RevidgeBlue

You can foretell disasters in advance?

Agreed, Im not a particular fan of Hyam, BUT even I would say that selling him at this stage of the window would be spectacularly suicidal just for the sake of pocketing a couple of million. If it happens we'll probably get a short term loan in then the money will be pocketed and a long term replacement will be conveniently forgotten about come the next window. Just as a permanent replacement for Travis will be forgotten about when Baradji goes back.

The Pears thing is really odd. Even if he is "Hair transplant guy" how bad can it be? Surely he could at worst play with a protective cap or dressing on. Can't understand him being frozen out to the extent he isn't even being considered as back up. Did he stick up for Lesley as well?

Don't think so. You can sign players outside the window who are free agents.

Just looked him up. We paid £1.1m for him in 2011 when in the Premier League and he made 1 appearance before being loaned out in 2012 to Stevenage then Oldham/Rotherham/Ross County and Port Vale before having his contract terminated in 2015. Guess his agent would have been happy enough.

Ok fair enough. Id still rather any available funding was put towards someone who can contribute now.

Won't be the Darwen End for all those nice away fans.

But if he's good enough for Wednesday in the Championship he must surely be good enough for us? And as others have said - we aren't Man City or Chelsea, we havent the luxury of buying players to loan them out, we need quality now.

Agreed. It would be absolutely nonsensical to buy someone and loan them straight back out again. We need players now.

Don't know how often it needs repeating and loath as I am to defend VI, they haven't really given him anything. He's had to generate his own transfer funding. It's a nil net spend on transfer fees and presumably big savings on wages. This wasn't the case of one marquee player leaving for a huge sum as in the past, including departing loanees we've lost at least a dozen first X1 players or squad members most of whom needed replacing numbers wise otherwise we'd have been struggling to put a side out.

We havent spent anything either in real terms. The Clubs that havent bought anyone probably havent sold anyone either. We've had a huge turnover of players but have managed to shift the vast majority of the higher earners so I would imagine we've vastly reduced the wage bill which was probably the only real goal for this window.

No doubt Ossydave will clarify in due course but Im interested he said "stands" (plural) If that's the case presumably they'll have to do something?

I dont because we've replaced the Coventrio with Pasha/Gestede and Ismael. Like replacing cholera with typhoid. We did reasonably well under JDT and JE though despite the regime wouldnt you say?

Cheers. Roughly what I thought off the top of my head without totting it up. Without wanting to give them any credit, the gross amount spent is better than many feared but it counts for nothing if the ones coming in are no good and nil net spends are probably only going to send us in one direction in the long run.

In that instance - Yes. Because they didn't appoint a decent DOF to support JDT. Just as they allowed Mowbray to trundle on for ages burning money and wages on the Road to Nowhere and employed Waggott for years to run the Club into the ground. Buck ultimately stops with the owners.

Apart from that.....all good though? (I agree BTW.)

He can't catch a break as regards England can he?

Wharton limping off injured now. 😒

Has it ever been confirmed beyond doubt that we have any sort of sell on clause? All I can remember seeing is £18m rising to a max of £24m etc.

Not by us. Assuming Leonard goes it'll be roughly a nil net spend won't it?

Lol. You know what I mean. If we can get into a position over the course of a season to chuck away a play off place Id be exceptionally surprised.

It is an interesting argument that. The "Old Guard" did indeed manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory several times. Not sure if the "New Guard" will even be able to get in a position to do that however.

I wish him well and all that but I couldn't sit through an Espanol game just to see how he's going on. Kudos to you guys for sticking it out.

Yep, Waggott/Mowbray/Venus were all probably very happy working together as well.

It's actually a tragedy. If we'd appointed an actual proper DOF to work alongside the excellent JDT instead of a bullshitting over promoted Academy Head, we'd probably have had enough to get us over the line. Im struggling to see when that chance will ever come around again now tbh.