Summer Transfer Window

[Guest]

Just now, JoeH said:

Personally think we’ve made steady progress in the last 3 years and if we can improve this season it will do for me.

 

It's not progress if you take a step forward then three steps backwards because half your players go back to the club that *actually* owns them.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Are you arguing with yourself?  

[unsall]

7 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Greg Cunningham played 10 games for us and clearly has long term injury problems, so let's not pretend he was an excellent signing because we'll never truly know what he could or couldn't have done for us. 

Tosin was a great addition, I won't deny that. Walton was a poor addition, mistakes, no better than Raya and not even our player.

And yes, it hasn't worked for us. We could've not spend £4m on loan players over the last two seasons and still be exactly where we are now... in the Championship. Finishing 11th vs 17th doesn't give you anything. We don't get a load more money, a special prize or anything.

7th or 20th you play Championship football the following season.

Oh dear, have a look at the history of BRFC think you’ll find the majority of our time has been spent in the second tier of English football, nothing wrong with that, as long as you strive to get to the top tier, but you have to do it in budget and hopefully money available.

Too say Cunningham wasn’t an excellent signing because he only played 10 games, when probably most Rovers fans knew he was, tells me you can’t see a decent player, would love him to come back as we was a very decent acquisition.

[MarkBRFC]

Cunningham looked good in his 10 games or so don't get me wrong.

After an injury like that though, not sure I would be rushing out to get him signed up again at the moment.

[JHRover]

Just now, unsall said:

Oh dear, have a look at the history of BRFC think you’ll find the majority of our time has been spent in the second tier of English football

Not correct. 73 seasons in the top division, 44 seasons in the second division and only 6 in the third division.

[MarkBRFC]

5 minutes ago, unsall said:

Oh dear, have a look at the history of BRFC think you’ll find the majority of our time has been spent in the second tier of English football, nothing wrong with that, as long as you strive to get to the top tier, but you have to do it in budget and hopefully money available.

I think that's the lazy assumption because we spent 26 years out of the top flight between 66 & 92.

[Mattyblue]

1 minute ago, JHRover said:

Not correct. 73 seasons in the top division, 44 seasons in the second division and only 6 in the third division.

Amazes me that subset of Rovers fans that always try and downplay our heritage and standing in English football, like Leeds fans in reverse...

Edited August 11, 2020 by Mattyblue

[Bigdoggsteel]

2 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

Cunningham looked good in his 10 games or so don't get me wrong.

After an injury like that though, not sure I would be rushing out to get him signed up again at the moment.

Twice the player Bell is and in our position I think you need to sign a player like that if you can. Trust the medical team to do their job. 

[unsall]

15 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Are you arguing with yourself?  

?

[47er]

39 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Downing?

It's a fair point though, but the fact we generally sign late doesn't help.

I just have a niggling fear/feeling that this window could run away from us altogether if we don't get on top of things soon. 

As per usual. Why will it change?

[phili]

Just now, 47er said:

As per usual. Why will it change?

I am not sure we have the cash yet to do any signings at the moment even if we want to.

We have £0 season ticket income which we would normally have had £3-4m by now, First batch of TV cash arrives 2 weeks before the season starts so that will be September and not August. We have pretty much the £4m Venky's injected in June to get us through to the TV cash arriving in September. Of that £4m, at least £2.5m will have been spent on wages for June and July.

At the moment we must be living on empty waiting for the next Venky cash injection, so there is absolutely no way we can do any player purchases until that happens, we simply have no available funds in the club to pay for any signing on bonuses etc.

[Tom]

Cunningham was decent enough but not seeing him as an excellent loan signing, more solid than Bell or Williams but only played a handful of games including an absolute shocker away at West Brom where he cost us a couple of goals 

[Richard Oakley]

5 hours ago, Norbert Rassragr said:

A solid base is imperative, which means one experienced, good defender to go with Lehinen (I can never remember how to spell his name), a proper left back and a goalkeeper who is not some agency temp that is covering someone on maternity leave so to speak. It is not looking quite so secure right now, as we have no decent left back, no tough, commanding centre back and no goalkeeper with more than a couple of first team appearances for any first team.

 

There's a useful left back at Wigan with a £1.5m release clause. He's the sort of player we ought to be all over. We have need of a left back.We haven't even put a bid in.Pretty conclusive evidence that Mowbray has no money to spend on transfers, if you ask me.

@phili Coincidentally that £4m also covers the outstanding balance for Gallagher and the next tranche of Brereton,in my opinion. 80% of the wages will have been covered by the furlough scheme. It could have been spent to pay the outstanding deferred wages

Edited August 11, 2020 by Richard Oakley

[Theaxe15]

Just now, Richard Oakley said:

There's a useful left back at Wigan with a £1.5m release clause. He's the sort of player we ought to be all over. We have need of a left back.We haven't even put a bid in.Pretty conclusive evidence that Mowbray has no money to spend on transfers, if you ask me.

You mean the one that's destined to sign for a Premier League team? And who was meant to go to AC Milan in January?

[Tugayisgod]

Not a cat in hells chance Rovers could sign him even if we had the money. 

He'll have his choice of any number of top flight teams. Let's get realistic 

[Richard Oakley]

1 minute ago, Theaxe15 said:

You mean the one that's destined to sign for a Premier League team? And who was meant to go to AC Milan in January?

If you don't try, you don't get.

[Parsonblue]

15 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Not correct. 73 seasons in the top division, 44 seasons in the second division and only 6 in the third division.

But let's not forget that of those 73 seasons in the top division some 44 seasons were between 1888 and 1936.  Since football restarted after the war the majority of our time has been spent outside the top flight.  The Jack Walker/Walker Trust era was very much a golden period in our modern history.  I remember John Williams saying at the time of Big Sam's appointment, that if we got relegated it would be very difficult to get back.  Many of us remember the 25 years in exile after the 1965-66 relegation season.  I would agree that we are not a Third Division club but modern history suggests we are a club that spends long periods in the second tier.

59 minutes ago, unsall said:

Looking at Venkys figures and they like other firms been hit hard. The share price in 12 months has gone from a high of 1942 inr to a low in April of  580 inr, but has come back to 1052 inr last week, so let’s hope they have a few quid in their back pockets for us.

I think that is a point that is being missed in any transfer talk.  This virus has impacted all global businesses and Venkys are no exception.  With their Charitable Foundation to support - which is of vital importance to the people of Pune and its surrounding areas - I suspect that Blackburn Rovers is even further down the agenda than normal.

I think Mowbray was quoted a few weeks ago talking about loans, freebies and promoting youth players to cover gaps of any players we have to sell.  I suspect this is the reality of where we are at.  Hopefully, I'll be pleasantly surprised but being realistic I not expecting any earth shattering moves in the transfer market.

[Mattyblue]

If he’d have said ‘post War Rovers’, then that’s a true statement (though we still spent large parts of the 1960s, 1990s and 2000s in the top flight) and arguably more relevant, but the facts are we have spent most seasons of our history as a top flight club.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Mattyblue

[MarkBRFC]

13 minutes ago, Tugayisgod said:

Not a cat in hells chance Rovers could sign him even if we had the money. 

He'll have his choice of any number of top flight teams. Let's get realistic 

If we had adopted this approach throughout our history then we wouldn't have seen any of the world class players that have graced Ewood over the years, it's more proof that venkys have beaten down our fanbase so much.

Just now, Parsonblue said:

But let's not forget that of those 73 seasons in the top division some 44 seasons were between 1888 and 1936.  Since football restarted after the war the majority of our time has been spent outside the top flight.  The Jack Walker/Walker Trust era was very much a golden period in our modern history.  I remember John Williams saying at the time of Big Sam's appointment, that if we got relegated it would be very difficult to get back.  Many of us remember the 25 years in exile after the 1965-66 relegation season.  I would agree that we are not a Third Division club but modern history suggests we are a club that spends long periods in the second tier.

I think that is a point that is being missed in any transfer talk.  This virus has impacted all global businesses and Venkys are no exception.  With their Charitable Foundation to support - which is of vital importance to the people of Pune and its surrounding areas - I suspect that Blackburn Rovers is even further down the agenda than normal.

I think Mowbray was quoted a few weeks ago talking about loans, freebies and promoting youth players to cover gaps of any players we have to sell.  I suspect this is the reality of where we are at.  Hopefully, I'll be pleasantly surprised but being realistic I not expecting any earth shattering moves in the transfer market.

Don't these seasons count anymore then?!

[Swanson]

https://bnn.de/nachrichten/sport/ksc/transfergeruechte-um-ksc-torjaeger-hofmann-erste-liga-england-oder-weiter-in-karlsruhe

This german paper is linking us to Philipp Hofmann. The article just does say that we are one of many interested clubs.

[JacknOry]

9 minutes ago, Swanson said:

https://bnn.de/nachrichten/sport/ksc/transfergeruechte-um-ksc-torjaeger-hofmann-erste-liga-england-oder-weiter-in-karlsruhe

This german paper is linking us to Philipp Hofmann. The article just does say that we are one of many interested clubs.

Was one of the signings Brentford made that didnt come off. Just come off his best season however. 17 goals in 33 games is not too shabby at all.

[RoverCanada]

3 hours ago, JoeH said:

I’d rather spend my £2-3m on players we’re going to own (seemingly as we seem set to do more of this season) than waste money on players who never bring any value to the clubs assets list, and don’t get us promoted. 

Kasey Palmer
Greg Cunningham
Christian Walton
Tosin Adarabioyo
Harrison Reed

I’d estimate over £4m has been spent on those guys, and now, in August 2020, what do we have to show for it? A minus figure in the books.

Whilst I don’t necessarily trust the club to spend £4m well, it would be nicer to have some permanent players to show for such a large sum, rather than another mid table finish having spent high figures on PL youngsters.

Surely one of the advantages of loans is, for cases like Palmer or Walton, we didn't spend a transfer fee and sign them to a lucrative long-term contract. We were able to cancel the deal with Palmer midway and Walton's gone after a middling year. I doubt anyone would be pleased if we still had them on the books for 2-3 years.

Cunningham was looking good, but imagine we had signed him to a long-term deal + transfer fee and were now fretting whether he could come back from injury to justify that outlay?

Reed was largely good for us. Was that a waste of wages/loan fees (and potential development of other young players he kept out of the lineup?), or did Reed help keep us out of a relegation scrap that year? It also potentially gives you a look at signing the player permanently later if he's a good fit, likes the club setup, and doesn't appear to have a place in his original club. See Tom Cairney, for example. That didn't work out for Reed, but you'd have to assume he'd be on the radar for a permanent deal if we did somehow get promoted that year, as Fulham may be doing now.

Tosin's gone now, but he's a huge reason we were ever on the cusp on the playoffs, and obviously was always well out of our price range (and also a case where he wasn't taking game time from a younger CB ready for the Championship). Sounds like he was expensive as loan signings go, but our financial commitment ended at the end of the year, and theoretically the budget for his loan fee is now available for reallocation this year.

I'm not at all saying loans should be excessively relied upon, but it keeps being framed as an 'either/or' argument, when a smattering of well-targeted, high-quality loans is often a sensible way to improve your competitiveness for a season with limited financial commitment, and we've also seen some recent examples of squads getting promoted with a significant number of loans.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, unsall said:

Oh dear, have a look at the history of BRFC think you’ll find the majority of our time has been spent in the second tier of English football, nothing wrong with that, as long as you strive to get to the top tier, but you have to do it in budget and hopefully money available.

 

I'm sorry but I'm genuinely so confused as to where I said we should be unhappy with being a second tier club... I quite seriously don't know what you're talking about? We're discussing the merits of loan signings... is this just a straw man argument to knock down? 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Are you arguing with yourself?  

No, just a glitch in system, someone else said that, not me.

[rigger]

2 hours ago, JoeH said:

And I'm not saying you *can't* loan players, I'm saying it clearly hasn't worked for us, two years running, so why not just invest in our own players?

Reed worked as a loan, Gallagher and Brereton are our players, how is that going?