One thing we all (well, almost all) can clearly see is that Broughton is not THE problem. Nor the primary reason for a shit show of a transfer window where we again end it weaker than we started it, with cut backs and moving of goalposts galore. But he does have an element of blame. He is responsible for overlooking recruitment, the buck stops with him. Moran had a shocker as a deep lying midfielder on Saturday, Tomasson gets the blame for that even though it wasnt him sat deep in our midfield. He should have been extra vigilant to make sure it went through, he has now overseen 3 incidents like this and has made his stay here (in normal circumstances under normal owners) impossible. This idea that hes a busy man dealing with other things doesnt wash, especially when the bit that fell through was the most important deal. Broughton needs to go, not as a fall guy and not on his own.

He obviously will be busy on deadline day but he is our director of football. He oversees recruitment. It is absolutely his responsibility to ensure that the deal is 100% sent off. Youd especially double check and be extra viligant after the last farce. What happened to these new processes. I dont get why he is absolved of blame in your head. The club is full of clowns including him, and yet none are the actual problem.

He does have a big degree of responsibility. He took it last time and said processes will change to ensure it doesnt happen again. And it has. He is overlooking the whole recruitment side of things so he is responsible. The whole "he cant be everywhere at once" line doesnt wash. He should be overlooking the whole process being especially thorough after last time. Mind you, working under these owners moving the goalposts constantly (Athletic mentioned that we were in for Brekalo so I suspect Koumentio was a desperate last gasp alternative) is obviously a difficult task. But he should be removed from his job. And wont be.

Its very difficult to specifically know what went on from the outside. But Broughton is overseeing it, he said he would look at processes after it happened last year, and yet here we are. He was announced before 11 with stupid basketball videos made etc whilst the paperwork was fucked up again. Broughton cant escape blame. The main blame lies in India, that cannot be escaped and id be very surprised if anyone is sacked.

Its been acknowledged as an error. I presume people will be sacked with immediate effect now...

Incredible. Ultimately its deckchairs on the titanic because you could change every member of staff and the problem is still the owners. But competent owners would go on a sacking spree with immediate effect. Broughton, Maggott, Silvester, Sasha, all of them.

The sensible choice would have been for the owners to allow reinvestment of the Wharton money into a striker and not to block it. Not to have to then sell more players. Its a symptom of years of budget cuts and lack of investment that Gallagher is now absolutely vital to our team and we badly need him. He may not be anything special but with 2 goals in 2 games and with him being far and away our best striker, we badly need him and are overly reliant on him now with no alternatives up top of note amidst this latest fuck up.

The twitter one is one of a number of younger fans on there who all regularly make condescending posts about other fans in support of the owners etc. One of the regular arguments is that people only moan when we arent doing well. Its a backwards argument because spells of particularly bad ownership even by the low standards of the cunts that own us will naturally lead to adverse results on the pitch. What we see today has been in the post. Aggressive budget slashing, interference, stopping sales leading to valuable players leaving for free, appointing incompetent staff and never bothering to get rid should it be warranted etc. Obviously people are more irate when we are doing worse on the pitch, thats a direct result of the owners. Another is that "we arent a Premier League team anymore" and a general implication that people have deluded expectations. Id argue the opposite, these people/kids dont have any level of standards because this is all they have known.

Fair enough. I was interested to see (not that I could gauge much from 2 people) if the remaining core of us was likely to deplete. I wonder if this could chip away at the small regular core will genuinely be in jeopardy having previously thought that the damage had taken it down this far and it would be unlikely to see that whittle down much further. Where would you get a season ticket elsewhere? That is a big step to go and support another side.

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Venkys did pay 7m for Brereton and get nothing for him to be fair. Although it was their bloody stupidity that let that happen by rejecting a bid in excess of 7m with a year left on his deal. They were never going to spend 5m on McGuire either. They were going to spend half of that, which is about an eighth of the fee they had just received for a player that cost nothing, then they pulled the plug on that, messed the player around and then a loan fell through. Saturdays backlash was totally organic, and that might hold the key. The atmosphere was really supportive of the team and the trigger point was the 2nd goal when Venkys (who will be none the wiser sadly, theyve never graced us with their presence in nearly a decade) and Waggott really got it in the neck. It was pleasantly surprising to see how much stick they got and it was a considerable quantity. It also was clearly coupled with support for the team and manager. That is the difficulty with organised protests mid game. You will often get people who in many cases dont attend encouraging people to invade the pitch and stop the game, obviously its not them that will get banned and potential criminal proceedings. Marches before games may have more luck I guess but even then, will the numbers even match the days of Kean etc? But it now feels like if we go a goal or two down, there for the first time in a long, long time, there is genuine ill feeling ready to erupt audibly in the stadium.

If the funds werent there, then that is down to the owners, not to shoot the messenger. But you are right in that the dilly dallying has put a right spanner in the works.

Are either of you season ticket holders or regular match goers? Reason I ask, is I was pleasantly surprised at the anger around me yesterday towards the owners and Waggott. We have had years of pretty stable crowds in which only the core left after Venkys have smashed to pieces the fanbase prior have remained loyal/stupid enough to keep going pretty much regardless. I wonder if there is a genuine chance of that remaining core which seemed fairly solid being whittled away, as that would really potentially leave some embarassing crowds.

It seems that the only beef you genuinely have with the owners is that they repeatedly "employ chancers" and keep them in post, but focus onto them and their lack of accountability. The O'Brien deal seemed more cut and dry, a terrible cock up. With McGuire, we had a permanent deal lined up and all of a sudden, we couldnt afford the comparatively tiny fee and had to renegotiate a loan last minute. Surely that screams of a sudden change of tact from the owners regarding willingness to invest.

There has never been a project. Theres no point even trying to create one under these owners.

There were rumours all yesterday (seemed like we had people copying each other to seem ITK) that Tomasson was leaving after yesterdays game. Maybe theres truth in the rumour as it isnt a wild assumption to suggest his days may be numbered but id take with the biggest pinch of salt for the time being.

Waggott is obviously an incompetent chancer but im unsure why you seem to view Broughton as almost flawless. Mind you, all these people are just symptoms of the real problem as had been the case for 13 years or whatever it is.

The recruitment team headed by Broughton are certainly not flawless enough to trust them implicitly, even allowing for a pathetic transfer budget.

Is being unwilling to change your principles and make changes upon such a bad run a positive thing?

I didnt think that the back 3 worked well against Huddersfield and against Wrexham it felt like a case of just far superior players winning as opposed to the tactics. Neither Sigurdsson or Dolan thrived as wing backs and would clearly struggled against better opposition. It was a back 4 today which surprised me considering the 3 CBs brought in. 2 of them only signed this week and lack match fitness but O'Riordan is not lacking match fitness and has been here for a couple of weeks so I was surprised to not see him start.

An absolutely appalling perfomance befitting of the overall appalling situation of the club at the moment. The McGuire situation is a further embarassment and there is justified criticism of the board and crucially at the owners who are as always the culprits of this mess. Tomasson is gaining kudos for speaking up and rightly so. It was proved that he isnt perhaps the unpopular opposite of the supposedly unquestionable Mowbray and people thankfully realise that the problems lie above him. He has been left with a shell of a squad although he shouldnt totally be exempt from criticism considering our horror run. Performance wise. Moran is shocking and his performance led to Tronstad struggling too. Wharton was shaky too and Rankin Costello was well below his normal level. Szmodics was off colour and Dolan was ineffective too. Chrisene was better than his debut.

Why i put once i have no idea. I meant 5 times 😂 still not many

Quoted but similar point to @tomphil regarding sales/plan We have signed and/or developed some good players. The issue as touched on is the owners, the footballing people regularly mention Brentford/Brighton model but its all massively hindered by the owners. They reject bids, they dont reinvest, there is no continuity so we cant consistently generate profits, reinvest and continue to improve Rhodes - big sale - not reinvested Armstrong - big sale/profit - not reinvested Cairney - big sale/profit - not reinvested Gestede - big sale/profit - not reinvested Rothwell - owners rejected potential for huge profit - left for free Brereron - owners rejected potential for small profit/huge fee - left for free Kaminski - excellent cheap signing - considerable profit on investment made - fraction made available (and wasted to be fair) Wharton - need we say more And 47er I do agree that we have signed many more that werent successful but you will always get some wrong, especially when the majority are freebies/loans (quite a lot of success there) or for 6 figures. A number would fit into between useful and good there too rather than being all hopeless. The above list would more than soak the rest of the freebies etc up anyway, if we had normal owners. Am I right in thinking weve spent over a million only once in about 10 years? I may have missed players. But they are Armstrong who scored loads made a huge profit, Brereton who scored loads and should have made a profit, Gallagher who was overpriced but not as bad as some make out, Szmodics who has scored loads and Hyam who won player of the season. He is a LB signed for 500k and spent his first 2 years being a steady and reliable member of teams finishing in 8th and 7th.

This is perhaps the most depressing summary of the Venkys regime you could ever wish to see. If we havent had a midfielder up to the standards of such a bang average player in all these years. The likes of Szmodics, Armstrong and Dack werent good signings, they were all outstanding for the money paid. I do appreciate that we cant let standards drop but you are overly harsh with your judgements of signings. They arent just the odd good signing. The likes of Tronstad, Hyam, Kaminski, Rothwell, Pickering and a few others also range from good to very good signings under the last 2 tenures, and there are more.

I think a solitary international call up sometimes does more heavy lifting than it should. The squad contained only US based players when he came off the bench. Wahlstedt has a solitary cap and look at him. Mind you, if we are comparing to Telalovic he would have to be bad.