RevidgeBlue

Not sure what you're getting at with that somewhat smart arse comment but as I posted in the matchday thread at the time I saw the final 70 minutes of the game. Thanks for asking though.

Could be an interesting stand off if he wants to follow Eustace to Derby but we want to accept a slightly higher fee from Wrexham.

Who you on about? De Neve looks a very poor player, Tavares doesn't look too bad, Henriksson could hardly have played worse against West Brom, to me that's "starting poorly" but, he has a bit of pedigree behind him which hopefully suggests he'll improve.

He was initially rumoured to be going to Wrexham earlier in the window for £4m wasn't he? Tbf that would smack of him leaving for the money far more than wanting to link up with his former manager. Still our fault he's leaving though.

Fair. He was stationary when he made that pass rather than being in full flight. Maybe he needs to take a split second longer to assess his options.

I thought Owen Coyle was ok in interviews.

He's the epitome of the modern day manager who has only one way of setting up and playing and won't deviate from that one iota even when everyone else can clearly see it's all going horribly wrong. You could argue JDT was a little bit like that as well although he clearly lost interest here also Ruben Amorim at Man Ure. At least they both seem to have refreshing personalities though. Martin is useless and conceited in equal measure which is presumably why many neutrals dont like him.

It's too early to say how Henriksson will do, Im not sure it's too early to say how Kargbo will do, I had him down as a rudderless speed boat with no end product within about 30 mins of watching him play and he's done nothing to convince me otherwise. Yet.

I think you're 100% in your analysis of the situation, the only question that matters currently is "Will it work?" I think not but we'll have to wait and see. As far as "sabotage" is concerned I've always been of the view that it comes from within the walls of Ewood Park. Why wouldn't the owners want promotion and the riches that go with it?

It would be a massive surprise if Travis didn't go through though. The Club and VI in particular would have some massive bridges to rebuild. I think you can safely count it as a done deal even though it hasnt officially been confirmed yet. Id love it if it didn't though - there'd be some major arse covering to be done and a section of the fan base will have to take their plastic snakes back to the shop.

To me it's all been done purely with a view to reducing costs and there is no aspiration to achieve success on the pitch or promotion. Indeed every time we look like we have something that is working or might work we seem to chase the offending manager who is doing well out of the door and go in a completely different direction to make sure we never ever quite get over the line. I think the only ambition at the Club now is to just about stay in the division whilst spending the least money possible and developing a few players to sell along the way. I'll nail my colours to the mast now as I don't think it will work. At all. If it does however, then the much maligned Gestede, and to a lesser extent Ismael, will deserve credit for coming up with a fairly hare brained sounding scheme and getting it to work. It would be interesting to see how they'd react were we in play off contention once more come the turn of the year. Presumably they'd be all scratching their heads wondering how they could sabotage things again. It does seem that Vi is very much the (former) 3 stooges man and they're very much on the same page with this scheme so I doubt he'd walk out or they'd sack him. Probably sell a couple and just not sign anyone and let the whole thing fizzle out.

Why are you discounting the sale of JRC and the impending sale of Travis? Once those are taken into account it's likely to be roughly a nil net spend despite all chaddy's talk of "spending £7.5m." Not ideal, we still desperately need a couple of strikers imo, and I wouldn't rule out further outgoings. However I suppose it's better than having a budget of say £2m and then selling £7m worth of players and not reinvesting that money which we all feared was going to happen.

Thanks, already mentioned. He could be Patrick Viera but that's no good if he can't prove his fitness.

Plus some of that alleged "interest" might be agent generated.

Phew! Thought we'd signed him with an option to purchase and then flip him after 3 days!

Eh? Thought he'd been confirmed?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing with the benefit of which McLoughlin so far looks an adequate replacement for Batth. We haven't replaced Weimann yet (or Dolan) Id say we obviously have missed them as we only have three points from three games.

Don't think they'd be down to their last million or two by any stretch if they had to repay all borrowing related to the Club but this is a far more plausible explanation than most.

Water under the bridge now, but you've "given up on it" because you're wrong. It wasn't the length of the contract offered per se that was the problem, as he signed for the same length of time at Derby. It was whatever wages we were offering. You're trying to argue grass isn't green there.

Plus Robertson and Tierney. They do have a few good ones. Up front however it looks nearly as bad as us.

Do you think we know that the transfer window closes four hours earlier than normal next Monday at 7p.m.?

I was actually going to say - George Hirst - are they that desperate?

That's a bit sudden....... Suddenly pushing to get restrictions removed in time for a last minute splurge in the transfer window? ....... Then the alarm went off................. 😂

Don't know if it's the same everywhere but in this Country, instead of trying to make things happen, everyone is absolutely obsessed with possession stats and not giving the ball away or "turning over possession" as is the modern lingo. Maybe if Dolan is encouraged to take his man on a bit more over there and/or cross whenever he gets an opportunity we might see an even more effective player than we had here.

If we're comparing Dolan and Buckley, as someone else pointed out a while ago, in early 2020 Dolan was out on loan at Clitheroe and now he's playing in La Liga, so whatever the experts on here who think he's "an instagrammable Ryan Hedges" might say, he must be doing something right. Buckley on the other hand was apparently seen within the Club at one time as our "next £10m player" and bagged himself a bumper five year deal off Broughton since which time he's disappeared off the face of the earth. Buckley is probably also the more naturally talented of the two but just looks like he doesn't enjoy playing professional football. I really can't understand how Dolan, whose attitude was always exemplary, and who has made the absolute most of his abilities, cops so much flak whereas Buckley who appears to have completely wasted his, gets relatively little.