This.

Willing and having actually offered a deal, thats a big difference. The fact that we didnt offer him a new deal a year ago, never mind now is unacceptable. Same with the others.

Hes gone from a minor role straight through to an important one based on very little. Season ticket policies are piss poor and he talked a load of shit trying to justify it in that podcast he appeared on.

Gestede is a novice who possibly doesnt appreciate the importance of the core of Championship proven quality we already have or the need to sprinkle some more i amidst potential signings from abroad.

Hopefully Sufi got some stick from fans. A man who shouldnt be in his position and seemingly played a big part in the shocking season ticket prices, notably the hike.

Good signing that.

.

As you have already said, no I wont be buying it and I havent shared an opinion of it. I dont really have a strong one, looks ok to me. Which is why your angry man yells at clouds routine of slamming "unnecessary criticism" and endless thumbs down was totally unwarranted and misplaced. Most of the time, the club does deserve criticism. Here, I havent give it any.

So no, you dont see a pattern, its just an unfortunate series of individual circumstances. And no, there isnt any blame on the club. And no, there isnt any blame on not getting PROPER contract offers in earlier. And even though none of these players seem willing to sign new deals. It isnt to do with us not providing satisfactory financial offers, they wouldnt have signed anyway.

I think you are currently so fixated on defending literally everything our terribly run club does at the moment that youve lost all balance, I havent even given my opinion on the shirt so how could I be criticising it? The idea that I have criticised the kit and any events for season ticket holders is purely in your head.

Probably just parroting this out of context.

Im not basing it on whether they won or lost. Im basing it on the standard of opposition.

I dont see why that makes such a difference, specific to England. England's opposition was not something they could control, so it was luck. And besides, both ways are determined by results.

So you arent alarmed or annoyed by our repeated inability to get our best player signed up? Or even to get contracts in front of them well before now? You dont see a pattern and just put it all down to numerous individual situations? We shouldn't need to offer £30k. We should have offered these players new deals 12 months ago. There is no excuse but the owners and board will be pleased that you are doing your best to defend every single thing they fuck up.

I think there are 2 issues here. Whether we should be being outbid by promoted sides for our captain and whether it should have got to this situation. If Wrexham and Birmingham are offering such high wages then I don't necessarily think we should be paying wages that high. But what is unacceptable is that it has again been allowed to get to this situation. To have 18 months of no contract extensions bar the peculiar Ribeiro situation. And to have not offered these 3 new deals at least by easter and we dont even know if a concrete offer has been offered even now is nothing short of scandalous. We now not only are in a much weaker position but we also have this circus going on whilst we also need to focus on getting players in.

Great example. Lucky draws and good achievements can both happen together.

And that failure to even get a contract in front of Travis (or indeed any of our 3 key players) ultimately is the critical part. We are now left in a fairly helpless, really weak position. Anything around that inability to get a concrete offer down long before now becomes somewhat immaterial. We have missed our chance. As you say, its been dismissed and shrugged aside. If we had offered him a deal last summer or even after the season had started, at that point, he would have obviously had twice as long to run on his deal, he wouldnt have just had that extra strong season as credit in the back and crucially, if we assume there is any truth in these convenient rumours, we wouldnt be being blown out the water by clubs who were then in League 1. You dont expect us to pay £30k do you is such a brainless counter argument. That shouldnt be a question that needs to be asked and wouldnt if we were run with a semblance of order.

You just twist things to make others appear unreasonable. This situation simply should not be happening because the contract situation should not have been allowed to get to this stage. To have all 3 key players admitting publically at Easter that they hadn't been offered a new deal is unacceptable and inexcusable. You acknowledge that we should have offered new deals last season but dismiss if as if it is minor. This Wrexham £30k offer is pure speculation but had we offered him a deal last summer or even after the season had started then Wrexham (or Birmingham) wouldnt have been an option. You say I am blaming Rovers as if its unreasonable considering the dreadful way in which we are run. We are again left in a position where we have multiple key players entering their final year. So amidst an already busy summer, we have these totally avoidable situations. This always seemed inevitable too. Thats the frustrating thing. Yes we can offer new deals now but our negotiating position is now really weak and its all our fault.

I didnt say that the performances and results were down to luck. As ever, you either purposefully or otherwise totally misunderstand. Repeatedly playing teams that arent the world/europes elite in knockout rounds in major tournaments? Especially in the quarter finals and beyond where any advantage of topping the group is gone. Totally out of our control, so its luck. Beating those teams? Obviously not luck.

You arent blaming Rovers? Theres a surprise. This shouldnt be a discussion now, it should have long since be sorted. We shouldnt be coming into a summer where we already need a number of signings having also to manage key contract issues. They should have been offered deals long before now, and we would know either way if they were staying or going. Instead we get excuses. "Lets wait until the end of the season" and "lets wait until we know what division we are in." Last season was built on two things. The managerial ability of Eustace who has now gone and a core of really solid Championship players like Tronstad, Travis, Brittain, Batth, Hyam, Dolan etc and it seens possible that most wont be at the club next season. All to be replaced by players from abroad on cheaper wages.

Its more based on the fact that they havent signed new deals yet. We have seen it all before.

What a sham of a club. Talk of Brittain negotiations progressing well and making us confident, weve heard it all before.

From England's perspective, yes, as they have no control over it.

Of course, it is still an achievement to win these games. The likes of Colombia, Sweden, Switzerland, Senegal, Ukraine, Denmark etc are not mugs, but equally they are not the elite countries and before the draw is made, you would absolutely take those games in the knockout stages. To beat them is an achievement and I have never said otherwise, even if you are the favourite, to win these games even as favourites pretty much every single time is an achievement and Southgate does deserve credit for that. But whether its the draw at the start, or whether its other group stage results causing bigger teams to fall onto the other side of the draw, none of that is under England's control. Winning our group removes the luck in terms of the last 16 tie as we warrant a favourable draw if we do that, but beyond that, it is all luck. You can't escape that. That causes issues when comparing different managers across different tournaments. For example, Sven had quarter finals against Brazil and Portugal twice. Whenever Southgate faced that level of opposition, he also fell short, he just was fortunate that it came later in tournaments. To win the extra games in between is both an achievement to win those games and also lucky to avoid the bigger nations. When we did face the elite, ie Spain and France, we lost. You could argue that Germany is the exception to the rule, not quite Spain/France but still a strong team, and equally you could argue that Italy and Croatia aren't the very elite either. You especially consider that we have played Switzerland, Ukraine and Sweden at the quarter final stage, so beyond the last 16. We also faced Denmark, Croatia and the Netherlands in semi finals. Even Italy in a final, you would absolutely take those at that stage before the tournament rather than the likes of France, Spain and if its a World Cup, Brazil and Argentina. All of those draws are down to luck.

No. But you seem to be missing my point that there is a difference between results that we control and ones that we dont. France's results in a seperate game helping to give us a favourable draw is luck on our behalf.