January Transfer window

[JBiz]

3 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

But if you buy players, you then set yourself up to sell them at a profit, reducing the losses.

Its not as if any money invested in players is just money out and then thats the end of it.

Had we not spent £5m on Armstrong and Szmodics we wouldnt have generated £24m or whatever it was.

Yea I know. I think it’s disingenuous to expect all investments to go that way btw - Gallagher and Brereton two perfectly fine recent examples.

Let’s be honest, none of us would’ve offered the latter a big contract two seasons in if you’re response is “contract mismanagement”.

One of the key points I was making was wage to turnover ratio. To stand a chance of shedding ourselves of this set of owners, I truly believe we need to have something less than 100%. That either needs huge crowds or regular sales and modest investment.

 

[47er]

How  much longer is O'Hashi out for?

[Exiled_Rover]

1 minute ago, JBiz said:

Yea I know. I think it’s disingenuous to expect all investments to go that way btw - Gallagher and Brereton two perfectly fine recent examples.

Let’s be honest, none of us would’ve offered the latter a big contract two seasons in if you’re response is “contract mismanagement”.

One of the key points I was making was wage to turnover ratio. To stand a chance of shedding ourselves of this set of owners, I truly believe we need to have something less than 100%. That either needs huge crowds or regular sales and modest investment.

 

Why?

People have enquired about buying Rovers. They're always told no. 

There's clearly a deep, dark secret buried at Ewood Park that they don't want to reveal. What other reason could they have to hold on to this money pit?

[roversfan99]

3 minutes ago, JBiz said:

Yea I know. I think it’s disingenuous to expect all investments to go that way btw - Gallagher and Brereton two perfectly fine recent examples.

Let’s be honest, none of us would’ve offered the latter a big contract two seasons in if you’re response is “contract mismanagement”.

One of the key points I was making was wage to turnover ratio. To stand a chance of shedding ourselves of this set of owners, I truly believe we need to have something less than 100%. That either needs huge crowds or regular sales and modest investment.

 

You will always sign some duds and it only takes one or two big sales to cover them.

Im not even suggesting signing players for £7m and £5m but forgetting the contract side, the owners stupidly rejected a combined total of £12m for Brereton and Rothwell with 12 and 6 months left on their deals.

We wont get regular sales without reasonable investment. Everything worth selling has been sold.

 

[jim mk2]

5 minutes ago, 47er said:

How  much longer is O'Hashi out for?

Is that Ohashi's Irish brother? 😁

I don't think it matters really. He's not much use

[JBiz]

5 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

You will always sign some duds and it only takes one or two big sales to cover them.

Im not even suggesting signing players for £7m and £5m but forgetting the contract side, the owners stupidly rejected a combined total of £12m for Brereton and Rothwell with 12 and 6 months left on their deals.

We wont get regular sales without reasonable investment. Everything worth selling has been sold.

 

The last sentence sums up why we’d never find any middle ground.

Forgetting the players from the academy that are already solid championship players, and forgetting any of the u21s/18s, and forgetting we’ve spent money on 3 players last season who I personally can see being potential investments, forgetting “player of the year” Tronstad from the year before, amongst others…

Forget those lot and you’re right, there’s nothing anyone else would want.

[Ghost7]

59 minutes ago, JBiz said:

I seemingly hate the situation as much as you do, but that list of incoming money should likely be put next to a continuous wage to turnover ratio for the same period.

Then look at a similar period where we didn’t sell players and look at the share allotments from the owners.

See.. as much as it pains me to say it, you can’t tell a story from one point of view (well other than wonder years..!)

PS Hope you’re well @gumboots long time no hear from

 

Fully aware but it's irrelevant really since we aren't asking them to spend £37.5m on players. The point is the amount spent on players doesn't correlate and should comfortably be higher. Preston are outspending us regularly and now the likes of Plymouth. Similar situations and nowhere near this level of revenue made through player sales. Our owners are wealthier than most. Lets not make it look any prettier for them, we don't have 14 fans turning up on a match day we have 14,000. The owners are scumbags that are doing the bare minimum and investing next to nothing in players, results and new facilities. Reinvesting player sales is how you get out of this league. The Brentford model that they have no interest in executing.

[JBiz]

32 minutes ago, Ghost7 said:

 

Fully aware but it's irrelevant really since we aren't asking them to spend £37.5m on players. The point is the amount spent on players doesn't correlate and should comfortably be higher. Preston are outspending us regularly and now the likes of Plymouth. Similar situations and nowhere near this level of revenue made through player sales. Our owners are wealthier than most. Lets not make it look any prettier for them, we don't have 14 fans turning up on a match day we have 14,000. The owners are scumbags that are doing the bare minimum and investing next to nothing in players, results and new facilities. Reinvesting player sales is how you get out of this league. The Brentford model that they have no interest in executing.

It’s not a switch you can just press, the Brentford model also didn’t have an academy or an owner pumping cash in like us, sustaining a model that doesn’t work. They had a long term plan.

We’re on our umpteenth reset in a decade, and we also want rid of our owners don’t we? That’s more relevant than ever when it comes to a club that can “wipe its own face”.
 

A Club that doesn’t lose money every season doesn’t need absent billionaires.

Whilst I trust JE with the team, I wouldn’t trust a single member of the boardroom with any serious money either.
 

The amount of fans who reference “the owners” or “Venkys” as if they’re ever actually interested or responsible for day to day things such as transfers, contracts or facilities too - they merely sign a budget off and it’s probably a junior accountant.

They couldn’t care about who is running the club, I doubt they even care about the money.

 

[JBiz]

1 hour ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Why?

People have enquired about buying Rovers. They're always told no. 

There's clearly a deep, dark secret buried at Ewood Park that they don't want to reveal. What other reason could they have to hold on to this money pit?

In my opinion, ”deep dark secrets” are the stuff of fantasy, we’re merely something on the shelf of conglomerate, which is something altogether more depressing.

[Ghost7]

Ha I'm not sure what your point is other than we have terrible owners, which is also the point I'm trying to make, I'd say lazily... but it took quite a bit of time to add up the transfer revenue in.

I'm aware there's more to it and that a model like Brentford's takes 5, 10, 15 years depending on owner interest and willingness to spend; largely on things that win football games (players!), we've had that window a few times to know ours aren't interested or willing.

If they fail to show up this transfer window...... and they haven't yet, then the focus should be toward a get them out within a year model.

[bluebruce]

2 hours ago, JBiz said:

 and forgetting we’ve spent money on 3 players last season who I personally can see being potential investments, forgetting “player of the year” Tronstad from the year before, amongst others…

Who? We aren't talking about resales of 2-4 million.

I assume you meant last summer not last season. So you mean Ohashi (29 in the summer), Gueye (27), and Balasz Toth (28 in the summer, a goalkeeper, and currently our second choice...keepers at this level never move for much, we only got 3 mill initially for Raya and he was good enough to go on and regularly play for Arsenal).

I'd say the only one of those that could earn us in excess of 4 mill in theory is Gueye, and he'd have to get a move on slamming the goals in. He's not even established himself as first choice striker here yet, and that's the weakest area of our whole team when everyone is fit. Strikers can suddenly go on runs and become hot property, but so far there is little sign of that, and with his age...well you saw what we got for Szmodics at 28, and he absolutely ripped this league to pieces.

You also mentioned Tronstad from the previous summer. He'll be 30 by the start of next season and he's a DM. He's not moving for big bucks either.

Selling a player at these sorts of values doesn't cover the bills like a Wharton or Armstrong (or what BBD could've been for us). If our illustrious owners decide we need to do that again, they'll have to sell two or three, and those will probably be the two or three best players in our team, ripping our heart out. Of course we would then spend a pittance to replace them, and I reckon I know how that turns out.

I just thought, possibly you meant Cantwell? He'll be 27 next month, so is maybe our best chance of a genuinely quite large fee from players we have bought the last two seasons. However, the way he is playing I don't think we'd field particularly large offers and only from Championship clubs or equivalent. Even if he starts ripping it up, clubs will be aware of his history of purple patches and promising to be worth in excess of 20 mill, then trading hands for as little as 500k like we allegedly paid.

We're basically relying on a hail Mary from the Academy, and the best prospects have all been getting poached before they hit 20 in the same time period we've discussed. Only Wharton landed us a big fee and that's because he was a fan who signed a proper deal. Only prospect I have confidence would protect us like that now is Isaac Dunn, and we must be 2+ years away from yielding any appreciable fee on him (not that I wouldn't rather keep our quality youngsters).

We should be relying on deals of the Armstrong profile - a rapid young player with an eye for goal in the 3 mill (including add ons) bracket. Those are the ones you can realise enough gains to repeat the reinvestment cycle (but of course we skip the latter part usually anyway).

[bluebruce]

3 hours ago, JBiz said:

Yea I know. I think it’s disingenuous to expect all investments to go that way btw - Gallagher and Brereton two perfectly fine recent examples.

Let’s be honest, none of us would’ve offered the latter a big contract two seasons in if you’re response is “contract mismanagement”.

One of the key points I was making was wage to turnover ratio. To stand a chance of shedding ourselves of this set of owners, I truly believe we need to have something less than 100%. That either needs huge crowds or regular sales and modest investment.

 

True, but the time to offer BBD a contract wasn't 2 years in, it was 3 years in with 2 years left. He had just come off the back of a decent season (7 goals from out wide and a regular in the side) and was finally showing worth. Nobody expected what came next, but even without hindsight it was still clearly the time for a proactive club to protect its investment. We did bugger all and lost it all.

The Adam Armstrong situation was the same summer and should have been fresh in the club's minds, where we'd just lost 5-10 million by letting an asset we paid millions for get down to the last year of his deal. There are no good excuses for the Brereton failure, it was indeed contract mismanagement.

Edited yesterday at 03:05 by bluebruce

[Ossydave]

7 hours ago, jim mk2 said:

Is that Ohashi's Irish brother? 😁

I don't think it matters really. He's not much use

I wouldn't go that far, and at least he's capable of staying onside.

In a weird way I think he might actually benefit from the time he's had on the sidelines. A few weeks to recover and reset. He was looking a bit worn out and the last few games went down with injuries, it was only a matter of time till he got one that kept him out.

A revitalised Yuki, like the one that we had in August would be a huge boost.....

[jim mk2]

2 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

I wouldn't go that far, and at least he's capable of staying onside.

In a weird way I think he might actually benefit from the time he's had on the sidelines. A few weeks to recover and reset. He was looking a bit worn out and the last few games went down with injuries, it was only a matter of time till he got one that kept him out.

A revitalised Yuki, like the one that we had in August would be a huge boost.....

Possibly, I expect the physicality and intensity of the English game has come as a huge shock to him. I wouldn’t raise your hopes though, at his age he’ll find it hard to adapt and I’m not sure he has the attributes to be a success. 

[roversfan99]

8 hours ago, JBiz said:

The last sentence sums up why we’d never find any middle ground.

Forgetting the players from the academy that are already solid championship players, and forgetting any of the u21s/18s, and forgetting we’ve spent money on 3 players last season who I personally can see being potential investments, forgetting “player of the year” Tronstad from the year before, amongst others…

Forget those lot and you’re right, there’s nothing anyone else would want.

I never said theres nothing anyone else would want. Just no potential big sales.

[47er]

5 hours ago, jim mk2 said:

Is that Ohashi's Irish brother? 😁

I don't think it matters really. He's not much use

So you don't know when he'll be back? So why bother?!!

[Ricky]

Surely if Sheffield United end up with BBD and Cannon then one of their forwards would become available. I’ve zero interest in Brewster but could we possibly look to bring in Tyreese Campbell or even better Kiefer Moore. Moore would definitely improve our starting line up. They can only register 25 players anyway can’t they Chadster 😄 

[KentExile]

21 minutes ago, Ricky said:

Surely if Sheffield United end up with BBD and Cannon then one of their forwards would become available. I’ve zero interest in Brewster but could we possibly look to bring in Tyreese Campbell or even better Kiefer Moore. Moore would definitely improve our starting line up. They can only register 25 players anyway can’t they Chadster 😄 

I would imagine they would rotate Campbell with Rak-Sakyi, and Moore with Cannon.  Teams with ambition like to have a squad and decent bench options

Looks like they have plenty of space in a 25 man squad anyway, seeing as players aged 21 & under don't need to be registered unless they are on loan.  They only have 22 players who are 21 and over (including BBD)

Edited yesterday at 08:50 by KentExile

[TheRevAshton]

Malcolm Ebiowei is a player I could see us targeting, had his loan cut short at Oxford a couple of weeks ago since they only started him once.

Palace will be keen to get him playing and will probably let us have him with a low wage contribution, Waggott will be all over it.

Not sure if he's any good like... probably not considering he was out of favour at Oxford, but you know - cost saving etc.

[JBiz]

5 hours ago, bluebruce said:

Who? We aren't talking about resales of 2-4 million.

I assume you meant last summer not last season. So you mean Ohashi (29 in the summer), Gueye (27), and Balasz Toth (28 in the summer, a goalkeeper, and currently our second choice...keepers at this level never move for much, we only got 3 mill initially for Raya and he was good enough to go on and regularly play for Arsenal).

I'd say the only one of those that could earn us in excess of 4 mill in theory is Gueye, and he'd have to get a move on slamming the goals in. He's not even established himself as first choice striker here yet, and that's the weakest area of our whole team when everyone is fit. Strikers can suddenly go on runs and become hot property, but so far there is little sign of that, and with his age...well you saw what we got for Szmodics at 28, and he absolutely ripped this league to pieces.

You also mentioned Tronstad from the previous summer. He'll be 30 by the start of next season and he's a DM. He's not moving for big bucks either.

Selling a player at these sorts of values doesn't cover the bills like a Wharton or Armstrong (or what BBD could've been for us). If our illustrious owners decide we need to do that again, they'll have to sell two or three, and those will probably be the two or three best players in our team, ripping our heart out. Of course we would then spend a pittance to replace them, and I reckon I know how that turns out.

I just thought, possibly you meant Cantwell? He'll be 27 next month, so is maybe our best chance of a genuinely quite large fee from players we have bought the last two seasons. However, the way he is playing I don't think we'd field particularly large offers and only from Championship clubs or equivalent. Even if he starts ripping it up, clubs will be aware of his history of purple patches and promising to be worth in excess of 20 mill, then trading hands for as little as 500k like we allegedly paid.

We're basically relying on a hail Mary from the Academy, and the best prospects have all been getting poached before they hit 20 in the same time period we've discussed. Only Wharton landed us a big fee and that's because he was a fan who signed a proper deal. Only prospect I have confidence would protect us like that now is Isaac Dunn, and we must be 2+ years away from yielding any appreciable fee on him (not that I wouldn't rather keep our quality youngsters).

We should be relying on deals of the Armstrong profile - a rapid young player with an eye for goal in the 3 mill (including add ons) bracket. Those are the ones you can realise enough gains to repeat the reinvestment cycle (but of course we skip the latter part usually anyway).

You talk like 5 months into Szmodix contract, we all knew he’d go and do that the year after. I also think you’d make a profit on all those players but surely we’re trying to build a team? Selling Szmod should’ve never happened should it - talking about it as if it’s a perfect model, if we’d kept him and only spent the small sums we had, we’d likely be top 2 with JE.

Re the Diaz contract post too - is there not even a part of your brain that says “ey up, maybe it would’ve been difficult to get him to agree to anything at that point without creating a nightmare situation with the wage structure”…

Apply the same theory with a few others too, consider that if someone is pulling up trees for us, perhaps the standard minimum of 23 clubs with turnover far exceeding us in this country (and countless abroad) might be able to pay them a lot more? For all our BRFC spectacles, players have short careers and rarely will miss opportunities for big four year contracts. 

We all know who is to blame regarding the reason for our lack of financial clout, and I personally don’t need another skip down memory lane. As I’ve said repeatedly in the quoted posts - the owners couldn’t give a shit and I would rather the club never sees a penny from them again. That’s my ambition, a rovers that exist without or despite the ignorant cúnts.

Also the Armstrong deal. Do you know how many times people lamented the fact he had a big% sell on clause here? Do you know why that was inserted? Because we couldn’t pay the fee they wanted. Arma wanted to come here, if you remember his interviews at the time. He’s also sitting on the bench at a club around 7 places above us, likely on a wage that would pay for 2.5 Cantwells.

 I want the someone in the club to give John Eustace more options, and I fully understand the “Brentford model” and I don’t need a lecture on how football investment works;

I just don’t look at the world as if we’re the only ones in it? 
 

Even if we had amazing owners in this financial scenario, we’d still be limited to sitting in a queue for these “investments” of nippy strikers with an eye for goal, ready to go at the top of the second tier, that are so easy to come by.

 

 

 

[JHRover]

I don't think any of our current crop can be considered 'investments'. Even those still at a good age for potential resale - basically Carter, Travis, maybe Brittain, are in positions that don't usually attract large bids and even if they could their contract situations are such that come the summer we are going to be in a weak negotiating position anyway.

It's up the top end where the money is to be made as we saw with Armstrong, Diaz, Dack, Szmodics and we sadly know that we are now woefully short in those areas after stripping the cupboard bare and spending nothing replacing them. 

Adam Wharton a slight outlier but an exceptional case based on his age, quality and being English. You'll find one of him once a decade if you are lucky. Could and should have been a game changing sale equipping the club with the resources to build a really strong squad of assets but they won't allow that.

So thanks to Venkys not only have we sold most people of value, failed to reinvest properly but we've also neglected contract renewals. 

It's a ticking time bomb and the only consolation I'm clinging to is that once the assets are all gone and they are back to needing to find £15 million a year from their own reserves this is the final push needed to get rid of them. They've had it relatively easy the last couple of years by wrecking our squad and promotion prospects to pay their bills, that can't and won't carry on much longer. Tick tock.

Edited yesterday at 09:08 by JHRover

[sharpysharps86]

9 hours ago, jim mk2 said:

Is that Ohashi's Irish brother? 😁

I don't think it matters really. He's not much use

I think he's actually done pretty well all things considered. Came with no expectations, started the season really well and was unplayable against Bristol City at home...but he's not an out and out striker IMO, and would've benefitted more from playing in the number 10 role as he did in the home win against Luton where he did play well and got an assist for Beck's goal (I'm not counting Gueye's 'backheel' as an assist there). Also been good enough to get called up to the Japan national team, and they're not exactly minnows of international football.

Also worth pointing out that he had been playing non stop since January / February because that's when the J-League starts, so he hadn't actually had a close season break or anything before signing for Rovers.

In conclusion I think Ohashi is a good player in this team, but each to their own.

1 hour ago, 47er said:

So you don't know when he'll be back? So why bother?!!

I believe it was said he'd be back in about 3-4 weeks recently.

Edited yesterday at 09:21 by sharpysharps86

[sharpysharps86]

32 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

Malcolm Ebiowei is a player I could see us targeting, had his loan cut short at Oxford a couple of weeks ago since they only started him once.

Palace will be keen to get him playing and will probably let us have him with a low wage contribution, Waggott will be all over it.

Not sure if he's any good like... probably not considering he was out of favour at Oxford, but you know - cost saving etc.

Apparently has a terrible attitude. Doesn't appear to have pulled up any trees in any of his previous loan spells either, including one last season at Gueye's previous club in Belgium.

[CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber]

19 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I don't think any of our current crop can be considered 'investments'. Even those still at a good age for potential resale - basically Carter, Travis, maybe Brittain, are in positions that don't usually attract large bids and even if they could their contract situations are such that come the summer we are going to be in a weak negotiating position anyway.

It's up the top end where the money is to be made as we saw with Armstrong, Diaz, Dack, Szmodics and we sadly know that we are now woefully short in those areas after stripping the cupboard bare and spending nothing replacing them. 

Adam Wharton a slight outlier but an exceptional case based on his age, quality and being English. You'll find one of him once a decade if you are lucky. Could and should have been a game changing sale equipping the club with the resources to build a really strong squad of assets but they won't allow that.

So thanks to Venkys not only have we sold most people of value, failed to reinvest properly but we've also neglected contract renewals. 

It's a ticking time bomb and the only consolation I'm clinging to is that once the assets are all gone and they are back to needing to find £15 million a year from their own reserves this is the final push needed to get rid of them. They've had it relatively easy the last couple of years by wrecking our squad and promotion prospects to pay their bills, that can't and won't carry on much longer. Tick tock.

Nailed it.

As much as it pains me we're never making the play offs this year, fantastic effort by JE and the squad to get us where we are.

Hoping and praying they'll be gone within a couple of years and that we're not in League One or Two when they do fuck off.

 

[MarkBRFC]

4 minutes ago, sharpysharps86 said:

Apparently has a terrible attitude. Doesn't appear to have pulled up any trees in any of his previous loan spells either, including one last season at Gueye's previous club in Belgium.

Which is why we will probably be in for him.