as Wharton and I'd rather give another of our youngsters, (Carter) the chance rather than push him out of the picture by signing Van Hecke.

You're being a bit vague1864, to boil it down to the nitty gritty, are you suggesting there's a chance we might not be able to meet certain conditions necessary to activate an extension, or are you saying it's simply a case of the Club has to wait until the appropriate time. I always understood it to mean that IF there is an option to extend a contract in our favour the player had absolutely no say in the matter.

I think he's been bloody awful but it's a game of opinions.

Didn't think it did improve to any noticeable extent John, we'll have to agree to disagree on that. The surface per se was passable yesterday but there's obviously an issue with the drainage and I can only see it deteriorating as winter goes on.

Pretty fair. On the basis that things are going extremely well at the moment I'd stick with the mantra "If it ain't broke don't fix it" and wouldn't rock the boat at the moment in any respect, be it changing the manager or selling any players in January. That doesn't mean to say I think Mowbray's a good manager I think he's a pretty poor one and if we suddenly went on a run of one or two wins in ten and dropped out of contention I still wouldn't be able to make any case for not dispensing with his services. I think it goes without saying no-one wants that to happen and we all hope we make the play offs, and, even more difficult, emerge victorious after the play off matches.

Everyone (including Mowbray) will have to accept that Gallagher is useless whatever position he plays in and it's no coincidence whatsoever that we're playing far better without him in the side. It will be a minor disaster if he is reintroduced in any position at any point other than small cameos off the bench and even then I think we could do better.

An occasion and result that was very nearly ruined by a waterlogged pitch due to Waggott reneging on his promise to provide a new one and the worst officiating performance I think I've ever seen from the referee and the linesman on the Riverside. But we managed to score a superb winner from the one real moment of quality in the game and it turned into a massive three points. Credit where it's due, we didn't really adapt to the freakish conditions first half but in the second someone had obviously had a word, we moved the ball about far quicker and fully deserved the three points in the end. The owners need to step in and take the contract situation by the scruff of the neck now, no-one should be permitted to leave in January and de-rail the momentum we have unexpectedly built up. I'm really enjoying my football for the first time in many years, probably for the first time since Hughes left. You've got to love the spirit these young players are showing. Still think the pitch will become more and more of an issue the deeper we get into winter.

Yet, I don't recall you ever lobbying for a statue of either Souness (who won promotion from this Division AND a League Cup) or Dalglish (who won promotion from this Division AND the Premier League) next to Jack's............ Yet you'd countenance it for someone whose managerial highlight here so far is finishing 11th. How odd. People might be forgiven for thinking you were on the wind up or something..............