Summer 2011 Transfer Window - Part 3.

[AggyBlue]

I dont believe Jones was our star player,

In your opinion, who was our star player last season?

[Tricky]

In your opinion, who was our star player last season?

robinson

[USABlue]

there asking for 10 million ,so got to move on and look else were

Yeah for that we should move on, Schalke probably just playing silly buggars.

[Neal]

Something that hasn't been given much attention is how Jones formed a strong partnership in the middle with Nzonzi. Against Wolves they both absolutely dominated, there's no other way of putting it. I hope he ends up at Ewood next season (at the right price) as he seems to get the best of out Nzonzi and vice-versa. With those 2 covering the back 4 you can almost let split the starting 11 in to 2 teams defensive and attacking. I believe this has been key in the development of Hoillet and Olsson as they have been free to express themselves to the best of their abilities.

I have to say, the doom and gloom around our current squad is starting to really annoy me. Concerning the teams who finished in the bottom 10 i would not swap Robinson, Samba, Nzonzi, Hoillet, Olsson and Givet (at his best) for hardly anyone. Please remember, Nzonzi missed most of last season and Givet was injured enough to upset the balance of the team completely, meaning Olsson reverting back to left back.

[USABlue]

nicko DM article about rovers missing out on Witsel and the problems between Kean and the owners

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/transfer-news/Blackburn-Rovers-face-transfer-crisis-after-failing-to-sign-Axel-Witsel-and-losing-Phil-Jones-Jermaine-Jones-Roque-Santa-Cruz-and-Mame-Biriam-Diouf-article762611.html

Why did the owners only bid 4 million pounds for him? If we bidded 7 million we would have got him and he was the right player to replace JJ.

I don't get why the owners are being so tight with the money. We must have 20 million pounds to spend after the Jones sale. If Kean want him then we should have gone and got him. Kean knows who he wants to sign.

Come On the Owners spend some money!!!

It seem to be close to how I feel. Owners making noise and showing off their "apparent" wealth but when push comes to shove it would appears, as seems to be the case with their ilk, they have the proverbial deep pockets but short arms. Having some trouble actually spending their monies.

[roverandout]

beerwins wearing his blue and white tinted spectacles, or is it 'beer' goggles?

[EWOODACE1]

but nicko has been very contradictive. he was the one who was saying we had a lot of money to spend. he printed a different player every day near enough and got most people on this mb very excited. he is the one mainly who got these crazy figues in your heads. i know kean come back saying we had a very healthy budget but with nicko's comments on top people thought we had 40-50m.

nicko did add excitment to the mb but he has also caused quite a bit of hysteria and panic recently. i think he may have been getting big headed with everyone always asking him for answers like he knew everything. at the end of the day he is a journo who doesnt even support our club.

to call any new comers to the mb clowns because they dont hang on his every word and dont need his daily fix is quite strange i think. it was good to hear his opinion but not everyone took his word as gospel. at the end of the day he got angry because a post of his was deleted. ive had it done evn though it was just chit chat asking how nicko became involved with our board but it doesnt mean i'd storm off.

[steverovers]

Nicko will be back - he's more thick-skinned than you think!

[modes98]

Nicko will be back - he's more thick-skinned than you think!

Nobody forced him to leave. Not as thick skinned as you think.

[steverovers]

Nobody forced him to leave. Not as thick skinned as you think.

We'll see then

[Veevs]

but nicko has been very contradictive. he was the one who was saying we had a lot of money to spend. he printed a different player every day near enough and got most people on this mb very excited. he is the one mainly who got these crazy figues in your heads. i know kean come back saying we had a very healthy budget but with nicko's comments on top people thought we had 40-50m.

nicko did add excitment to the mb but he has also caused quite a bit of hysteria and panic recently. i think he may have been getting big headed with everyone always asking him for answers like he knew everything. at the end of the day he is a journo who doesnt even support our club.

to call any new comers to the mb clowns because they dont hang on his every word and dont need his daily fix is quite strange i think. it was good to hear his opinion but not everyone took his word as gospel. at the end of the day he got angry because a post of his was deleted. ive had it done evn though it was just chit chat asking how nicko became involved with our board but it doesnt mean i'd storm off.

At the end of the day do any of you know who we approached??.. he has been coming on this site for many years now and has supplied allot of good information, people say his information was wrong but how do you know we didn't go after the players listed, for gods sake quite of those he released have been confirmed by the clubs (spurs), players (Adebayor and Anjukov) or agents (Vuci and Cisse).

As a journo he gets a tip of from one of his sources and checks his information by contacting the agents etc.. in one sentence your slagging him off the next saying we are still in for Witsel, and must be lying about the Benfica link.. who supplied the information on us being in for Witsel in the first place.

He also never said we have 50m.. he said to get the players you are targeting would cost 50m.. and frankly given the people who have confirmed we approached them that figure does not shock me.

Frankly I prefer reading his posts (even if some of it has been bad information supplied to him) than why don't we sign mr pie in the sky from ManC rubbish..

As for Nicko being negative about Venkys.. he was actually one of the few supports of Venkys for a long long time, but you would know this as regular readers of this forum.

And it's not just him being negative about Rovers, for an awful long while allot of papers and journo's have ridiculing the new ownership even former Rovers legends have been commenting on us in a negative light and other long term Venkys supporters like Kamy backed up some of Nickos comments about the state of afairs.

And what the hell am I joining in this Nicko debate for.. this isn't a Nicko thread it's supposed to be about transfers (not wish lists there is a seperate thread for that).

As it stands:

Half the board are gone and key posts still need filling

2 key players gone

3 more 1st team squad players have gone

5 players have been released which should reduce the wage bill

Dunn, Nelson, Salgado and co are getting that little bit older

We have no sponsor

Our surviving young star is in his last year of his contract

Low season ticket sales

No released shirt

A rookie manager and rookie owners

Owners who have obviously changed their plans.. otherwise why now come out and say no big name players after going for the likes of Adebayor.

As for people saying well it's early days.. and no one else has signed anyone.. we are supposed to have money unlike many of those other clubs mentioned and for the first time in quite a few years we are supposed to have something to spend (manager and owner quotes)... that something to spend started with us looking at Adebayor etc.. and is now us looking at Amauri on a free and and Mongwhatever @2m so please explain to me how nothing has changed.

As for the latest rumour about Amauri.. god I hope not, the guy is 31 earns a small fortune (someone mentioned 4.5m euros) and has been out of form for years (bar one short loan stint).

[Tom]

Nicko will be back - he's more thick-skinned than you think!

He'll be back as no doubt he gets vital infortmation for his job here, it's a two way street.

Anyway let's at least try and keep it on topic, I know its not easy as not much is actually happening but if you want to carry on discussing Nicko then use the NICKO thread in ICBINF.

[Miker]

At the end of the day do any of you know who we approached??.. he has been coming on this site for many years now and has supplied allot of good information, people say his information was wrong but how do you know we didn't go after the players listed, for gods sake quite of those he released have been confirmed by the clubs (spurs), players (Adebayor and Anjukov) or agents (Vuci and Cisse).

wnership even former Rovers legends have been commenting on us in a negative light and other long term Venkys supporters like Kamy backed up some of Nickos comments about the state of afairs.

What did they confirm? They were asked if they would join Blackburn and they said hell no.

Vucinic: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/930406/roma-striker-mirko-vucinic-will-not-join-blackburn-rovers?cc=3436

Cisse: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2008439/Blackburn-Rovers-bid-Papiss-Cisse.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Adebayor: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11676_7009475,00.html

Anyukov: http://tden.ru/articles/show/11655

Vucinic and Adebayor basically confirmed it was just rumours. Cisse's agent said there has been no official bid (despite reports that we HAD made a bid and were planning on making a new one). Anyukov is the only one that confirmed an approach was made and it was promptly rejected.

Last window's eventual transfers:

Formica - Reported by Sky Sports and LT first

Rochina - Reported by Mrs Desai herself first

J Jones - Reported in a German newspaper first

Santa Cruz - Reported by Steve Kean himself first

nicko needs to provide sources or direct quotes to back up his statements for me to have any chance of taking his word as fact. Just as he's not beyond the scope of this messageboard's rules, he's also not beyond the standards of good media practice. People were attacking philipl not too long ago for purportedly having a bad source for his information and therefore his "in-the-know" status being invalid, but I've yet to see nicko's source proven to be valid either.

[Fraserkirky]

well said veevs.

The only thing I disagree with is the Amauri part, you disgarded him as a wage theif yet his best form was his past season. Does that not count for anything?

I would prefer Amauri to RSC all things being equal

[Taggart]

In your opinion, who was our star player last season?

For me, it was Samba, was immense and showed waht a massive loss he would be, more so than jones in my view.

[Steve Moss]

I'm just as desperate as everyone else but I can't be the type of person that just presumes everything will be okay because the alternative is too scary to contemplate.

1. No Sponsor

2. No budget for transfers agreed

3. Junior not signed.

4. No release dates for shirts.

5. No chairman

6. The 'Board' have never met.

7. A kitman as manager.

8. A hugely weakened team compared to last season.

The people being blindly optimistic, help me out, what is making you so happy? Please don't tell me that it's because Venkys have said that it's going to be okay. That's like a serial killer telling you not to worry whilst pouring arsenic in your coffee.

The dark cynical portion of my psyche fears that every bit of what you are saying is accurate. The crazed, off balanced Rovers fan portion wants to ignore you and trust in a group (Venkys) who has followed through on very little, as of yet.

Hugely weakened?

P. Jones, J. Jones both gone. Essentially gutting our defense.

Samba and Hoilett on the market (allegedly).

M. Diouf and RSC off loan (admittedly no big lose).

Miles Anderson the only player IN to date.

I would say we are up the creek without a paddle, as things stand.

Obama's Hope and Change has been nothing but BS, to date.

In your opinion, who was our star player last season?

In order:

Paul Robinson

J. Jones

P. Jones

Junior Hoilett

Olsson

N'Zonzi

Salgado

Givet

Samba

[adsfortheblues]

We'll see then

Not being funny but does it really matter whether he comes back or not, he doesn't tell us anything more than what he writes in his articles, just wait for the 11 oclocker on the mirror website

[Taggart]

Not being funny but does it really matter whether he comes back or not, he doesn't tell us anything more than what he writes in his articles, just wait for the 11 oclocker on the mirror website

i must admit, I like it when nicko returns to the boards, he makes for interesting discussions and other related news, and has been for more than 3 years, a lot longer than some of the posters on here so he has been around for a while. I look forward to reading his updates on targets etc

[gumboots]

The Mirrorman wrote:

Phil Jones has been sold, while Jermaine Jones is back in Germany. Both Roque Santa Cruz and Mame Biram Diouf have returned to their clubs. Rovers have not signed a senior player yet.

Factual reporting so where is the propaganda ?

The question is why he hasn't written the story about the owners' change of heart.

You are right in that the bit you quote is factual. However, you are intelligent enough to know that reporting the facts can be done in many different ways. This article reads as sensationalist, the writings of an angry man. Whether it is that the club have misled him and he wants to get back at them, whether it is an attempt to gee up the owners, whether we are an easy target in a week when journalists are feeling hard done by as many of the NOTW sportswriters are now without employment, or whether it's for some other reason you and I would never suspect, I don't know, but it's an article we could have done without.

Who's going to want to come to us already, without hearing that our club is in transfer crisis? You might join a club you know is struggling - players do it all the time or why did they sign for clubs like West Ham in Jan last year - but one that has its name in the tabloid press as "in crisis"? I think I'd steer well clear myself until I could see what was going on. It won't do untold damage to our transfers as we don't seem to be making any at the moment, but it sure as anything won't help players who might think of coming to us to decide to do so.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Urgh.. Nicko's pieces have always been sensationalist one way or the other, its just that now, as he's writing negative stories, people are taking exception.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

If anything his article might help our owners get a move on and stop wasting peoples time with too low bids. They need to come back to reality. Good article Nicko!

[gumboots]

Urgh.. Nicko's pieces have always been sensationalist one way or the other, its just that now, as he's writing negative stories, people are taking exception.

Not me. He writes for a tabloid audience and therefore articles are always going to be written and headlines added that make the target audience sit up and take notice, give them something to talk about and argue about. That I can accept, and I don't even mind if he writes negative stuff about us - there's plenty of it to write - but the tone of this is anger/possibly frustration and it feels different from just reporting the facts in a sensational way. If we're in transfer crisis where are the articles about other clubs in the same boat, and there are several who have not made signings and whose better players have been linked with moves away?

[AJW]

i think enough of the nicko bashing now on this thread , i used to enjoy his knowledge of the inner workings of a football club , if he chooses not to post on here thats his perogative .....anyway back to transfers ...

West Brom apparently chasing Jack Collinson at £2.5m , could he do a job for us ?

[47er]

Urgh.. Nicko's pieces have always been sensationalist one way or the other, its just that now, as he's writing negative stories, people are taking exception.

One person's negative is another's realistic and honest.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Not me. He writes for a tabloid audience and therefore articles are always going to be written and headlines added that make the target audience sit up and take notice, give them something to talk about and argue about. That I can accept, and I don't even mind if he writes negative stuff about us - there's plenty of it to write - but the tone of this is anger/possibly frustration and it feels different from just reporting the facts in a sensational way. If we're in transfer crisis where are the articles about other clubs in the same boat, and there are several who have not made signings and whose better players have been linked with moves away?

Anger/frustration - Isn't that what we're all feeling?? Isn't that exactly why people are starting to turn against Venky's??? Nicko seemed frustrated because we were/are blowing a chance to push on as a team and a club.

We're failing to land decent players not through lack of ambition but through a lack of transfer market understanding and a desire to run our transfer activity through committees. Who isn't damn frustrated about the current situation???? I certainly dont blame Nicko or any other journalist for being angry at this set up.