Eddie

He's 34 this summer. Dealt with a fair number of injuries and isn't really the best fit for the current system. I'm sure he's nice to have around the squad and he's a useful impact sub, but I wouldn't be that sad to see him walk. I'd rather be out one year too early than one year too late when it comes to players approaching their mid-30s.

Explains why he held out.

100%. Don't care what anyone does, but I'd still poke at my friends if they'd 'diehard' supporters of one club but throw on a shirt from another in the same country. My nephew lives in London, 'supports' City, but also has a soft spot for United, Liverpool, and Arsenal...🙄 Taking him to watch Portsmouth v Rovers this season didn't do a lot to convert him.

Do I want Wharton to do well? Sure. If I turn on and see Crystal Palace playing, I hope he plays well (although I couldn't care less about how they do). If anything I sort of want them to do badly. They got a potential bargain from us and many of their supporters speak as if they 'discovered' him. That's annoying. I'm sure there are other fanbases who have felt the same way about players that we have taken as our own or treated like we plucked out of nowhere, but I have no interest in fueling that particular mindset by supporting them as if they did us some favour by signing him.

Hedges is a useful squad player. Triggering the extension is a good move. He'd likely be more costly to replace and I'm not sure I would actually extend his deal, but his versatility makes him useful and he wasn't bad in some of the matches towards the end of the season. He may be a good fit for our new system, but I don't want to see him starting.

It's still a pretty long list of players from the last 15 years that have represented the club in the Premier League, played Premier League football elsewhere, played international football (in the case of Jones and Dunn), and played for significantly bigger clubs (in the case of Jones). It's not like we are Stocksbridge and we now have a soft spot for Leicester because of Jamie Vardy. As I said in my previous post, the level thing is too early to judge. He looks set to have a fantastic career that will see him move beyond Crystal Palace and represent England for years to come. But it could also not happen. I'll put it this way. If I were a Birmingham City supporter, I wouldn't give two f*cks about Real Madrid (or Dortmund before them). Nice to see Bellingham doing well and it's a credit to their academy and a nice story that maybe helps the club recruit local players, but he chose to leave and best of luck to him.

I don't have no connection to the area. Don't let my accent fool you just because my family moved to the US when I was 1 or the fact that my career has me based in Paris. But, either way, that isn't particularly relevant. We're all from somewhere and there's nothing unique to Blackburn that means a non-local couldn't imagine a similar relationship with an athlete/musician/actor/politican/etc from their local area. We will have to wait and see just how good of a career he goes on to have, but Phil Jones left here with a bigger reputation and higher expectations. He didn't any of the same tracking or fascination that Wharton gets. Why? Because we were a Premier League side and had better things to focus on. He was also probably hurt by the fact that he joined United, but this messageboard was certainly not filled with members talking about local-boy-done-good. There's no two ways about it. This is a reflection of the downfall of this club. That isn't me - or any other poster on here - telling people to not follow his career or to not have a soft spot for him. But it doesn't change the fact that it makes us look small-time.

It was a penalty and Henderson should have been sent off earlier in the match. Not sure anyone can use that final as an example of VAR helping out the 'big clubs'.

You can disagree with me, but the reasoning that you use is poor. 15 years ago we would have been laughing at Burnley had they been turning up to FA Cup finals with flags to support an ex-player. There are few examples that are more indicative of just how far this club has fallen. We could run through a list as long as my arm of academy players or 'Blackburn lads' who didn't get this type of attention when they left.

Honestly, our club is bigger than this. If I were supporting some National League club, then I would love to follow the rise of an academy player. But what a f*cking tiny club mindset.

Agreed. Not even sure why this thread still gets much action. He left. Yes, he was pushed towards the door, but he left. He signed the contract (and his agent was doing a very good job of raising his profile in the 6 months prior to the exit). Good luck to him. I even hope to see him back at Rovers at some point in the future, but so long as he isn't here then I have no reason to hope that his clubs do well. I was hoping City smashed them. Find Palace fans insufferable.

But, in doing so, they built a platform that has allowed them to rapidly improve.

Las Vegas.

I do actually think Chaddy raises a fair point on this one. There have been clubs that have successfully made the transition (just look at Forest), but a lot of promoted clubs end up overpaying for the Championship's best performers. I think part of that is an intentional strategy for yo-yoing, but it makes survival a major challenge. Take Ipswich for example. Did many really believe the Szmodics was a Premier League player? Or even someone you'd want coming on for the final 15/20 minutes in a Premier League match? He's wonderful at this level, but he was always going to struggle to make the step up. When you sign players like that, you make your way back down to their level.

I think the budget is similar, but it doesn't just include transfer fees. So, signing Dennis on loan and paying 20,000 a week comes out of the transfer budget, not out of the wage budget (from a budget line perspective). Additional transfer revenue will have little to no impact on the transfer budget available.

Everything will obviously hinge on how the transfer window goes, but I see no reason to set expectations any lower than top half. We're losing a couple of players, but they are replaceable. The teams dropping down from the Premier League season are one of the weaker bunches, so there's no reason to automatically pencil them all into the top 6. Although Birmingham and Wrexham could prove more challenging opponents than most newly promoted League One sides. I'll say top 9.

Yes. Said it to us.

You never know with our owners/leadership. They may have larger budgets for shiny new things than they do for contract renewals.

I'm not sure that I'm certain on this.

I think that was meant more in the sense of the data analysts providing the manager/coaching staff with information that could be used. I don't think he meant that he was getting involved with team selection.

I think it's fine to think it's a little bit of both. Things have definitely improved and it's not that strange that he struggled at first - given the unusual circumstances. The players will have been disappointed with a manager they liked leaving, the circus surrounding the departure will have been distracting, and they also had to change systems mid-season. What has been shown to be incorrect is that the players won't play for him or that he can't lead. That was a big part of the narrative for the first handful of matches and the last 4/5 matches have proven that wrong - both in results and, more importantly, in the attitude and effort of the players themselves.

Fair.

I understand the sentiment, but I do I think it's important to listen to what they say. It's the only way we can truly hold them accountable and there's a surprising amount of honest or transparency within the interview...whether that was intended or not.

...and I will greedily asked. If you enjoyed the podcast, leaving a review on Spotify does help us. We barely get any (which I get, I don't review podcasts I listen to), but if we could up that it just increases the reach.

It is why we wanted to get him to clearly state that the ambition was for promotion - which he did. However, he refused to give any sort of timeline or indication that this season now sets the standard. That felt more like job protection than anything else.