January Transfer Window.

[Penwortham Blue]

2 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

 

 

1 hour ago, ben_the_beast said:

All my mates are Pompey fans. They rate Bishop far higher than they did Hirst. Not a player who will forge his own chances but has a very good conversion rate with a decent supply.

I’ve always liked Clarke-Harris since he played at Ewood for Rotherham, a good few years back. Not the quickest but strong and physical and seems to score well at League 1 level and did ok for Posh last year in the Championship.

[Lancaster Rover]

Half of my family are Scottish and are split evenly between being Celtic and Hibs fans, due to where they are located. Neither are particularly enamoured with Porteus, I watch a lot of Scottish football and was pretty underwhelmed when Porteus was talked about. Admittedly he is one of the Hibees better players but they're 6th in a league that is particularly poor this year (outside of the top 2).

[Ghost7]

Yet we still can't attract him!

[Dreams of 1995]

No one cares about Porteous

Every club, in every window, will be linked with players they don't land

It is not a damning indictment of the clubs' ability to get deals done, it is a damning indictment of the insatiable thirst for clicks and site traffic stemming from the 24/7 media industry

Once again the player we acquired was not spoken about once

I love the to'ing and fro'ing about should we sign, shouldn't we, is he any good, can he better us. Love it. Keeps you interested. But only a downright idiot would be foolish enough to think we 'missed out' on every single player name dropped or linked in the media

The truth will be somewhere in the middle. Some we may have missed, some we may have enquired once and moved on immediately, some we were never in for at all

 

[yeti-dog]

1 hour ago, Mercer said:

Have said before on here, I'm not one of the Twitterati  and even if I was, if I had any info, why the feck would I just not put it on here like I normally do.

I've been wondering why I've begun to think of Mrs Brown whenever you post and I think I've nailed it... maybe time for a change of avatar?

[yankfan]

3 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

#thankyouMowbray

Spent £5m on a striker who he then put out wide cos he realised he had the first touch of a cart horse - and then extended his contract when our wage bill is clearly ridiculously tight.

The gift that keeps on giving. 

Spend 7 million on a striker as an "investment" but then fail to tie him down to a contract so that investment leaves on a free. 

[CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber]

4 hours ago, SuperDunny said:

Only just joined and amazed at how toxic this place is 😞

12 years of Venkys is enough to turn anyone toxic 

[J*B]

Undav isn’t happening, change of plan at the Brighton end. They’re now trying to work out if they have let someone else take pole position with Geldhart. 

[joey_big_nose]

2 minutes ago, J*B said:

Undav isn’t happening, change of plan at the Brighton end. They’re now trying to work out if they have let someone else take pole position with Geldhart. 

Bugger - are we looking at other strikers? E.g. Arron Collins or Colby Bishop mentioned on here before? 

[AllRoverAsia]

I am sticking with:

"I'll wait for the photo"

[Torgeir]

4 minutes ago, J*B said:

Undav isn’t happening, change of plan at the Brighton end. They’re now trying to work out if they have let someone else take pole position with Geldhart. 

What the Hecke!?

But who was the number one target? 

[joey_big_nose]

1 minute ago, Torgeir said:

What the Hecke!?

But who was the number one target? 

I suspect Sorba Thomas

[chaddyrovers]

56 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Unless there are any unexpected rabbits to be pulled out of the hat, think this window is going to be one of the most underwhelming in memory and we've had a few of those.

A seeming inability to land even any of our modest targets eg Gelhardt, Porteous, Haikin etc is a damning indictment of the club's functionality. indictment

Why judge now when clearly none of us know who we want. Time to judge is 1st February and not now. 

Thomas's transfer came out of nowhere and I expect similar with the striker target and other players we want.

[Tugayisgod]

Nixon saying any club interested in Gelhardt will be subject to financial penalties if he doesn't play. 

[chaddyrovers]

14 minutes ago, J*B said:

Undav isn’t happening, change of plan at the Brighton end. They’re now trying to work out if they have let someone else take pole position with Geldhart. 

Read that Swansea are in pole position for him. Don't know if true tho

[BankEnd Rover]

14 minutes ago, J*B said:

Undav isn’t happening, change of plan at the Brighton end. They’re now trying to work out if they have let someone else take pole position with Geldhart. 

Sorry if I’ve not read this correctly but what do you mean? 

[Sweaty Gussets]

Last thing I read on the twitters was Gelhardt wanted to go back to Wigan on loan but they couldn't afford his wages. 

So, it's now between Rovers, Boro and  S'land. 

[pick32]

3 minutes ago, Tugayisgod said:

Nixon saying any club interested in Gelhardt will be subject to financial penalties if he doesn't play. 

I don’t want anyone from Leeds filthy club

[Sweaty Gussets]

4 minutes ago, Tugayisgod said:

Nixon saying any club interested in Gelhardt will be subject to financial penalties if he doesn't play. 

....and we should charge them if he's shit. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Tugayisgod said:

Nixon saying any club interested in Gelhardt will be subject to financial penalties if he doesn't play. 

I hope that we are telling them to cram that up their arse.

[Mercer]

10 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Why judge now when clearly none of us know who we want. Time to judge is 1st February and not now. 

Thomas's transfer came out of nowhere and I expect similar with the striker target and other players we want.

Sadly, Chaddy, we only seem to land a target if there is no other club in for them!  So by definition, we just mop up the 'waifs and strays'!

As for Thomas, he might do a trick for us but if he does regain some form, we'll have lost him come season end.  Almost pointless. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Mercer

[vyeo]

7 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

No one cares about Porteous

Every club, in every window, will be linked with players they don't land

It is not a damning indictment of the clubs' ability to get deals done, it is a damning indictment of the insatiable thirst for clicks and site traffic stemming from the 24/7 media industry

Once again the player we acquired was not spoken about once

I love the to'ing and fro'ing about should we sign, shouldn't we, is he any good, can he better us. Love it. Keeps you interested. But only a downright idiot would be foolish enough to think we 'missed out' on every single player name dropped or linked in the media

The truth will be somewhere in the middle. Some we may have missed, some we may have enquired once and moved on immediately, some we were never in for at all

 

Fully agree with the above.

I believe that GB and JDT are trying to play their limited hand as best as they can. I think it's quite clear that we do have some money to spend as indicated by the bid for Porteous and paid loan for Sorba, though the budget is not large. An additional constraint is that we probably have very limited wriggle room on the sum - this could be a function of the club working on a block budget per season, internal wage ceiling, income challenges and FFP compliance issues etc. (Some of these issues could be Venkys-imposed, but some are also likely to be structural challenges that GB and JDT can't fix directly, and would require a whole-of-club approach to address and for me, the blame is on Waggott.) 

With this challenging operating environment, my best guess is that GB and JDT are trying to get the best-bang-for-buck with the objective of strengthening the squad overall. I'm sure that GB and JDT can see the issues in our midfield and attack, and in addition, they are probably also concerned about left back and the succession plans for Ayala and BBD. But given the financial constraints above, they'll have to prioritise. This means they may have to sub-optimise certain parts of the team for the greater good, hence the "project" approach and talk about needing a few windows to get the playing squad to where they want it to be. (This is not defeatist, and doesn't mean we won't try to do as best as we can in the meantime though!)

I think GB and JDT are probably looking to bolster the attack and midfield this window. But because we have such limited resources, we will need to be picky. This could be why there have been reports of enquiries, but not so much about serious negotiations. I think we may have decided to bide our time because the early enquiries did not throw up anyone available within our budget, who is clearly good enough for our needs. We could be consolidating and studying the market, to see what the best combination of options could look like, while keeping open the possibility of other options emerging late in the window, so that we can maximise our chances of getting it right. 

So far, it looks like we were serious about Porteous, and that could be because he would have helped fix two issues - the current midfield problem and the Ayala situation next season. That said, I'm not super bothered that we missed out on him. Such things happen. Cantwell was probably also serious, but I'm afraid most sane players would choose Rangers over us at this point, so no blame there. (I might be overly charitable, but I trust that GB and JDT have a sound approach overall, and I'm actually somewhat heartened that we're trying to be discerning and not just grabbing anyone available.)

My guess is that Sorba was an opportunistic deal. GB and JDT likely moved decisively for him once he became available, as they feel he is too good to pass up. This could be why they went ahead even though a paid loan with no option to buy doesn't look good on paper. I have not watched Sorba enough to have an independent view on his ability, but his stats certainly suggest that he is far more effective at chance creation than whoever else we have. So for me, Sorba brings something new to the table, and I applaud the move actually. (I will save the criticism for when JDT plays Sorba as a holding midfielder :P) 

Bringing in Sorba also gives us options - on the field, it could free BBD up to play more centrally, where hopefully he's more D than BB, and that could in the short-term allow us to get away with not bringing in another striker. It would be a calculated risk, but at a systems level, could then free up the remaining budget to address some of the (many) other areas that we need to fix if the right player becomes available. Or it could allow us to sell BBD this window, which would then change the budget we have to play with in the next few days. It could also let us loan out Markanday, who JDT seems to think is not fully ready.  

So overall, I think GB and JDT see Sorba as a "no-regrets" move, and my guess is that we'll try to strengthen with one more player by the end of the window. I would be pleasantly surprised if the budget stretches to two more additions with no outgoings, but I think this is unlikely. I would bet that the profile they are looking for is likely to be someone championship-ready, or a premier-league-minus/league-one-plus type with strong upside - I don't think it would be a kid on loan as a filler (I hope!).

 

 

 

 

[BankEnd Rover]

I hope this doesn’t mean we get desperate and go for Bishop…Surley there’s more out there to look at.

[BankEnd Rover]

YIKES!

[Theaxe15]

4 minutes ago, BankEnd Rover said:

YIKES!

Take cover everyone