Thanks again, @KentExile, we all owe you a pint/coffee! Randomly met a Cambridge supporter who said he quite liked O'Riordan when he started, but the team was in free fall to start the year and a number of key mistakes made him an easy cut. Now on a 3-game win streak, so hard to see him getting back in the lineup soon... they have a couple cup games next week, so perhaps he'll at least get some game time for those. This article from last week: https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/sport/boss-backs-o-riordan-to-take-his-next-opportunity-9388487/ (newsletter-walled, I accessed it by disabling javascript) suggests Monk hasn't completely iced him out, or at least he's still being complimentary about him in public. On the multitude of low non-league loans, I've also been curious about them, but most are only 1-month loans where they're getting a handful of games against 'men', which is perhaps a helpful change of scenery compared to u-18/u-21 football, and usually relatively local, so I wonder if they're still training with/under the watchful eye of Academy staff and probably still able to live at home? Have to assume some are players who probably aren't up to snuff anyway and/or have agents/parents impatiently pushing for loans. (Jackson, if you're reading this, perhaps a question to pose to the Academy staff to get their take!)

Yes, and cheers to @KentExile for putting in the tracking legwork! Sometimes loans get covered in the Academy thread, but not as relevant for loans like Garrett, Markanday, O'Riordan, and Vale, plus maybe Batty (who got his first start for Accrington in an EFL Trophy game, which they lost 4-1...) Generally happy with the loans this past window. Maybe would've liked to see Markanday get a L1 move, but he needs some senior game-time in any case. Jackson reported the other day that there is a January recall clause for Garrett. I wonder if Markanday has one too, more for if we could get him a League One loan if he does dominate League Two... Sounds like Markanday will tear up L2, and it was only a matter of time for Garrett to grab a starting spot with Bristol. Saw a couple Cambridge supporter posts blaming O'Riordan for 3-4 goals already. Had a glance myself at the replays and definitely at fault for a couple, but others less clearcut to me. May partly be some venting after a poor start for them. Saw one Cambridge supporter saying O'Riordan obviously has some ability, but has had a few key mistakes. Hopefully they keep playing him so he can iron that out...

As many are saying, it's with an asterisk, but hard to be too upset with that window in the circumstances. I wasn't expecting us to spend £30m+, but it would've been nice if there was one young 'statement' signing. Stansfield was a good example as, even if that wasn't realistic in the end (especially given what Birimingham paid for him, yowza), we should have had the money for a Brereton-like £5-6m signing. I don't have specific issue with the Weimann, Baker, Batth, McFadz signings, but imagine replacing one of those pricey-ish one-year deals with a ~22 year-old capable of starting today and grow in value? I don't have anyone specific in mind, but surely the scouts could've dug up something if given the green light for a ~£5m signing? That has financial risk, but given how much we've netted in the last 1-2 years... I suppose you could argue Cantwell fits that bill, but, even trying to be a bit aggressive about his wage costs below (I might not be aggressive enough!), it's not that much of a financial outlay (hence a good bet by the recruitment team!), and his chunky wage is spread over three years. I've updated my estimate of wages + transfer incomings/outgoings below. Going back to Jan 2024 given Wharton's sale is the biggest factor, the budget restrictions seemed to really hit mid-summer 2023, and going further back makes accounting for wage impacts trickier... Tried estimating 'wages+' (various bonuses, NI, etc) by multiplying the implied annual wage by 1.3, which will obviously have error bars. Didn't apply that uplift to loans. Nitpicks welcome! (except for the youth loans I probably shouldn't have bothered with haha) Also tallied the 'wages+' impact by year, showing that we have added maybe a few million to the wage bill compared to last year, but that reverts to a minimal net impact for 2025-26 once loans/one-year deals expire. It's a trickier sum to interpret, and perhaps there were additional costs to offloading the likes of Ennis/Wahlstedt, but thought I'd try to estimate the dynamic of all these one-year deals.

Whatever restrictions/fuckery he's having to deal with, one of my assumptions/conclusions from this window is that John Park is not a fool (and maybe some credit to Gestede/Owen?). (edit: should add biggest TBD is what happens GK-wise...)

Tronstad... I love you.

Threw this together as I was generally curious about the implied wages/transfer sums for our dealings since the start of 2024 (could extend back to last summer and add in Kaminski, Phillips, Edun etc but this gets shakier the further you go back as would need to make a lot more assumptions about wages, including new contracts/escalators on existing deals, how to net off Ennis/Wahlstedt/Telelovic, etc and the apparent major budget issues seemed to truly arise mid-summer 2023) Obviously making heroic assumptions about wages/transfer fees, with wage costs usually under-estimated due to bonuses/NI+pensions/signing/agent fees etc, and I made some arbitrary calls on how much to bother counting loans, youth player costs, etc., so feel free to nitpick! Mainly curious about the scale of transfer fees paid and wage commitments vs wages off the books (some cases may have included partly paying off contracts, so may overstate the savings there) and transfer fees received. So, ~£36m net transfer income (fair bit subject to Wharton being sold again. I've assumed we've secured another £2m on top of the £18m initial fee) and maybe a net reduction of £1m in forward-looking wage 'commitments' (trickier to interpret, particularly with respect to offloading players with long-term deals left). Probably some truth in Waggott's claim that our wages have gone up since last year after bringing in a few vets on (one year!) decent wages deals, but obviously net transfer fees are the elephant in the room! edit: updated as had an error in my first spreadsheet!

In 16 senior pro 'cup' games with Rovers and across his loans at Halifax, Lincoln, and Motherwell, Jack Vale has 7 goals. No, I won't be taking any further questions on this matter.

Looking at the other end of the table, and perhaps more relevant to our current circumstances, a couple good loans can be what keeps a middling team from getting relegated...

Kinda inherent to sports forums rhetoric, but I do wonder how much of the 'fights' on this forum would be easily resolved/less antagonistic if we were just chatting over pints. Just the other day a friend (rightly) called me out for a dumb opinion about goalkeepers where if I had read it as a transcript I might've been irked, but we were just trading opinions over pints, so no harm no foul! I'm not at all comfortable with Pears as our starter and definitely need to bring in another keeper to challenge/usurp him (presumably that's the plan with Leo gone), but he's had enough good spells for us that I think some posts are over the top. Ultimately strikes me as a below-average Championship keeper or maybe L1 level, but hardly a pub footballer. Yet I'm hardly a 'fan' of his, so happy to let some posters shit on him without comment haha Similarly, a lot of the debates about Gally seemed to stem from some posters reacting to him being described like a 0 goals in 47 appearances Chris Brown, when he was fairly 'consistently' a 1 in 5 striker across his career with us. Not good enough scoring-wise, but hardly deserves to be in that company! (I suppose you could then get into debates about bang-for-buck, but that's a different argument!)

Similar to the Wharton instalments, that tidbit about the Raya sell-on instalments is emblematic of how this club needs to operate at the moment. Due to whatever tax avoidance fuckery Venky's have been up to, we've got a cashflow problem, not a profit/loss problem... From an FFP/accounts POV, that £5m of profit on Raya is booked today, and will be part of the 2024/25 accounts. As is common in football, you can also borrow against that incoming today if you wanted to spend some of it now... I see Waggott's reported at the fan forum that he expects a profit of £2m for 2023/24 (can probably work out a rough wage bill/operating loss from that, but fairly busy at the moment...). Combine that with our £20.9m loss in 2022/23, conservatively assume £2m/year of FFP-excluded expenditure, and we could theoretically take on a loss of ~£26m this year (potentially rising to over £30m with the Raya sell-on, plus other sales (Gally, Szmodics...), though looks like we are at least spending a bit now). Now, I obviously wouldn't recommend spending that much in one year from a medium-term general sustainability/FFP compliance POV, but simply highlighting that, whatever the manner of the Wharton sale, it did give us plenty of FFP headroom, yet we're probably essentially wasting a year of the applicable 3-year FFP window due to Venky's. What's the point of unfathomably rich, quasi-oligarch owners if they can't even send cash over anymore? Some signings are a relief, but the only thing from stopping us from spending a fair bit more is Venky's court case/sudden disinterest.

Just double-checked if Grant Hanley's out of contract..

Athletic (/NYT now) article breaking down his Bosnia cameo: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5536821/2024/06/05/adam-wharton-england-euro-2024/ One snippet is the deal could be worth up to £22m. A pedantic pushback as I fully agree he was sold too early due to Venky's-induced cashflow issues, and we probably could've pushed that to £25m+ if we had hung on until the summer... but it sells it a bit short when people keep saying £18m (about 20% short 🙂). I think we can be reasonably confident he'll be hitting plenty of add-ons (the article mentions one add-on is £250k once he hits 10 competitive international appearances, which seems a bit low for that kind of add-on, but perhaps a sign that most of the add-ons are less 'ambitious'/readily achievable). Also, that £22m number probably doesn't include sell-on fees (it's possible there's a 'firm' cap, can only speculate!), where you could imagine an additional decent chunk coming our way. (To reiterate, none of the above points make me 'happy' and I'm very sad/angry that Wharton left so soon under the apparent circumstances. Like others are reporting, I'm now getting kudos in the pub for having pumped Wharton's tires a while back, but it's a mix of pride/sadness...) Similarly, the Raya deal will probably have net us ~£9m once his Arsenal transfer is confirmed this summer, which doesn't look too shabby overall. Biggest failure of the Raya sale was then deciding that Walton was good enough to take on the no. 1 role... similar to essentially swapping Kaminski for Wahlstedt being a disaster this past season (I'm very cautiously/quietly optimistic that there's still a keeper in Wahlstedt...). Mowbray of course deserves some criticism for apparently losing faith in Raya for whatever reason...

Re: Bair, general story is he was an exciting prospect for Canada, but disappointed when trying to break into Vancouver's squad in MLS. Hence a loan to Norway's 2nd division, where he finally impressed a bit, caught St Johnstone's eye, but flopped there and left by mutual consent. Common complaint at Vancouver and St Johnstone was playing too much on the periphery despite his physical tools. Also reports of not putting in enough effort in practice when he was younger... Was essentially written off by Canadian soccer fans by then (although only 23 when he left St Johnstone...), but made a surprise move to Motherwell and was a revelation there (their POTY). Perhaps finally putting it together? Notable he's been included in Canada's squad for Copa America, his first time joining the national team since 2020. (Feel free to scoff haha, but Canada has quite a few attacking options!) Rumour is he's making peanuts at Motherwell (not surprising given his track record before joining), so probably easily tempted by a 'lower-tier' Championship salary... Maybe Rovers took note of him at Motherwell while keeping tabs on Vale/Gent (or allows for lazy journalism 🙂) Obviously would prefer someone with a longer scoring record, but could be a case of picking out a player on the upswing while he's still cheap-ish. (Thought I'd chime in when a Canadian is randomly/allegedly on our radar haha. Last transfer window, it was Ike Ugbo, who similarly had a mixed scoring record, hence mixed reactions here. He was angling to leave Ligue 1 Troyes, where he joined after a successful loan but then fell out with the coach. Ended up at Sheffield Wed and was a big part of their survival, scoring 7 in 18. He's on Canada's fringes too and notable he was left off the Copa America roster, unlike Bair...)

Hmm, just doing a quick look back at youngsters outright released in the past 10 years: - Jamie Maclaren's certainly had an interesting career since leaving. Now the A-League's leading career goalscorer at over 150 goals (!!), plus a mixed spell at Hibs, and failing to crack 2.Bundesliga. - As just posted above, Matty Pearson now a steady Championship CB (if just relegated), but took a while for that to happen - Ryan Edwards managed multiple seasons in L1/L2 + Scottish Prem. Now plying his trade in India... - Osawe managed some decent years in 3. Liga + a couple 2.Bundesliga seasons - Fabio Nunes probably the only one of that bizarre Portuguese contingent with any real talent... managed some years in Portugal's Primeira Liga, still plying away in Poland's top league - Josh Morris had a few years scoring like mad at Scunthorpe in L1 (forgot he actually had a decent number of appearances with us (22) before being let go) - Sam Lavelle now a steady L1/L2 CB; Matt Platt a L2 CB; Sam Hart in L2; James Connolly a L1/L2 CB; Tom White a L2 MF; Butterworth with a mixed season at L1 (now L2) Carlisle; James Brown and Brad Lyons regulars in the Scottish Prem at Ross County and Kilmarnock, respectively. - I remember Ben Williams randomly popping up against us as Barnsley's LB a few years ago while they were in the Championship. Now in L1 at Cheltenhem - As mentioned, Boyomo's now a regular in the 2nd division in Spain. - Ha, as I was scouring, noticed Nuttall just had a half-year loan at Cheltenham in L1. Bizarrely getting a L1 loan whilst under contract at Oldham in the NL?? Think we sold him for a few hundred k to Blackpool? Generally not seeing much to lose sleep over! But good for those who have managed ok football careers.

Not sure what to make of GB. Ultimately a failed tenure but also so many mitigating circumstances that truly judging him is difficult. Definitely pointed comments in his LinkedIn post about Szmodics and Hyam not already being on our transfer lists before he showed up... whatever GB's merits, you can't have a 'Director of Football' setup where the CEO (or his minions) is apparently happily spreading gossip undermining the DoF's credibility. No surprise SW doesn't get a thank you. I recall reading SW saying that the DoF model was imposed by Venky's and he didn't see the need for it... Probably thinks of himself as a 'football man' and the McGuire fiasco gave him the opportunity to get his mitts back on transfers. On O'Brien/Brierley, perhaps GB should've recognised our admin setup was archaic when he joined (bit of a stretch when we had no such issues the preceding summer window, nor ever before...), but he stood up and took the hit (while SW took until his pre-season interview to acknowledge he had any culpability himself). I understand if you don't want to give GB 'credit' for moves that didn't get over the line, but both would have been astute pick-ups... Such shit happening again with McGuire is unforgivable, but it's well-documented that the deal was pretty much wrapped up the day before, until the usual last minute Venky's intervention (also cited as a regular issue in post-mortems of Mowbray's tenure). Maybe he should've been looking over Sylvester's shoulder when he clicked 'send' (such micro-managing shouldn't be necessary in a competent organisation...), but it never should've been a last minute deal in the first place. I don't buy that concerns were suddenly raised about whether McGuire was worth a ~£2m+ fee (FFS, that's really not that much in today's young strikers market). He's continuing to do well at Orlando and it'll be interesting to see where he does land when he leaves MLS. Also liked the creativity shown in bringing in JDT and taking advantage of 'geopolitical events' to get Siggy on a free. Tronstad's a gem. Did some good work on contract extensions, including doing all he could with the Phillips situation. Ennis and Hirst were duds, all part of a major failure to bring in a striker (was he finally going to rectify that with McGuire??), but he also managed to effectively cut bait on both. Hirst's failure here is increasingly interesting in hindsight. Ennis... a bad move, but given our budget, I can't hate the idea of going for young strikers with some L1 success who are available on a free. Wahlstedt is probably the fatal signing (for both GB and JDT). I admittedly thought it looked like a decent bit of a business: make a profit on TK (regrettably, but it's really difficult to stand in the way of a PL move) and bring in a young GK on the fringes of the Swedish team who clearly has some talent (if ultimately looking to be a flawed keeper)... I can't hate the thought process, but a scouting failure that greatly contributed to our doomed season. I'm probably being too kind/slanted on some of the above, but I'm certainly not optimistic about where things go from here (I have a post from a while ago expressing worry if we suddenly find ourselves with JDT/GB gone and SW and co. still in situ... bah, it's all fucking Venky's fault anyway).