I am not criticising the academy or individual players. I am criticising the club for setting arbitary targets which I feel creates a conflict of interest, and am also criticising the club for putting an unrealistic burden on producing players that are capable of playing in the Championship. All for the purpose of saving money. You've taken your own interpretation of Gestede's messages in your usual blinkered way and have assumed its all part of a viable and logical plan. You've also not acknowledged the reasons why we had so many academy minutes 2 seasons ago. One now departed special talent and also a lack of depth to the point where we nearly went down.

I read that Glasner said the week after that Wharton was sleeping in the afternoons for hours at a time which was very unusual for him.

Actually, its not a target but its all part of a great plan whereby players will only play those minutes when they are ready and 3 selected players are 100% ready to play that many minutes based on very brief cameos. And if you doubt this, you must want the academy shutting down. We were at those numbers before due to 2 reasons. One special once in a generation talent, no longer at the club. And budget cuts meaning that sub par players ended up playing far too much and we ended up nearly going down.

I never said it was a fact, but its a fair assumption shared by most. Easy to say that hes best off staying when you cant look past your personal bias. If we arent offering him a competitive wage and he can earn significantly more elsewhere, at a club with actual ambition, it would be a strange decision to avoid that sort of challenge in favour of staying comfortable at a club with no ambition of promotion.

We used to give over 2,000 minutes to under 23 academy graduates and we "want to go back to that model." Not factoring in that in the season before last. We had a special talent in Adam Wharton who we have since pushed out of the door. And we also were dishing out too many minutes to players like Garrett and Leonard in a terrible overall season because of cut backs.

It wont stop us trying even in years where that quality isnt there because we have targets to hit and ultimately money to save.

No, I don't know for sure. But its a pretty fair assumption and one shared by a lot of people. Hence why nothing he has been offered has been satisfactory enough to get him to sign. His best move wouldnt be to stay here if he feels that the offer is poor, and if other clubs are offering much more competitive wages. Hes also seen here repeated times that even if the club starts a season really strongly, the owners lack any ambition to actually achieve anything so it repeatedly crumbles post christmas.

He has set a target. 2 or 3 new academy players every season is a huge and probably unrealistic. Some years the well will be dry.

Mccoist is ok but Ferdinand has always been a dreadful commentator/pundit. Lets be honest, any commentator was bound to "fawn" over that PSG team. To win a Champions League final 5 nil and play such incredible football, if ever there was a performance worthy of so much praise then that was it. The likes of Doue, Dembele, Kvaratskelia etc are unbelievable. But I just find Ferdinand and some of the weird shit he comes out with to be intolerable. As you say, thank god he is leaving.

As still a young player, "I dont think I can ever play at the top level and I have settled for a career of mediocrity" would neither make a good soundbite, strengthen his negotiating position nor make him very attractive to anyone. If he goes to another Championship player he will definitely get a competitive Championship wage there so it suggests that if that is what he has asked for, its a reasonable request.

Again, I know he said that! I have never once said that he didnt or even that we havent offered him a new contract. Im sure we have. And no, nobody knows the exact wage that was offered, so stop being pedantic. But it was clearly not sufficient enough for him to agree to sign it. Merely offering a player a new deal doesnt make the club automatically blameless. It clearly wasnt a good enough offer.

No one has ever said that we shouldnt. People have suggested that we shouldnt be over reliant on it, setting arbitary targets for minutes played or be bringing/relying on players who arent ready, or too many at once. For some reason still, you cant grasp the difference. My point was that these stupid targets become even harder to meet without seriously jeopardising results if our better youngsters are at high risk of being picked off.

If our best youngsters will just be picked off, it probably makes these targets that Gestede is pushing to give graduates a certain number of minutes even more ridiculous.

I think weve seen enough from how we have been run under Venkys to be able to make a reasonable assumption. Broughton was proactive in terms of getting players to sign new deals, but the players he was able to get signed up tended to be ones that were seemingly pretty easy to do. If you genuinely think that we likely offered Dolan a competitive Championship wage then again I suspect quite a bit of naivety.

I dont think anyone has questioned their running of the football club in isolation. You clearly havent grasped the idea of sportswashing.

Coupled with a total lack of empathy towards others who are affected by constant kick off time changes.

Yeah, probably because the wage offered was rubbish. Offering him 10p a week is "trying to get him to sign a new contract."

He is if the clubs in question have any ambition and are offering him a reasonable wage. We I am pretty sure could have got him signed long ago had we offered him a decent wage.

Also see Newcastle. A trophy and no Mike Ashley makes it easy to overlook it.

The Alan Nixon propaganda machine gets started up for the summer. No thought as to perhaps that sometimes Nixon may well get things totally wrong. For what its worth, sky sports think that Plymouth CEO is staying.

Was a fantastic performance by PSG and it was one step too far for Inter who had provided such entertainment in the semi final.

Makes no difference who the CEO is at this club. Will be sidelined by Suhail and just need to focus on cutting costs. Also, as if a potential end to this legal case is going to prompt a desire to invest. They hadnt been even prior to the case.

All gone expectedly quiet on that defender we are supposedly in "advanced talks" with. Yea right.

In this instance it made sense. He was doing well in League 2 but you obviously arent going to get anything other than a nominal fee for a player doing quite well in League 2. A step up to League 1 made sense but unfortunately he wasnt quite good enough. Makes sense to let him go and try and forge a career.

Ultimately we shouldnt be using Gallagher as the benchmark anyway. But like I said, we won over twice as many games in the half season worth of games that he didnt start and combined with only 6 goals, I dont think he had a good season individually nor one that was above the majority of Gallagher's seasons here. I dont think he fits into the style of the rest of the squad either and I wasnt impressed by his body language towards the end of the season when he came on in games. When Ohashi doesnt play, Gueye certainly doesnt slot in seemlessly as the results prove. I also dont see the contribution of missing an open net but it hitting his heel leading to someone else scoring, or him winning a header 30 yards out as on par with a goal personally.