Newcastle are surely the right Club for him -if they're interested/FFP allow.

Me neither.

Can't imagine the fate of Blackburn Rovers is much of a priority for the Indian Courts. Anyone know what a "Vigilance Committee Meeting" is? Be a bit surreal if whatever one of those is ended the Club one year short of its 150th anniversary.

If I was Wharton, Palace would be one of the last Premier League Clubs I'd want to go to, they seemingly lack much ambition and always look to be two or three bad results away from being dragged into a relegation battle at the best of times. They're running even worse at the moment and I'd say if he went there there'd be a pretty high chance he'd be back in the Championship within 18 months.

File in waste paper basket.

Good spot. At least you've done the LT's work for them and written their latest story!

Probably hence Palace getting wind of it and trying to take the piss with a low bid. What do we do now? I flagged an adjournment up as the worst possible case scenario yesterday but didnt actually think it would happen. We're completely snookered. Another example of why this situation is unworkable.

Who knows. Why would the owners sanction O Brien and then deliberately scupper the deal (according to some)? Appearances? Is it not probable that Broughton has complete autonomy within a certain budget and anything over and above that has to be considered on an individual case by case basis?

We know JDT wanted Batth but how do we know it wasn't Broughton who vetoed it? TBF he seems completely sold on "the model"and turning us into the Crewe Alexandra of the Championship.

Yeah we've been through this before! My recollection was Ken Furphy took Field and Terry Garbutt (?) to then 1st Div Sheff Utd when he left and there was then a very unsatisfactory period with Dick Dinnis as caretaker. Lee then came towards the end of that season and completely rebuilt the side over the close season. Whether the Field money (£75k was it?) paid for the new signings I wouldn't like to say. We made a lot of signings and there was quite a gap between the two events.

To be fair we don't know this. As it's a new model Broughton might have been given complete autonomy on the football side of things and may have been told he can have x% to spend. I think it's pretty clear JDT doesn't choose the players coming in, he won't play them half the time and with good reason.

When was the last time we sold our best/most valuable player, replaced him with 3 or 4 cheaper ones and improved as a result? Edit: If he goes, it won't improve us on the pitch imo even if a large %age is reinvested. We need to squeeze Palace until they squeak on this one as it'll have a detrimental effect on the pitch so we need to at least max out the fee.

Quite a difference between 15 and 20 and an even bigger difference between 15 and a deal that's worth at least £20m now and which could eventually net us 30m plus if he does particularly well. I just can't get my head round people saying 15 is reasonable. I accept his value will plummet if we go down so that's a bit of a gamble but ideally you'd be wanting him to stay until summer at least for footballing reasons if nothing else.

It's not even age that's the problem. For me if you're good enough you're old enough. However it seems pointless signing players that aren't good enough now and who are maybe ones for the future/maybe not when the first X1 appear to be hurtling towards relegation.

Must have suddenly found £500 k up front for O Riordan though? Might have got it from savings elsewhere then were just checking the Court case didn't go the wrong way?

You can see what's going to happen here, we'll string it out until the last minute then either get no-one in or someone fairly crap in on loan and claim it was too late to do anything else. It would be nice to be proved wrong.

We can all see it but........

The contract situation with Wharton is completely different to Rothwell though. I'm absolutely speechless that any genuine Rovers fan thinks £15m is a reasonable fee for Wharton.

Just about sums it up perfectly. At one point the V's used to dig their feet in and hold out for decent fees, it has been just about their only redeeming feature although my stalker roverfan99 may disagree. We'll soon see if that's still the case or whether it's no (un) reasonable offer refused.

Pays a few bills for a month or two. It's all short term ism with Waggott in charge.

I agree with your final paragraph.

You said 18m "with" add ons if we're being pedantic.

Ah - wonder where you'd gone - you usually turn up at transfer window time to peddle the Company line. Disagree completely. £15 m is NOT a lot of money for someone of that age and potential, it's absolutely derisory. We need to be looking at at least £20m now with the potential for at least another £10m in add ons at a later date. Depends how desperate we are for money of course but if Palace sneak the deal through at something close to £15m they'll have had us over a barrel and given us a right old rogering.

You're not a Rovers fan are you?

I took the post to mean a total of £18m including add ons. Terrible deal if that's the case, the player's neither here nor there.