That *was* the January Window

[KentExile]

5 minutes ago, neophox said:

Where does Ipswich suddenly got all this money from? 

Owned by a hedge fund and apparently sell 50,000 shirts due to a sponsorship with Ed Sheeran (which sounds ridiculous)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12114391/Wrexham-star-riles-Ipswich-fans-comparing-Ed-Sheeran-Rob-McElhenney-Ryan-Reynolds.html

Apparently they posted a loss of £12.6M in their last accounts and you would suspect a much bigger amount this season (promotion wage increases, transfers etc), so I suspect they are just going for it and it they do not get promoted this season, they will have to cut their cloth for FFP

[chaddyrovers]

Do penalties not count as Goals now? Better not tell Sir Alan Shearer that one. He scored 72 during his career

IMO, Yates would be quality signing. He would score goals under JDT style. 

Edited January 29, 2024 by chaddyrovers

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

51 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I feel like all context has long gone when it comes to judging Gallagher. Weve been used to seeing him in teams of ours especially in the last 2 years where we have been pushing around the play offs, and theres no doubting (ironically considering that Ipswich now want him) that he isnt a top quality Championship striker, especially when it comes to goalscoring. He isnt a striker a team desperate for promotion should aspire too, and when our team was more functional, we rightly wanted an upgrade yet the funds never came.

But he is a decent striker at this level, there are worse strikers than him and that should be evidently clear when we have been working on such low budgets for years, weve seen players like Ennis, Telalovic and Hirst brought in for a pittance or graduates brough through who arent Championship ready like Leonard and Vale. You could make a striker from them 5 put together that would struggle at this level. It wont be really easy even with the fee he will generate to get even an average Championship striker like him, before you start questioning if that will even happen.

You even look at someone like Jerry Yates who we are linked with. His goal record is not too dissimilar without the penalties, plus there are question marks over his general play. Hes slower and weaker than Gallagher, he cant play as a lone striker as well and hes not as good in the air. 

He isnt brilliant at this level, and he has his limitations, which is why for a functional club, losing him would not be much of a big deal. But for us, it is a concern because if we lose him and either dont replace him or get someone sub par, the alternatives in that position are frightening.

Yates “ isn’t as good as Gallagher in the air “ ? What is he - a dwarf ? Gallagher is the weakest 6’ 4” giant I’ve ever seen.

Edited January 29, 2024 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Polky]

32 minutes ago, neophox said:

Where does Ipswich suddenly got all this money from? 

They’re averaging 29,000 attendances in the league and have wealthy owners.

They had an attendance of 27,200 against a National League South side on Saturday.

Decent priced tickets and an engaged fan base = high attendances.

Take note, Steve Waggott.

[Exiled_Rover]

Just now, Polky said:

They’re averaging 29,000 attendances in the league and have wealthy owners.

They had an attendance of 27,200 against a National League South side on Saturday.

Decent priced tickets and an engaged fan base = high attendances.

Take note, Steve Waggott.

They have a massive catchment area. East Anglia is devoid of football clubs - so is the East of England, tbf, which is why people from Kent support Spurs.

[Hasta]

13 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

Any firm news on Ennis? 

There's nothing 'firm' about Ennis.

[superniko]

17 minutes ago, Polky said:

They’re averaging 29,000 attendances in the league and have wealthy owners.

They had an attendance of 27,200 against a National League South side on Saturday.

Decent priced tickets and an engaged fan base = high attendances.

Take note, Steve Waggott.

Their wage bill is probably pretty well controlled too, considering they were league 1 last year and looking at their squad. Certainly punching well above their weight this season, and will have a decent cushion for FFP to spend and take that promotion gamble this year for sure.

[only2garners]

Apart from Colchester Ipswich don't have another football league club within 40 miles. Rovers have 15 clubs within 40 miles, including 5 Premier League clubs.

Suffolk has a population of about 760,000.

[KentExile]

10 minutes ago, superniko said:

Their wage bill is probably pretty well controlled too, considering they were league 1 last year and looking at their squad. Certainly punching well above their weight this season, and will have a decent cushion for FFP to spend and take that promotion gamble this year for sure.

Their wage bill was £16.4M in League 1 https://swissramble.substack.com/p/ipswich-town-finances-202122 so you can probably safely add 50-100% onto that for promotion increases and the wages of the new players they brought in this season (Hirst is on something like £15-20K/week for example)

For reference, Rovers wage bill in the Championship was only £5M/year higher for the same period, and was also around £16M when we spent the season in League 1 (keep in mind the Rovers only spent 1 season in League one so still had players on higher contracts from their time in League 1, whilst Ipswich built a relatively high wage squad for the division they were in)

Edited January 29, 2024 by KentExile

[joey_big_nose]

36 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

They have a massive catchment area. East Anglia is devoid of football clubs - so is the East of England, tbf, which is why people from Kent support Spurs.

Fun fact - until the industrial revolution Norwich was the second biggest city in England outside London as the economy revolved around the wool textile trade with Europe. Then the population growth moved west to staff the factories that exported out to the empire....

Blackburn is in a very unusual position that there are just so many clubs nearby. Only other part of the country with so many professional clubs so close to one another is London and obviously there is a lot higher population density and it is a lot richer. 

I think there are 12 pro clubs within 30 miles of Ewood - Rovers, Burnley, Liverpool, Everton, man Utd, man City, accrington, Preston, WIgan, Bolton, Blackpool, Fleetwood

Way more density of clubs that Leeds (3 pro clubs within 30 miles) Sheffield (5 clubs), Birmingham (5 clubs), Newcastle (2 clubs), Bristol (2 clubs).

There was a period of time around 2010 where I think 5 Lancashire town clubs were in the premier division at the same time  (Rovers, Burnley, Blackpool, Wigan and Bolton). Then of course you had both Liverpool and both Manchester clubs. So pretty much half the division was Lancashire. 

Map that shows this density pretty well : https://www.myfootygrounds.co.uk/AreaMap.asp?view=ENGLAND

Edited January 29, 2024 by joey_big_nose

[Torgeir]

37 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Yates “ isn’t as good as Gallagher in the air “ ? What is he - a dwarf ? Gallagher is the weakest 6’ 4” giant I’ve ever seen.

[rovers11]

29 minutes ago, Polky said:

They’re averaging 29,000 attendances in the league and have wealthy owners.

They had an attendance of 27,200 against a National League South side on Saturday.

Decent priced tickets and an engaged fan base = high attendances.

Take note, Steve Waggott.

I'm not sure you can blame the attendances on Waggot. The product on the pitch has not been good enough for a long time for many people to spend their hard earned money on. I firmly blame the owners on that front. I actually don't even think if the tickets were free that we'd even sell out at the moment. 

It's also a small town with many clubs in the surrounding areas, including a few of the big hitters in world football. Clubs like Ipswich have a big catchment area and little competition. 

[NeilInBristol]

17 minutes ago, Hasta said:

There's nothing 'firm' about Ennis.

Sooner we get him out the better. He hasn't done enough and we don't need to keep numbers for numbers sake

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Fun fact - until the industrial revolution Norwich was the second biggest city in England outside London as the economy revolved around the wool textile trade with Europe. Then the whole population growth moved west to staff the factories that exported out to the empire....

Blackburn is in a very unusual position that there are just so many clubs nearby. Only other part of the country with so many professional clubs so close to one another is London and obviously there is a lot higher population density and a lot richer. 

I think there are 12 pro clubs within 30 miles of Ewood - Rovers, Burnley, Liverpool, Everton, man Utd, man City, accrington, Preston, WIgan, Bolton, Blackpool

Way more density of clubs that Leeds (3 pro clubs within 30 miles) Sheffield (5 clubs), Birmingham (5 clubs), Newcastle (2 clubs), Bristol (2 clubs).

There was a period of time around 2010 where I think 5 Lancashire town clubs were in the premier division at the same time  (Rovers, Burnley, Blackpool, Wigan and Bolton). Then of course you had both Liverpool and both Manchester clubs. So pretty much half the division was Lancashire. 

We’ve also had smaller clubs like Bury, Oldham and Rochdale in that catchment area.

[joey_big_nose]

1 minute ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

We’ve also had smaller clubs like Bury, Oldham and Rochdale in that catchment area.

Good point... !

[rigger]

9 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

We’ve also had smaller clubs like Bury, Oldham and Rochdale in that catchment area.

Tranmere, Southport ?

[tomphil]

Last time Ipswich were in the Prem i saw it mentioned on their forum that 25% of their ST's came from Colchester.

When they were crap under McCarthy then dropped out the Championship i don't think they were getting 20k never mind 29.

[alex l]

19 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Fun fact - until the industrial revolution Norwich was the second biggest city in England outside London as the economy revolved around the wool textile trade with Europe. Then the population growth moved west to staff the factories that exported out to the empire....

Blackburn is in a very unusual position that there are just so many clubs nearby. Only other part of the country with so many professional clubs so close to one another is London and obviously there is a lot higher population density and it is a lot richer. 

I think there are 12 pro clubs within 30 miles of Ewood - Rovers, Burnley, Liverpool, Everton, man Utd, man City, accrington, Preston, WIgan, Bolton, Blackpool, Fleetwood

Way more density of clubs that Leeds (3 pro clubs within 30 miles) Sheffield (5 clubs), Birmingham (5 clubs), Newcastle (2 clubs), Bristol (2 clubs).

There was a period of time around 2010 where I think 5 Lancashire town clubs were in the premier division at the same time  (Rovers, Burnley, Blackpool, Wigan and Bolton). Then of course you had both Liverpool and both Manchester clubs. So pretty much half the division was Lancashire. 

Map that shows this density pretty well : https://www.myfootygrounds.co.uk/AreaMap.asp?view=ENGLAND

How dare you provide a fact-based argument. 

[B16Rover]

We are 6th in the league apparently if you measure points per thousand population 

 

[Devon Rover]

Worst/most pointless transfer rumours thread, ever. 😆😢

[Exiled_Rover]

13 minutes ago, Devon Rover said:

Worst/most pointless transfer rumours thread, ever. 😆😢

Did you miss the summer one?

[Paul Mellelieu]

18 minutes ago, Devon Rover said:

Worst/most pointless transfer rumours thread, ever. 😆😢

After all the guff about Alan Nixon, it's picked up in the last page or two (typing from my sickbed - cough).

[MarkBRFC]

35 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Last time Ipswich were in the Prem i saw it mentioned on their forum that 25% of their ST's came from Colchester.

When they were crap under McCarthy then dropped out the Championship i don't think they were getting 20k never mind 29.

Between 2017-2019 they were averaging around 16k with gates as low as 11k for some games.

[Roverthechimp]

16 hours ago, Torgeir said:

He lost the duel with Helik but it was a good header and a difficult player to mark. I just think his presence alone and the way he works the defenders is different to anyone else we have in the squad except maybe Dolan, funnily enough. 

 

I agree with everything you posted though, but at this current time I still think he offers our team a lot more than HL unfortunately.

If all he does between now and the summer is make us slightly harder to play against and help the defence then it will be worth keeping him as we aren’t far away from being dragged into the relegation battle 

That said 2m could pay for 2 decent defenders to much the same effect but I think Ipswich have moved on…

[JHRover]

We have a big catchment area, just a lot of competition in it.

Makes it all the more important that we do our damned best to retain and grow that catchment area without PL football to offer, and all the more unforgivable the approach Rovers have taken in the last decade which is to do absolutely nothing to promote the club anywhere outside of Blackburn with Darwen.

Sides like Ipswich and Norwich don't need to do very much to pull them in - a couple of decent seasons and promotion pushes will do it - the people out there have little else to do other than go back to them

Here people have many other options ranging from Accy Stanley because it's easier and cheaper, to City because they can watch a quality product for less, to everything inbetween.

The advantage we accumulated under Walker and 20 years of top flight football is being eroded and I think the club could and should do a lot more to stop or reverse that.