RevidgeBlue

Yes if he said he couldn't guarantee 100% commitment. What would you do if he gave the hypothetical answer I laid out?

Pretty much. Great Post. Obviously if a replacement(s) for Rothwell came in that theoretically looked as good or possibly better it need not necessarily be fatal. Even then however given a choice I'd rather go with the players that have got us to this situation in the first place than gamble on new recruits who may not hit the ground running or gel with the rest of the team at all.

The problem you see there is that we don't know Rothwell has said anything of the sort. For all we know Rothwell's answer to that would be "Sorry lads my agent informed me a late bid had come in for me so I asked the boss if I could speak to the Club in question at which point he decided not to select me for the game or allow me to travel down on the team coach. That's fair enough if he thought my head might not be in the right place but you know I'd always give 100% if selected."

So you'd let him go even if it was logistically impossible to get anyone else in in time would you? Will you be booing him if he's still here Tuesday morning?

Like he has said or would say that. Come off it den. Edit: Equally hypothetically if his answer was "Absolutely boss, without a shadow of a doubt" What do you do then?

Thanks for clearing that up Gav. Me too.

Hope not jim. Different positions and replacing a £6m player (if the offer is to be believed) with a £200k one isn't the way to win promotion.

I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. On Wednesday was it he said no-one was leaving. If however he is as good as his word on this then it is of course the correct stance. Why then, hang him out to dry in the media and alienate the fan base against him if we might have to "welcome" him back?

Because he said "What if" we could get x and y in?

It's 48 hrs before the end of the window! What might have been acceptable in the first week of January isn't now.

Ah. So you've been adamant all window that no-one should be allowed to leave. Buy now because the owners share your previously held view and Mowbray seemingly doesn't you've performed a complete 180. OK.

Don't want him "believing" he can improve the team. Replacements need to be secured before he leaves.

People need to get real about what the other players think of Rothwell. It's a job to them, they'd think he was bloody crackers if he didn't ask to speak to another Club that was offering 6x his salary. If nothing came of it they wouldn't take it as a personal sleight he was leaving them in the lurch - it's business for them. Why would we have any replacements lined up? We've been proceeding on the basis for 28 days of the window no-one will be allowed to leave (allegedly).

Hang on...... you've previously said, in fact only last night, no-one should be allowed to leave!

That's exactly what's happened isn't it? The owners don't want to sell, Mowbray does and he's trying to ease him out of the door by manipulating opinion against him. We all know Rothwell hasn't signed a new deal, it's no secret. However despite that the Club stance all January has firmly (and correctly imo) been no-one is leaving. That's how it should stay. We shouldn't perform a U turn with 36-48 hours left of the window.

Why do you want him gone if you don't think (and I agree) there's time to get a decent replacement in? Do we at least all agree it would be an unmitigated disaster if Rothwell were allowed to leave and wasn't replaced? (Regardless of the reason).

Surely it would be infinitely more risky letting him go and not adequately replacing him?

I usually agree with you but completely disagree on this The owners were imo 100% correct to stipulate that no-one would be leaving this window and that shouldn't change just because there's been some last minute interest in Rothwell. In fact especially since it's so last minute. They should be presenting a United front on this, and Mowbray shouldn't be undermining the message. All that crap about he only ever moved twice during his career etc etc. If say Everton rang this morning and offered him 6x his salary to take over there he'd WANT to be in situ by Monday. However if the owners said "sorry mate you've got a vital job to do here for 4 months first" he'd have to suck it up and take it.

Well, if you take Mowbray at his word (ha!) and Rothwell won't be leaving unless replacements come in first, he might have to. In which case, what was the point in hanging him out to dry in the media and alienating the fan base against him.

The original article you posted appeared to be a twitter feed with a black background under the heading F1 sources. It was that I was referring to.

Doesn't matter what we offer if the players won't sign them. It's results that count. Same with failed attempts to sign players. No prizes for that.

Definitely not. That's a completely different excerpt to the one you originally posted that I commented on which said "plotting a move for"! Your amended version still doesn't say we've made a bid anyhow. Mildly encouraging though if there's any truth in it.

No we seemingly think we can leave it until the last minute and players will automatically take what we offer.

That does NOT say we've made any form of approach

Having reflected on this overnight I am even more of the view that Mowbray is completely out of order on this one. We cocked up initially by not attending to the players Contracts at the appropriate time, but, given our position in the League and what's at stake, the owners quite correctly imo decided not to compound the error and stipulated that no-one was leaving this month under any circumstances. Mowbray completely undermined that stance with his interview. He's hung Rothwell out to dry and alienated the fan base against him. We don't even know Rothwell has refused to play, but Mowbray has created the impression that might be the case when it may not even have happened. It's not Rothwell's fault either if other Club's leave it late to make a bid for him. Mowbray could have stuck with the "he's injured" line and by Tuesday the whole thing would have been forgotten and the entire story would have been next week's chip paper. If I was the other two I'd be fuming as well. They probably haven't followed through with any attempt to leave this month because they took the Club at their word that no-one would be allowed to leave this month. Now, as soon as there's a bit of interest in Rothwell, Mowbray performs a complete U turn, hangs the player out to dry and seems to be doing his best to go against the owners wishes and force the player out of the door. They'll be wondering why they didn't attempt to force the issue as well. The Club should be sticking to the stance they've taken throughout the window of no sales. Not performing a last minute U turn when it's too late to bring suitable replacements in.