Adam Wharton

[arbitro]

Initially I thought that Palace were the wrong club for Adams development but watching the last two matches I'm not sure now. In both games Palace didn't have the ball as much as we had under Tomasson and from an out of possession point of view Adam is doing a lot of closing down and tracking back. Hopefully in a couple of years when his all round game has improved he will get the move and platform to show what we know he is capable of.

Watching him play now though gives me an even bigger dislike of the horrible people who own and run our club. Through their absolute mismanagement and corrupt practices we have been denied of watching a Blackburn lad fulfilling his dream by playing for us, a lad with an abundance of talent and a nice lad too. Even if is was only for another six months.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

I don't know what upsets me most - one of our own in another teams colours (though pleased for him he seems to be doing well) or the gaping hole in our midfield caused by the sale of Wharton and loan of Travis.

We are already in trouble (without wishing to tempt fate) an injury to Tronsdat would be almost impossible to recover from. I wonder what the lad from Crewe is like in midfield 🤔 

[Miller11]

The repeated balls up that was the McGuire transfer has really deflected from the major disappointment of the January window. Selling Wharton so early and for so little was a travesty. Unfortunately there appears to be a fair number of Rovers fans on social media who seem to enjoy watching Jamie Carragher talking about Wharton in a Palace shirt more than they did seeing him play in a blue and white shirt. They genuinely seem to derive more pleasure from interacting with Palace fans on Twitter about him than they did from him bossing our midfield. Modern football I suppose.

We are still miles off “the model” we have supposedly tried to employ for a few years. If we were getting it right we’d be selling our players at their optimum value to a “big club” after getting a good few years out of them. Unfortunately we are closer to a classic Crewe model than the fabled Brentford one, where we sell our stars at a low price to a stepping stone club before they make their big move.

[DuffsLeftPeg]

Sad not to see him in a Rovers shirt for another 6 months but glad he’s done so well in his first few games for Palace.

He’ll thrive under their new coach playing in a midfield 2 which should bring out the best of both sides of his game. He was positionally superb last night and always looking to play forward when he got the ball. He did his defensive duties well too, even muscling Doucouré off the ball on one occasion which is no mean feat. He only looks lazy as he’s 5 yards ahead of anyone else on the pitch in his head and so is always where he needs to be without looking like he is trying.
 

He’s a generational talent and it won’t be too long before the top 6-8 PL Clubs come calling for his services. 

[bluebruce]

A lot of talk about a knockdown price for Adam, and whilst I'm critical of the deal and think we could have got a bit more in the summer, and that he will go on to be worth a whole lot more in the future, I'm not sure we can really talk about the club record fee in this way.

£22 million is more as less as much as could realistically be expected for a CM with only Championship experience. Unless you're a Jude Bellingham, who was a star at 17 and clearly a world class talent, and he only went for about £25 million about 4 seasons ago. I think we could have held out for more or less the same fee, and maybe by the summer we'd have been looking at about 26-28 million, but that's really about as high as it was ever going to go without us getting promoted.

What's frustrating is that this is due to the market economics of us being a Championship club rather than the actual ability of the player. All he was short of was showing he could hack it in the Prem. He's already showing that and is probably already worth £30 million if the window opened tomorrow, and probably about £40 million by the summer. Give it another season and we could be talking about £60 million.

The club better have worked a good sell-on clause into the deal. If not then we really have been low-balled.

[Miller11]

28 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

A lot of talk about a knockdown price for Adam, and whilst I'm critical of the deal and think we could have got a bit more in the summer, and that he will go on to be worth a whole lot more in the future, I'm not sure we can really talk about the club record fee in this way.

£22 million is more as less as much as could realistically be expected for a CM with only Championship experience. Unless you're a Jude Bellingham, who was a star at 17 and clearly a world class talent, and he only went for about £25 million about 4 seasons ago. I think we could have held out for more or less the same fee, and maybe by the summer we'd have been looking at about 26-28 million, but that's really about as high as it was ever going to go without us getting promoted.

What's frustrating is that this is due to the market economics of us being a Championship club rather than the actual ability of the player. All he was short of was showing he could hack it in the Prem. He's already showing that and is probably already worth £30 million if the window opened tomorrow, and probably about £40 million by the summer. Give it another season and we could be talking about £60 million.

The club better have worked a good sell-on clause into the deal. If not then we really have been low-balled.

Record fees are all relative though and don’t take normal inflation, let alone football hyperinflation into account.

The fact we’ve been out of the Premier League for a long time now (and of course our recent dip into the third tier) does make it very difficult for us to sell players at their optimum. Unfortunately it’s also not helped by the “can’t do” mentality within the club either. With Adam tied to a long deal, and being a home town lad, we only needed to show the tiniest bit of ambition (and not be beholden to an Indian Court) to hang on to him til that really big money move came along.

I’ve seen this spoken about quite a lot, I can state categorically that the sell on clause is the absolute bog standard 15% on any profit.

[roversfan99]

53 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

The repeated balls up that was the McGuire transfer has really deflected from the major disappointment of the January window. Selling Wharton so early and for so little was a travesty. Unfortunately there appears to be a fair number of Rovers fans on social media who seem to enjoy watching Jamie Carragher talking about Wharton in a Palace shirt more than they did seeing him play in a blue and white shirt. They genuinely seem to derive more pleasure from interacting with Palace fans on Twitter about him than they did from him bossing our midfield. Modern football I suppose.

We are still miles off “the model” we have supposedly tried to employ for a few years. If we were getting it right we’d be selling our players at their optimum value to a “big club” after getting a good few years out of them. Unfortunately we are closer to a classic Crewe model than the fabled Brentford one, where we sell our stars at a low price to a stepping stone club before they make their big move.

The social media stuff you talk about is bizarre. Lots of people excitedly sitting down to watch a game they normally seemingly wouldnt and turning it off when he was subbed off. 

For me, the sale of a player like Wharton isnt the issue necessarily. Hes clearly above this level already so to an extent I could even normally understand his sale, albeit IMO it was too early and it made more sense to wait at least 6 months with his fee set to rise.

The biggest barrier to us being like Brentford etc is that the money vanishes. It always vanishes. We should only sell at a time when we can reinvest a bit chunk into more potential stars that can improve the team to get better results and also by filling it with potential assets.

Edited February 20, 2024 by roversfan99

[JHRover]

1 hour ago, Miller11 said:

The repeated balls up that was the McGuire transfer has really deflected from the major disappointment of the January window. Selling Wharton so early and for so little was a travesty. Unfortunately there appears to be a fair number of Rovers fans on social media who seem to enjoy watching Jamie Carragher talking about Wharton in a Palace shirt more than they did seeing him play in a blue and white shirt. They genuinely seem to derive more pleasure from interacting with Palace fans on Twitter about him than they did from him bossing our midfield. Modern football I suppose.

We are still miles off “the model” we have supposedly tried to employ for a few years. If we were getting it right we’d be selling our players at their optimum value to a “big club” after getting a good few years out of them. Unfortunately we are closer to a classic Crewe model than the fabled Brentford one, where we sell our stars at a low price to a stepping stone club before they make their big move.

Makes me laugh (or scream) when I see various Rovers supporters and even employees boasting about what a big positive selling Adam was and as though this is some sort of accomplishment for Rovers to develop a player that we quickly flog to Crystal Palace.

Newsflash. Palace don't care that he came through Rovers' academy, nor do Sky Sports, The FA or anybody else.

We aren't going to win any points or prizes by virtue of developing and selling great talents from our academy.

Blackburn Rovers only benefits if:

a) The player(s) go on to have successful careers in a ROVERS SHIRT and haul us to successful times

b) If we do sell them we bring in such levels of cash that it improves ROVERS and ROVERS' squad allowing us to reinvest and improve.

Neither of those things have or will happen, the money is of zero benefit to Blackburn Rovers, it just makes Venkys' life easier for the next 12 months and probably lands Waggott his annual bonus in one move. Neither of those things are good for us because it enables Venkys to stick around without relying on court hearings and it keeps the heat off Waggott from upstairs.

It's just disgusting IMO, and most worrying of all is it is just accepted and brushed under the carpet as though it is all fine, normal, acceptable

[bluebruce]

1 hour ago, Miller11 said:

I’ve seen this spoken about quite a lot, I can state categorically that the sell on clause is the absolute bog standard 15% on any profit.

So if he sold for say 42 million, we'd get a mighty 3 million extra. Woop woop.

[Miller11]

Just now, bluebruce said:

So if he sold for say 42 million, we'd get a mighty 3 million extra. Woop woop.

Yep. Sell on clauses are a god send to little clubs, but neither here nor there for us. The fact they are so celebrated at Rovers suggests small time mentality.

[K-Hod]

Hope he has a good career, but people fawning over him now he’s gone, it’s plain weird to me.
Like following your ex on socials after she broke your heart. 
Probs need to move on….

[lraC]

4 hours ago, bluebruce said:

A lot of talk about a knockdown price for Adam, and whilst I'm critical of the deal and think we could have got a bit more in the summer, and that he will go on to be worth a whole lot more in the future, I'm not sure we can really talk about the club record fee in this way.

£22 million is more as less as much as could realistically be expected for a CM with only Championship experience. Unless you're a Jude Bellingham, who was a star at 17 and clearly a world class talent, and he only went for about £25 million about 4 seasons ago. I think we could have held out for more or less the same fee, and maybe by the summer we'd have been looking at about 26-28 million, but that's really about as high as it was ever going to go without us getting promoted.

What's frustrating is that this is due to the market economics of us being a Championship club rather than the actual ability of the player. All he was short of was showing he could hack it in the Prem. He's already showing that and is probably already worth £30 million if the window opened tomorrow, and probably about £40 million by the summer. Give it another season and we could be talking about £60 million.

The club better have worked a good sell-on clause into the deal. If not then we really have been low-balled.

Does it really matter what we got for him, as we are already told despite the record signing, we are skint. 

With the Armstrong money and now this, we have had well over £30 million in, but just wait until the summer, as we spend nothing yet again.

[Upside Down]

7 hours ago, Miller11 said:

Record fees are all relative though and don’t take normal inflation, let alone football hyperinflation into account.

The fact we’ve been out of the Premier League for a long time now (and of course our recent dip into the third tier) does make it very difficult for us to sell players at their optimum. Unfortunately it’s also not helped by the “can’t do” mentality within the club either. With Adam tied to a long deal, and being a home town lad, we only needed to show the tiniest bit of ambition (and not be beholden to an Indian Court) to hang on to him til that really big money move came along.

I’ve seen this spoken about quite a lot, I can state categorically that the sell on clause is the absolute bog standard 15% on any profit.

The biggest record fee ever received was by us for Shearer.

15 million. Which equates to about 400 million nowadays.

That will never be beaten.

This whole scenario is totally disgusting. We sold our best player for half of what he was worth and will not spend a penny of the money.

The only hope I have from this is that the court cites it as precedent to not allow the owners to send over funds.

[simongarnerisgod]

we sold rhodes for 12 million and gestede for 7 million,surprisingly we never saw any money go back into the squad from that either

[riverholmes]

in highlights I’ve seen, he’s looked a bit indecisive defensively and not sure if lack of pace plays a part. Palace fans are cutting him slack for obvious reasons, including because on the ball he’s done well. If he can grow in confidence, he can do really well. 

Edited February 20, 2024 by riverholmes

[simongarnerisgod]

3 minutes ago, riverholmes said:

in highlights I’ve seen, he’s looked a bit indecisive defensively and not sure if lack of pace plays a part. Palace fans are cutting him slack for obvious reasons, including because on the ball he’s done well. If he can grow in confidence, he can do really well. 

he is`nt a box to box player,more a foden than a roy keane imo

[philipl]

18 hours ago, DuffsLeftPeg said:

Sad not to see him in a Rovers shirt for another 6 months but glad he’s done so well in his first few games for Palace.

He’ll thrive under their new coach playing in a midfield 2 which should bring out the best of both sides of his game. He was positionally superb last night and always looking to play forward when he got the ball. He did his defensive duties well too, even muscling Doucouré off the ball on one occasion which is no mean feat. He only looks lazy as he’s 5 yards ahead of anyone else on the pitch in his head and so is always where he needs to be without looking like he is trying.
 

He’s a generational talent and it won’t be too long before the top 6-8 PL Clubs come calling for his services. 

Wharton dominated central midfield in his second PL game. He made several excellent interventions and tackles - a side of his game that goes unremarked. None of his through balls came off but that more reflects the standard of forward Palace had available on Monday as much as anything.

I used to live in an area dominated by Palace fans and they are already besides themselves at how good Adam is.

Everton fans of my acquaintance are howling about transfer fees being squandered in the past meaning the club couldn't follow through on having tracked him for two years. I believe Newcastle are similarly frustrated.

 

[Mercer]

4 hours ago, philipl said:

Wharton dominated central midfield in his second PL game. He made several excellent interventions and tackles - a side of his game that goes unremarked. None of his through balls came off but that more reflects the standard of forward Palace had available on Monday as much as anything.

I used to live in an area dominated by Palace fans and they are already besides themselves at how good Adam is.

Everton fans of my acquaintance are howling about transfer fees being squandered in the past meaning the club couldn't follow through on having tracked him for two years. I believe Newcastle are similarly frustrated.

 

The lad's an absolute class act - I posted on here last season that in 2 to 3 years time, he will be running England's midfield.

Friend of mine is a big Liverpool fan and he was surprised and disappointed they didn't make a move for him as he thought his different style to what they already have in midfield would give them an additional edge. 

 

[superniko]

22 hours ago, Miller11 said:

Yep. Sell on clauses are a god send to little clubs, but neither here nor there for us. The fact they are so celebrated at Rovers suggests small time mentality.

I guess they're good when the original sale is well under the true price, because it is based on profit.

Prime example being Raya (or Adam Armstrong for Newcastle). We sold Raya for less than his value, so much so that we'll get more from the sell on % than the original fee.

Selling Wharton for £22m, we're not going to get much given it's 15% of the profit Palace make.

Edited February 21, 2024 by superniko

[Bohinen1983]

1 hour ago, superniko said:

I guess they're good when the original sale is well under the true price, because it is based on profit.

Prime example being Raya (or Adam Armstrong for Newcastle). We sold Raya for less than his value, so much so that we'll get more from the sell on % than the original fee.

Selling Wharton for £22m, we're not going to get much given it's 15% of the profit Palace make.

There's been some ludicrous decision- selling Raya for what we did being just one!

Does anyone know what our net spend since Venkys is vs net incomings? Off the top of my head we've bombed out some decent players..

P.Jones: 20m
Samba: 10m
Hanley: 5m
Wharton: 18m
Raya: 3m
Armstrong: 15m (?)

The only transfers of note that jump out to me are Brereton and Gallagher..
 

Surely we've made more from selling then we've spent over the past decade?

 

Would love to see what the wage bill was and what is now too..

[superniko]

1 hour ago, Bohinen1983 said:

There's been some ludicrous decision- selling Raya for what we did being just one!

Does anyone know what our net spend since Venkys is vs net incomings? Off the top of my head we've bombed out some decent players..

P.Jones: 20m
Samba: 10m
Hanley: 5m
Wharton: 18m
Raya: 3m
Armstrong: 15m (?)

The only transfers of note that jump out to me are Brereton and Gallagher..
 

Surely we've made more from selling then we've spent over the past decade?

 

Would love to see what the wage bill was and what is now too..

According to transfermarkt as it's probably the easiest way to look at it....note that it's in euros though

€141.5m recouped

€73.5m spent 

So they've netted €68m euro profit on transfer sales

for reference and some grim reading...

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/blackburn-rovers/alletransfers/verein/164

 

Edited February 21, 2024 by superniko

[NeilInBristol]

7 hours ago, Mercer said:

The lad's an absolute class act - I posted on here last season that in 2 to 3 years time, he will be running England's midfield.

Friend of mine is a big Liverpool fan and he was surprised and disappointed they didn't make a move for him as he thought his different style to what they already have in midfield would give them an additional edge. 

 

He took almost every corner when he played the other night. They really trust and rate him..great to see he is straight in their line up every game since signing 

[Mike E]

10 hours ago, Mercer said:

The lad's an absolute class act - I posted on here last season that in 2 to 3 years time, he will be running England's midfield.

Friend of mine is a big Liverpool fan and he was surprised and disappointed they didn't make a move for him as he thought his different style to what they already have in midfield would give them an additional edge. 

 

The Liverpool mention had me thinking, and Adam plays like a lanky Lancy Xabi Alonso.

[den]

@Miller11 mentioned the Crewe model. It just sickens me really. (Not Miller).

Bringing through talented kids is brilliant. Having an Academy as good as the one at Brockhall is such a bonus. Surely though, you use the youngsters to supplement and improve the first team. That’s how to progress, that’s what we should be aiming for. I always believed that was what the Academy was set up to do. 
 

Under this current ownership and this current management these kids are simply there to bring in revenue - to help pay for the day to day running. Just as Crewe do, or did. I know it’s not easy to hold onto talented youngsters, but at least try. A superb Academy at a club seemingly with no idea how to use it. 
 

we seem to exist around loaning or selling kids.

Edited February 22, 2024 by den

[arbitro]

Hopefully Adam excels on Saturday, scores and celebrates accordingly while Palace have a thumping win.