RevidgeBlue

You beat me to it!

Precisely. For that reason I certainly wouldn't consider Liverpool FC to be worthy applicants and probably not Rovers. It's a bit like Bill Gates asking for a charitable hand out. Whether or not we SHOULD have received funding though isnt really relevant. If we were turned down, what else have we done about it? I think we can guess the answer.

Hedges gave the ball away high up the pitch and then was completely out of position leading to one of the goals though.

Did Ismael try to justify it by saying Hedges was an inch taller than the other two or am I completely imagining that? I'm sure I've seen it somewhere.

Imo if the bus was going to all parts of the City that's one thing (even though Liverpool are more than capable of funding it themselves) but Im not sure why any professional Football Club should expect funding for an exhibition on Club premises.

Seems they might have provided funding to the Liverpool Foundation rather than the Club.

Can't even win that.

Very good! What wouldnt we give for a player like Noel now!

Seemingly from the pictures on here one poor chap spent £90 on one. Looked like a crumpled old rag. Could end up becoming an extremely rare item indeed!

That's what the Club claimed we spent on him to make them look good so they can't have it both ways and say "actually it wasn't £2m it was only a cheap punt" when he bombs.

Tavares! I'd forgotten we'd signed him. £2m well spent.

Just had a quick look online and initial evidence there is to the contrary. AI says the Club has never received money from the National Lottery. Do you have a source?

I can't see that happening. I'd say either it's a case we're all (apart from Islander) over-reacting and it's merely a niggling injury that has taken longer than expected to clear up, or, if negotiations have taken place behind the scenes, we won't see him again.

Absolutely. Most incisive post on here for a long time! 1971 with an Owen Coyle minus the Burnley connection. What could go wrong?

They ought to sell them before a home game at Ewood they'd do a bomb.

Agree 100%. I've never known the world cave in because a youngster was handed a debut. The majority of the time they exceed expectations. if you can't throw them in in cases of emergency, what's the point in them being at the Club?

That's been Alebiosu by some distance imo but Cantwell has been good when available. Night and day compared to his performances last season.

From Ismael I hasten to add.

That's absolute BS. You can have as many U21 players as you like. If they're good enough they'll break into the side. What he means is: "We dont want to pay the wages of 25 senior players"

I've always puzzled about how Cantwell came to be at the Club on so much more money than anyone else, especially when the general trend for wages is very much in the other direction. Paul Mani opined in the past that Eustace threatened to walk out in the 2024-25 close season after having promises reneged upon and that they had to basically bribe him to stay by signing Cantwell and one or two others. Taking that in conjunction with your post it starts to make sense. - Eustace threatens to walk and Waggott has to pull a couple of rabbits out of hats on a limited budget. - Waggott pulls his usual con trick on the Cantwell deal and changes the goalposts at the last minute. Unusually it works as Rangers are relatively desperate to get shut - Waggott manages to get the deal past the Finance Director as in this instance despite the high wages, "the flex" comes from no up front fee. - Gestede and Suhail aren't happy with the deal as his wages are totally out of sync with the new wage policy in general. Cantwell is now approaching 50 senior appearances and they both want his wages off the payroll in general and dont want to make any extra payment that will be triggered at that point. Right that's it - re-secure tinfoil hat and back to the bunker.

Do you actually think Ismael is bothered?

Possibly because the Club notified them they wanted Cantwell off the wage bill, so they secured a move elsewhere for him in Jan. Both parties agree he won't play in the meantime so from their point of view he avoids injury and in return we avoid having to pay some sort of appearance related bonus and/or an additional payment to Rangers. I can't see it's that far fetched a possibility - especially given our track record

On the 4th of December Cantwell will have been out for exactly two months - allegedly because of what was described at the time as "a kick on the knee". Something is clearly awry even if it's "only" the fact we've misdiagnosed the severity of his injury. The thing that irks me most is (in my opinion) VI lying through his teeth about it and pretending nothing is up. He's the perfect accomplice for this regime. "Just take your £600k p.a. and keep your head down"

Why sell Hyam in the last few hours of the transfer window without any sort of replacement? In the general scheme of things I'd say that's a lot crazier than deciding you needed to move your top earner out despite having given him the Captaincy (if indeed that's what's happened with Cantwell)

Exactly. I'm not sure why some people find the possibility that: the bean counters might want him off the wage bill and we've therefore come to an agreement with his advisors that he can leave in January is such a fanciful idea. A "kick on the knee" doesn't take months to heal. The best case scenario is that we've misdiagnosed the severity of his injury in which case his camp wouldn't be happy with us anyway.