That *was* the January Window

[roversfan99]

5 minutes ago, Groundhog said:

No - that's your opinion presented in a slightly milder manner, and a lot, lot different than people writing the players off before a ball is kicked. 

I would say that "what did you expect?" Where you expecting to be overwhelmed? I doubt it. To play devil's advocate, the grass is always greener, and there'll be a lot of club's envious at our business. 

I know the club is at an all-time low, but christ no need to kick it down further. Again, save your ire for the fact our ticketing strategy is a mess, the ground is falling apart, the CEO is obsessed with a bus and we are always a few weeks away from total financial oblivion. 

 

Low expectations dont justify people not being annoyed that weve pocketed a club record fee and not spent any.

The window will have absolutely nobody looking on enviously. Lost our main talent and our captain, lost a key CB and our full backs to injury, lost a good loanee. In come a soon to be 37 year old, a 32 year old who has had 2 serious injuries, a young lad from Crewe, a young striker from the MLS only on loan and 3 loanees that have had underwhelming and limited loans spells and are miles away from their parent clubs squads, that scream making up the numbers.

Its not as if the new players are the target of the venting, they are a by product of the situation. But if people arent happy with the quality of players, they should be able to say that they dont think they are good enough, as long as they are open minded to change that opinion if they exceed expectations. Take Szmodics, criticism upon signing, now incredibly popular and always praised. And its not just a "negativity" thing as weve had plenty of new signings praised upon signing that have turned out shit. We dont always get it right but equally we should be able to pass comment.

And how again is venting on here "kicking the club down further."

[roversfan99]

11 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Or us as fans are underestimating the cost of all the new contracts in the last 18 months.

Sigurrdson for example was on 18k a week at CSKA Moscow ,surely we won't have given him that much but he will be on at least 15k per week 

The lads who came up through the academy Carter, JRC etc would have had a big jump from the contracts they signed when breaking through to the first team 

How do you know he was on 18k a week at CSKA? No way did he offer him 15k amidst the cut backs.

Edited February 2 by roversfan99

[J*B]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

How do you know he was on 18k a week at CSKA? No way did he offer him 15k amidst the cut backs.

We agreed his transfer before the cutbacks so it’s reasonable he’s on 15K to me. 

[roversfan99]

4 minutes ago, J*B said:

We agreed his transfer before the cutbacks so it’s reasonable he’s on 15K to me. 

There had been cutbacks and then further cutbacks hence why fees were off the table and Ayala, Dack etc were let go.

[islander200]

11 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

How do you know he was on 18k a week at CSKA? No way did he offer him 15k amidst the cut backs.

Various reports suggest he was on that much at CSKA 

Plus it's not a stretch to believe it, he cost them £4 million , they played champions league and the Russians paid decent wages pre war.

When he went to Venezia they got an 800k loan fee 

And also "no way" how would you know if we are paying those wages or not?

Do you think Szmodic renewed without a significant increase bearing in mind he was championship top scorer when he signed it?

Edited February 2 by islander200

[Boz]

Duncan McGuire loan signing - sorry if this has been made clear elsewhere, or whether it might be speculative, in that only those actually involved in the negotiations will fully know, but...

Did we go from an initial offer bid of circa £2m, which was positively responded to in Miami, but then perhaps went up to £2.5m following Sheff Wed creating an auction, which was reported as being acceptable by Orlando, for them to transfer their player to us. With in all probability following a medical yesterday morning after his arrival in the UK, he signs the transfer forms, lodged wherever, happy days, send the down payment and then any balance in dribs and drabs for next x years across the pond.

To...a $700k loan fee until June 2024 with then an option to buy of $7m, plus potential $2.5m add ons? 

To me this seems like an expensive air flight ticket that someone at Ewood tried to save on Wednesday evening GMT. Besides the cost of a possible Revidge & Wilpshire ( Simon 😉) or equivalent airport taxi.

Or perhaps great business if in fact Dunc has similar fitness and goal scoring attributes as Niall Ennis, costing us only $700k (though $700k is not chicken feed) and his salary for the next five months. 

[J*B]

Just now, roversfan99 said:

There had been cutbacks and then further cutbacks hence why fees were off the table and Ayala, Dack etc were let go.

Was there? I hadn’t seen that reported, can you link it? My understanding was that Ayala, Dack, Brereton etc where all let go because JDT and GB thought the funds could be better used elsewhere. We signed three players - Ennis, Sigurdsson and Tronstad, then “the project changed”.

[Ewood Ace]

4 minutes ago, J*B said:

Was there? I hadn’t seen that reported, can you link it? My understanding was that Ayala, Dack, Brereton etc where all let go because JDT and GB thought the funds could be better used elsewhere. We signed three players - Ennis, Sigurdsson and Tronstad, then “the project changed”.

But we have signed Sigurdsson on a permanent since then granted it does technically kick in until next season but it seems unlikely that he'd commit in December to sign for next season on a lower wage than we are currently paying him.

Edited February 2 by Ewood Ace

[roversfan99]

4 minutes ago, J*B said:

Was there? I hadn’t seen that reported, can you link it? My understanding was that Ayala, Dack, Brereton etc where all let go because JDT and GB thought the funds could be better used elsewhere. We signed three players - Ennis, Sigurdsson and Tronstad, then “the project changed”.

Didnt Broughton say that we couldnt spend any fees? I am not 100% sure if he specifically said he needed to slash the wage budget in that interview but equally I would be personally skeptical ( @islander200 again just my opinion) that we offered such a deal in the summer. And then renewed it after the "project changed."

[XLM]

9 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Low expectations dont justify people not being annoyed that weve pocketed a club record fee and not spent any.

This isn't to get at you in particular, I've read it a lot today, but it's just a completely unreasonable expectation to think we would spend it. And calling it "pocketing the cash" is completely misrepresenting the actual situation.

Given our financial issues, I'd say it would probably class as gross negligence on Waggot's behalf if we spent a good chunk of that cash, were Venkys not be able to send money over in summer and then we couldn't cover our costs. He could be held personally liable.

It's akin to selling your car when you don't have a job. You aren't going to spend that cash on a new car until you know you've got some stable income coming in.

Again, Venkys shit, Waggot commercially incompetent etc etc. But put your annoyance in the right place, getting it wrong makes it easier for people who disagree to say everyone is doing their best and this is all we can be.

The issue is Venkys, their position as owners is untenable. This window, in isolation, given the circumstances, was handled about as well as it could have been by those at Ewood (player quality is obviously an unknown at this point).

[Sparks Rover]

1 hour ago, davulsukur said:

Not sure Fleck will be all that tbh. Sounds like he's finished at any reasonable level. (Probably why Sheff Utd gave him to us)

He'll add a touch of know how...I hope

[Mercer]

Away from home with limited WiFi.

Can someone please summarise the ins and outs without me having to trawl through 100+ pages.

Edited February 2 by Mercer

[benhben]

3 minutes ago, XLM said:

The issue is Venkys, their position as owners is untenable. This window, in isolation, given the circumstances, was handled about as well as it could have been by those at Ewood (player quality is obviously an unknown at this point).

I just cant get my head around why they own us.....or still want to own us. They aren't interested in us or football, we loose them money, they dont seem to be interested in promotion where the big money is, the fans don't like them, we dont get them good press, I cant see us giving them any marketing income and they've ended up in court partly because of us. Just dont understand why they are still keeping on to us. At least start putting the feelers out for a sale..

At least with people like the Glazers, Man U are a cash cow for them. To them were just an unimportant money drain. 

[RoversClitheroe]

3 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Away from home with limited WiFi.

Can someone please summarise the ins and outs without me having to trawl through 100+ pages.

As expected, we absolutely fucked it.

[RoverCanada]

34 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Or us as fans are underestimating the cost of all the new contracts in the last 18 months.

Sigurrdson for example was on 18k a week at CSKA Moscow ,surely we won't have given him that much but he will be on at least 15k per week 

The lads who came up through the academy Carter, JRC etc would have had a big jump from the contracts they signed when breaking through to the first team 

Yeah, it's all guesswork, but supposing Ayala and Dack were on £14k/week and Brereton £8k/week (doing this per week is easy shorthand, but who knows what the total is with win/goal bonuses, etc), that's maybe £2m or so off the wage bill, so £23m instead of £25m. Kaminski maybe another £10k/week. Edun + Phillips won't have been on much.

Sigurdsson, Tronstad, and Ennis probably aren't on Ayala/Dack-level wages, but that's a decent chunk right there. Pears, Pickering, Hyam, Szmodics, S. Wharton, JRC, Garrett, and Leonard are all on new terms. Other players may have yearly wage rises. Wahlstedt and Telelovic are probably cheap, but can't ignore lesser deals like those.

When I say our 23-24 wages may be 'surprisingly high', I mean it may only be down to £22m-ish vs £25m. A 12% cut may not look like much, but it may be especially painful in an insanely competitive division with growing cost pressures everywhere.

Where I suspect GB got fucked is he thought he had another £2m of wage flex/transfer budget to work with after bringing in those first 3, but then that suddenly changed.

[roversfan99]

14 minutes ago, XLM said:

This isn't to get at you in particular, I've read it a lot today, but it's just a completely unreasonable expectation to think we would spend it. And calling it "pocketing the cash" is completely misrepresenting the actual situation.

Given our financial issues, I'd say it would probably class as gross negligence on Waggot's behalf if we spent a good chunk of that cash, were Venkys not be able to send money over in summer and then we couldn't cover our costs. He could be held personally liable.

It's akin to selling your car when you don't have a job. You aren't going to spend that cash on a new car until you know you've got some stable income coming in.

Again, Venkys shit, Waggot commercially incompetent etc etc. But put your annoyance in the right place, getting it wrong makes it easier for people who disagree to say everyone is doing their best and this is all we can be.

The issue is Venkys, their position as owners is untenable. This window, in isolation, given the circumstances, was handled about as well as it could have been by those at Ewood (player quality is obviously an unknown at this point).

I know the issue is Venkys. Thats where my blame all goes.

We were told this week that things were ok financially. Ish. Fast forward a week and we cant even spend £2.5m of a record fee to buy a striker.

Dont spend any money and the team ceases to be competitive in the league and goes down. Investing in players is also a way of making money by selling on at a profit. Its not similar to buying a car whilst you dont have a job. Its similar to not buying a bus ticket to the job centre because you dont have a job.

[jim mk2]

1 hour ago, Hasta said:

Gregg :-

 

Cheer Gregg. Another corker

[Exiled_Rover]

1 hour ago, DCU Rover said:

Excited to see what McGuire does with Rovers, should start seeing more USMNT looks.  quick rise... college > USL2 > MLS > Championship....  hopefully can keep pushing on and not find himself in over his head.    Saw him play a few games against DC, he scored in both games from what I remember.  Absolutely gives it his all, a bit clumsy like others have pointed out but had a dangerous swagger to him while in the MLS.

Otherwise rough window, been following Rovers 20 years now, exhaustion has firmly set in.

I visited Charleston last year on my way through to Miami (from Charlotte). Lovely city.

[XLM]

8 minutes ago, benhben said:

I just cant get my head around why they own us.....or still want to own us. They aren't interested in us or football, we loose them money, they dont seem to be interested in promotion where the big money is, the fans don't like them, we dont get them good press, I cant see us giving them any marketing income and they've ended up in court partly because of us. Just dont understand why they are still keeping on to us. At least start putting the feelers out for a sale..

At least with people like the Glazers, Man U are a cash cow for them. To them were just an unimportant money drain. 

In too deep and keep digging maybe? If they sell they would probably have to write off all the "debt" associated to the holding company that owns the club.

[Exiled_Rover]

14 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Away from home with limited WiFi.

Can someone please summarise the ins and outs without me having to trawl through 100+ pages.

Venkys bad. Broughton the anti-Christ (or doing a difficult job in trying circumstances, if you're that way inclined).

Lots of loans at CB, LB, CB and CM. Two 4 month deals for an experienced CB and CM.

Prize possession flogged.

[Leonard Venkhater]

1 hour ago, J*B said:

I think that quote is true. If I was in charge I would have sold Adam for 22M+ as well.

Every other club that’s done what we are attempting has sold players at the right time for their maximum value. There is no point us having a 22M midfielder and gaping holes up front and in defence. The question is will we reinvest any of the money. Thats what I’ll judge them on. 

The timing though. We could have kept him for longer and eventually made more money. My concern is that we have had to sell him so soon because of the stuff around the Indian court case.

Hence, I am making a "working" assumption that the money won't really be invested in the playing side..

[XLM]

16 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I know the issue is Venkys. Thats where my blame all goes.

We were told this week that things were ok financially. Ish. Fast forward a week and we cant even spend £2.5m of a record fee to buy a striker.

Dont spend any money and the team ceases to be competitive in the league and goes down. Investing in players is also a way of making money by selling on at a profit. Its not similar to buying a car whilst you dont have a job. Its similar to not buying a bus ticket to the job centre because you dont have a job.

With all due respect, no it isn't.

It's risking defaulting on your mortgage when you've got enough in your bank to cover it for a year.

It would be wholly unacceptable for a CEO at any company to sign off on doing what you're suggesting.

Edit - any CEO of a football club will (rightly) choose relegation over administration. I'd prefer the latter, but then again I'm not employed to stop it from happening

Edited February 2 by XLM

[J*B]

18 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

The timing though. We could have kept him for longer and eventually made more money. My concern is that we have had to sell him so soon because of the stuff around the Indian court case.

Hence, I am making a "working" assumption that the money won't really be invested in the playing side..

Yeah we could have. Or he could have done his ACL and never quite been the same player. Or we might not have got 22M. Or we might have gone down and vultures would have circled.

I think it stinks to high heaven - especially with the statement saying the club was suitably funded before any of this happened. But I can’t say that and commit to it until I’ve seen what happens.

If we spend 15M in summer on three quality players that make a positive impact then it’s probably the right decision. 

[roversfan99]

3 minutes ago, XLM said:

With all due respect, no it isn't.

It's risking defaulting on your mortgage when you've got enough in your bank to cover it for a year.

It would be wholly unacceptable for a CEO at any company to sign off on doing what you're suggesting.

So if we didnt get a somewhat unexpected late window club record fee, then what would have happened?

I am not suggesting going on a massive spending spree.

Edited February 2 by roversfan99

[XLM]

Just now, roversfan99 said:

So if we didnt get a somewhat unexpected late window club record fee, then what would have happened?

We'd have been exposed to a shit tonne of risk. Probably why we made sure a big sale did happen.