I completely forget why I ever watched it, and feels almost mean to do this for a game against PL competition, but in the below highlights of Salford's friendly with Everton in September, I did find it hilarious how Lowe's the culprit for almost every Everton chance/goal... 0:53 in fairness, an okay block! 1:24 However, he loses Keane for the headed goal from the resulting corner 2:36 fails to close down a shot from outside the box 4:20 diving lunge fails to stop a pass to his man in the box, who scores 5:28 now at RB, he's isolated, but still giving up way too much space on the left wing, allowing Everton to enter the box with ease 6:39 neat clearance from the long ball, but then probably should've pressed the winger more right after given his support 7:17 not so sure this is all his fault, but a part of some poor tandem defending... 7:42 pretty useless defending of the wide ball, allowing a pass that leads to a penalty 9:25 fails to do anything to defend a cross that leads to two chances off the post and crossbar I have honestly been curious if Bolton and/or Salford fans have rated him at all in L1/L2 to see if that truly is his 'level'... (Apparently Scholes is only in charge for as long as Warren Joyce has to remain in isolation due to COVID...)

Couple points: - Hoilett was a Bosman transfer, not a 'free' transfer. Didn't go to tribunal as we agreed to compensation of £3m, rising to £4m with appearances: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/19750830 - Re: opinions on Mulgrew's contract extension, at least looking back at posts at the time, you're not going to find a lot dissent (if any!): https://www.brfcs.com/mb/index.php?/forums/topic/33229-the-godlike-genius-of-charlie-mulgrew/&page=4 See from when the news was first posted on 15 Nov 2018. I count 16 positive posts in a row, with only one post adding the caveat 'provided his body holds up'. And then you see opinions have changed pretty rapidly after the thread was resurrected after winter haha... Possible I'm overlooking critical comments elsewhere, and perhaps a biased thread given the title (!) and nobody feeling like picking a fight there and then, but I don't recall a lot of dissent at the time (and a search for Mulgrew posts in Nov 2018 doesn't pull up anything negative either!) (To be clear, I'm not at all calling out any individual posters. As far as I can remember, I'd have to count myself among those cheering Mulgrew's extension too!)

Watching Kaminski, it immediately becomes apparent what Mowbray was alluding to with these comments about Walton (https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18595996.mowbray-loanee-rovers-search-new-keeper/) “I think he’s been trying really hard all year to change a few core fundamentals that he has that I would like to change so he can play the way I would like him to play. “It’s not easy to change footballers, particularly goalkeepers where I’m not the expert, yet I watch as much football as anyone and know where the goalkeeping fraternity is going, I know how a modern goalkeeper is going to look and looks now, and how the world’s best are operating. “You should try and achieve that, and I’ve said to Christian that if he thinks he’s going to play for Brighton in the Premier League, the way they play then he has some fundamentals he needs to change." Mowbray's politely not getting into specifics, and he's not espousing anything revolutionary, but Kaminski's ability to comfortably play up high and be a passing option for the CBs is where Kaminski most obviously differs from Walton, and thus what Mowbray was looking for as a long-term option (a 'modern' goalkeeper). Kaminski just looks so comfortable with the ball every time it comes back to him (while not lackadaisical either) It always felt like an adventure/hold your breath moment when it went back to Walton (or Kean, Steele, Eastwood, etc. Raya was decent with the ball, but was obviously still learning and prone to a 'youthful' mistake). I don't recall Walton making any egregious kicking/ball handling mistakes that immediately led to a goal (I'm sure someone can remind me ?), but the best hope was that he'd simply boot it somewhere downfield, and we then likely lose possession. (As an aside, just my opinion, but I think Walton's ultimately a middling/below-average Championship keeper. Not bad as football careers go. His up-and-down form obviously drove us nuts - funny coming back from lockdown that I was thinking he was quite solid after a great run before lockdown, and then his post-lockdown play was, uh,... One of my pet theories is there are only 2-3 clubs in the world where fans are universally happy with their keeper haha) I recall Kaminski made some howler with the ball just before Ghent sold him, hence their fans were on his back. Bound to happen here eventually, so let's just hope we can recognise if the good is ultimately outweighing the bad! (Hence, how do we properly measure that nebulous 'lost us points' metric that's often bandied about haha...)

Tom White in the starting 11 for Bolton in their first EFL Trophy game. Would be interesting if he manages to keep a spot in what looks to be a strong L2 side. Easy to forget about him. Also appears to have been a regular for 1st place Barrow in the National League last year. (Having said that, at 23 he better be showing some bright spots soon! I should say I don't have any real hope/expectations for him...)

Yes... fiction...

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1263720792594014209 Worthwhile reading for getting a picture of Brentford's finances (up to 2018-19) A few notes: - They've averaged £8m of purchases and £13.4m in sales per year the past four years. Player trading 'profit' is even higher, but also need to account for their growing transfer amortisation costs (£7m last year, although that's only mid-table in the Championship. We were at only £2m last year, reflecting our limited spend for a few years. Gallagher + Brereton should roughly increase that to ~£5m for this past year, which would still be quite low among Championship clubs) - Their wages are lower than ours, but their wage-turnover is comparable due to low revenues (their commercial income has generally been low and stagnant, and Griffin Park capped their matchday revenue. I assume both can/will improve with the new stadium and with continued success on the pitch) - Owner has invested £78m since taking over (which was reduced by £14m in 2018-19, partly due to further player trading profits, but also £14m profit from selling the land around Griffin Park). Similar to us, much of that funding (plus player sales profit and the land sale) has simply gone toward covering operating losses (high wage-turnovers ain't cheap!), plus the new ground

Thought Fisher looked generally assured, but you could argue he should've had that second one, and he did make a hash of that one high ball (although I think Wharton struggling to contain his man contributed to that muck up too). I did notice Venus giving Fisher hell for booting one kick out of bounds... I actually quite liked Wharton out there. Had a couple mis-kicks in the 1st half, but looked a lot more assured than Lenihan, who had a weird game. Not a pen on replay, but Lenihan more got it because his defending looked so awkward... Armstrong and Johnson pretty anonymous. Chapman seemed to have the ball a lot yet was oddly hesitant to do anything with it. Typical hot-and-cold Rothwell appearance, meh. I'd score it: Fisher 6, JRC 7, Lenihan 5, Wharton 7, Bell 4.5 (Ugh. 4 if it wasn't for the well-won penalty), Holtby 7 (hope he's okay, liked the look of him in a deeper role), Travis 7, Johnson 5.5, Chapman 5, Armstrong 6, Brereton 6.5 (cruising for a solid 7 until that awful miss at the end! But had a nice hand in goals 2 and 3, and made some good runs), Dolan 7, Rothwell 6 Kinda meh game really. Dominant for most of the 1st without doing much (like too much of the post-lockdown games), horrid start to the 2nd, then recovered a bit. Honestly can't get too up in arms about what felt more like a glorified friendly.

Asked my Belgian colleague about Kaminski and he was pretty positive. Said he was highly thought of as a prospect with Anderlecht (his club) and he was only 2nd choice there because their no. 1 keeper was so good. I pointedly excluded the cases of promoted clubs like Bournemouth and Leicester, or Man City (which is a whole other level). There clearly are deficiencies in how FFP works if a club does get promoted (or those at Man City's level). But I purposefully highlighted the SW case, where they similarly gambled and didn't get promoted, and are now facing a pretty severe penalty after mucking up the stadium sale loophole. Breaking FFP is no guarantee of promotion and my reading is the consequences of doing so are getting tighter. (Don't get me wrong, I understand the frustrations if we continue muck around at mid-table) I do find the assumption that there must be 'some' loophole a bit frustrating. It strikes me as a hand-waving 'bah, there must be a way to cheat! Fancy accountants can do anything!" when there aren't any concrete examples outside of the stadium sale loophole and Man City's unique case. Maybe commercial revenue could be juiced a bit more, but I don't think it's so obvious that other clubs are blatantly doing so (I'm open to examples!), there are regulations in place, and I pointed out that we already do punch above our weight commercial revenue-wise due to Venky's. I'm sure further improvements can be made to boost revenue - I've seen plenty of criticism/suggestions regarding our matchday efforts! - but that still won't be nearly enough to boost us to the level of the likes of Leeds or parachute payment recipients. Would us being a £20m vs £17m revenue club really be all that different...? (Having said that, yes, please do boost revenue where possible!!) I think the only initial murmur is the 1-year FFP £13m loss limit (more like £17m for us due to our academy spend) may be extended to over two years (so, we wouldn't be judged for losing £20m this year as long as we only lose £14m the next). I personally think it's pretty unrealistic to expect clubs will make back the losses of this year in only one year. That revenue is gone and will never be recovered, particularly with fans in the ground still looking a ways off. Anyway, may all be for nought as I suspect a revamp of FFP will be coming soon (and I'd err toward assuming it'll be a bit more airtight than it is now!)

I'm curious what you have mind? Recently, the 'loophole' has been to sell the ground to a shell corporation owned by the owner (at allegedly inflated values, hence the ongoing case against Derby), which is a clever way to book a one-off profit, although it does then increase ongoing costs due to having to lease your own stadium. I'd be surprised if anyone has advocated selling Ewood Park to Venky's on here without getting pelted with tomatoes, but I may have missed that! Some scoff that Sheffield Wed wasn't relegated by their recent breach, but if you read the decision, applying it to this upcoming year was part of a bid by the independent panel to ensure fairness/consistency, while still having some bite. Technically, the points deduction should've applied to 2018-19 given the accounts the breach was applicable to, a deduction which wouldn't have relegated SW, while a deduction next year puts them in a decent hole starting next year and it will be consistent with any points deduction for Derby being applied to next year too. The panel ruled applying the judgement as late as August for this year was unfair, with some leeway given for COVID reasons, but this was also a product of EFL incompetence and SW stalling tactics. I suppose we wait on whether SW has any legs in their appeal of course... SW's case appeared to be hinge on "the EFL incompetently advised us on how to stay within FFP", yet the ultimate ruling was their backdated accounting of the stadium sale would have broken the actual law, which obviously supersedes FFP... (plus SW inexplicably dawdled on pulling off the stadium sale for months after the EFL gave them the go ahead) My understanding is Venky's already plug a fair amount of commercial revenue into the club. Our commercial revenue was £5.5m in 2018-19, which is actually just below mid-table among Championship clubs, so we already punch above our weight in that regard. Perhaps they can finagle boosting that number further, but enough to have the same financial weight as the £30m+ revenue clubs vs our current £17m turnover...? Bristol City may be a good model here, although their commercial revenue boost is apparently linked to turning Ashton Gate into a major non-matchday events venue, not necessarily Lansdown plugging in 'fake' revenue. Am I forgetting other ways clubs have been getting around FFP lately? (Honest question!) (Among Championship/non-promoted clubs! The PL and FFP is a whole other issue...)

Surely one of the advantages of loans is, for cases like Palmer or Walton, we didn't spend a transfer fee and sign them to a lucrative long-term contract. We were able to cancel the deal with Palmer midway and Walton's gone after a middling year. I doubt anyone would be pleased if we still had them on the books for 2-3 years. Cunningham was looking good, but imagine we had signed him to a long-term deal + transfer fee and were now fretting whether he could come back from injury to justify that outlay? Reed was largely good for us. Was that a waste of wages/loan fees (and potential development of other young players he kept out of the lineup?), or did Reed help keep us out of a relegation scrap that year? It also potentially gives you a look at signing the player permanently later if he's a good fit, likes the club setup, and doesn't appear to have a place in his original club. See Tom Cairney, for example. That didn't work out for Reed, but you'd have to assume he'd be on the radar for a permanent deal if we did somehow get promoted that year, as Fulham may be doing now. Tosin's gone now, but he's a huge reason we were ever on the cusp on the playoffs, and obviously was always well out of our price range (and also a case where he wasn't taking game time from a younger CB ready for the Championship). Sounds like he was expensive as loan signings go, but our financial commitment ended at the end of the year, and theoretically the budget for his loan fee is now available for reallocation this year. I'm not at all saying loans should be excessively relied upon, but it keeps being framed as an 'either/or' argument, when a smattering of well-targeted, high-quality loans is often a sensible way to improve your competitiveness for a season with limited financial commitment, and we've also seen some recent examples of squads getting promoted with a significant number of loans.

It's actually a pretty typical day rate for a consultant. Bit misleading to extrapolate to a full year of work. Whether the council did their due diligence in assuring they're getting value for money is another question... (I choose to remember Senior as the man who fired Coyle, and nothing more. Top bloke in my books haha...)

Any chance we still have a sell-on attached to Duffy? Sounds like Brighton will be looking to sell him. I'd assume King will be leaving Bournemouth and I think it was confirmed we have a sell-on clause for him. Add in further payment from Brentford for Raya if they get promoted (I think I saw the LT mention that recently), and that could be a decent amount incoming for previously sold players... While I'm at it on sell-ons, going by the terms of the tribunal decision, just noticed we would've gotten 20% of the profit on Mahoney's transfers to Millwall last summer, so £135,000 (if the reported £1.1m fee is to be believed). Hurray!

I was randomly reading an article today about Dean Henderson and whether he can replace De Gea (paywalled: https://theathletic.com/1934279/2020/07/20/dean-henderson-sheffield-united-manchester-united/). Oddly enough, a lot of the article is centred around an interview with Ben Benson, as he coached Henderson when he was in Carlisle's academy and he apparently has remained a 'close confidante' of Henderson's ever since. Not to suggest being Henderson's goalie coach at 14 makes him a good coach, but that's a respectable endorsement of sorts...

Interesting, hadn't caught what Huddersfield's been saying/claiming of late. They also (amazingly) managed two years in the PL, which is a key threshold as that means they have three years of parachute payments ahead of them (£93m over three years versus £77m over two years... albeit only £15m in that final year). A quick glance suggests, compared to a counterfactual of losing £7m/year in the Championship, as they'd roughly been doing before promotion, Huddersfield made about £40m more in profit between their promotion year and their final year in the PL (that's including subtracting the extra £12m or so loss from promotion bonuses). They partly used that to lower Hoyle's loan from £52m to £45m and build up their cash reserves from £3m to £14m. Their wage bill was only £64m (19th in the PL) when they got relegated, and their transfer spending wasn't all that high either, so I doubt they've got that much legacy costs from the PL to cover. However, they also apparently took on a £31m loan that was secured against future TV money and have committed to repay Hoyle another £35m over the next couple years, so that's what seems to be causing them problems now, despite 3 years of parachute payments ahead. (Swiss Ramble went through their latest accounts last month for reference: https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1247051806934536192) At least from my view, they appear to me to be a 'model' for using promotion to make some money (/repay past debts), but I guess relegation means they can't pay off Hoyle's loans as fast as they had committed. Fulham could be seen as the example on the other side of that (and they got relegated after one season, so only 2 seasons of parachute payments for them). (And, goes without saying that this is all from the perspective of a pre-covid world...)

Ha, glad he did one as it saves me from boring you all with one of my long posts The twitter link: He's also been posting two-slide summaries for teams of late. Here's ours: Been overwhelmed with work last few months (not complaining given the circumstances!), but been meaning to give our accounts a skim. So you're all not necessarily off the hook of a long, boring post!

https://theathletic.com/1703320/2020/03/27/blackburn-rovers-wage-deferral/ (paywall, sorry!) Rovers latest club to agree to a wage deferral. Summary: - Players refused a request to defer some payments for March, upset at only being given half a day's notice - They have now agreed to defer some wages from April onwards - Notes that it's related to short-term cashflow rather than any issue with Venky's (the article notes their shares have dropped 9%, which sounds relatively modest to me! Perhaps a rare occasion to be thankful for Venky's deep pockets in these times...) - A source in the article notes how every Championship club is having these discussions. The clubs in the EFL have discussed a collective agreement for a temporary wage cap or % cut to all player wages.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18284085.highly-rated-rovers-youngster-makes-first-loan-switch/ Vale now on loan at Barrow too, joining Platt and White. We can sneer at the National League, but playing under a seemingly innovative coach and (highly successfully) playing a high-possession, passing game in a league full of players looking to give you a good kicking sounds decent for development! Could be a good loan relationship to continue if they do get promoted to L2. Platt apparently getting plaudits from Barrow fans. It is the National League, but perhaps. He's out of contract in the summer, but I think Mowbray did mention him among the young CBs he'll be looking at in the summer, so perhaps we shouldn't rule him out just yet.

Doubt I'm saying anything that hasn't already been said, but: - Overall, Brentford all over us from about 0 to 25, then again from maybe 70 to 90, while we had a bright patch in between. Brentford's finishing and final touch was pretty terrible throughout. - Walton's insistence on kicking into the wind in the second half was frustrating... otherwise, can't fault him for Brentford's sublime first goal. And he was pretty assured with the ball in a game where a ballplaying keeper was a must as we struggled to cycle possession in the back - Buckley and Nyambe were quite exposed on the right in the first 30 mins or so. Nyambe of course physically up for it, but seemed to struggle in his communication a couple times. Lenihan seemed uncertain when to help. Buckley frankly a bit useless defensively... but we all know that. Game changed once Buckley was shuttled over to the left. (He did look decent on the ball at least, as usual!) - Armstrong continuing to be immense - Travis my MOTM. Johnson and Downing's experience was nice to have in a game like this, but it felt like Travis had to cover ground for both of them. Perhaps as designed... but there was a couple moments of "who the **** is playing midfield?" on a couple Brentford attacks Losing the win after being up 2-0 is always going to be frustrating, but their first was pretty incredible, and the second a maybe questionable pen... it happens. Obviously would've taken a point at the start, so on we go! Not the 'season decider' as Brentford away has been a couple times in recent years!

Minor point from the article, but I hadn't seen confirmation before that the academy, and presumably the associated infrastructure, is costing £4m/year. So, for future reference, that should put our FFP loss limit at £17m/year, or £51m over 3 years, rather than the headline limit of £13m/£39m. So, League One loss of £17m, £20m last year, giving us a £14m loss to 'play' with this year. I suspect the Raya + Nuttall sales, which would've been pure profit, are what's keeping us just within the lines this year. Gallagher purchase will be amortized, so not as much of an issue this year. (Plus what our wages are at, income, etc etc, my posts go on long enough haha)

Here's Sharpe guessing that he's out of contract in the summer: So, this could be him having a trial with Rovers before a potential summer signing. Or, if he's simply getting some game time he wasn't getting in their academy or he's being put in the shop window in general, with the Tosin loan seemingly going well, this could be part of a budding loan relationship between Man City and Rovers, which could be mutually beneficial. There was also Jack Byrne a few years ago and I recall rumours of us trying to loan in Jack Harrison last year. Top PL teams seem to be watching their loan prospects much more closely these days, so it helps to build up a rapport and a track record. Even if highly rated, hard to imagine him entering the Man City lineup anytime soon, so could be a good example of the academy castoffs we should target. Turns 19 later this year, so it's starting to be make or break time for him.

Cheers to postage and 'admin fees' making up 40% of my ticket cost haha

https://theathletic.com/1579893/2020/02/04/barrow-national-league-rooney-guardiola/ Nice article on Barrow's (so far very successful) efforts to play possession football in the National League. Both Platt and White on loan there at the moment and playing regularly, although no real specific mention given to either as the focus is more on the manager, Evatt. (And apologies if you're stymied by the paywall!) Could be a sign of a good loan opportunity - teach them possession-style football in a tough-and-tumble lead. (Not necessarily Platt and White, who are both probably major longshots, but future non-league loans...)

Thought this could help elucidate the FFP 'consequences' of the Brereton+Gallagher transfers, to focus everyone's minds a bit (and I was just curious myself!) Quick reminder: for the sake of a club's profit + loss accounts, a player transferred in is treated as an 'intangible asset', which is amortised over the course of its 'useful life' like any other asset, e.g. a piece of machinery. For a footballer, that is determined by the length of the contract they sign. So a player purchased for £2m and signing a 4-year contract has an 'accounting' cost of £500k/year for 4-years, even if the 'cashflow' cost may be £2m in the year he's transferred. Parameters: Brereton was transferred for £6m in January 2019 and signed to a 3.5 year contract. Annual amortisation: £1.71m. Gallagher was transferred for £5m in July 2019 and signed a 4-year contract. Annual amortisation: £1.5m. I've simply assumed Brereton's wage is £7k/week (£364k/year) and Gallagher is on £20k/week (£1.04m/year). Obviously purely guess work, that would have to include NI, etc etc... but just to have a 'reasonable' number for the sake of scale. I wanted to see how these costs actually fall within all our 3-year FFP windows. Also, for sake of 'scale', I've compared the total amortisation and wage costs for the two to a rough estimate of our annual turnover (£16m/year, assumed to be static but may rise a bit over the years), FFP-exempt allowances for academy + community spend (£2m/year), and allowed losses under FFP (£13m/year): £93m total, i.e. how much we can actually spend on everything within an FFP window. Key to note that this excludes potential player trading profits, which would directly tack on. Yearly costs (by accounting year): 18-19: £1.71m amortisation, £0.18m wages, £1.9m total (all BB) 19-20: £2.96m amortisation (£1.71m BB, £1.25m SG), £1.4m wages (£0.36m BB, £1m SG), £4.37m total 20-21: £2.96m amortisation (£1.71m BB, £1.25m SG), £1.4m wages (£0.36m BB, £1m SG), £4.37m total 21-22: £2.96m amortisation (£1.71m BB, £1.25m SG), £1.4m wages (£0.36m BB, £1m SG), £4.37m total 22-23: £1.25m amortisation, £1.04m wages, £2.65m total (all SG) Cost by FFP window 2019-21: £7.64m amortisation (£5.1m BB, £2.5m SG), £2.99m wages (£0.9m BB, £2.1m SG), £10.63m total or 11.4% of 'total spending allowance' 2020-22: £8.89m amortisation (£5.1m BB, £3.7m SG), £4.21m wages (£1.1m BB, £3.1m SG), £13.1m total or 14.1% of 'total spending allowance' 2021-23: £7.18 amortisation (£3.4m BB, £3.7m SG), £3.85m wages (£0.7m BB, £3.1m SG), £11.03m total or 11.9% of 'total spending allowance' 2022-24: £4.21m amortisation (£1.7m BB, £2.5m SG), £2.44m wages (£0.4m BB, £2.1m SG), £6.66m total or 7.2% of 'total spending allowance' 2023-25: £1.25m amortisation, £1.04m wages, £2.29m total (all SG) or 2.5% of 'total spending allowance' As a quick note, with the way player trading profits work, suppose we were to try and flog off Brereton in the summer and "cut our losses", for say £1m. We would then need to book the rest of his transfer amortisation in the year of his sale and the £1m would have to be netted against the remaining £3.42m of amortisation on his transfer, so that would actually be an 'accounting loss' of £2.42m for that year. However, we would also no longer be on the hook for another £800k or so of wages. Just from my own POV, I think a) £5m for Gallagher really isn't that ridiculous in today's market for a young striker with 'some' pedigree, particularly spread over 4 years b) at the very least, he's shown he can be 'effective' at this level, it's just a matter of consistently coaxing that out c) as the above suggests, it's his probably high wages rather than his transfer fee that deserve more scrutiny (I should perhaps also reveal a slight bias as Gallagher is an "acquaintance-of-a-friend" and apparently he's a 'good egg' ) As another note, I thought it was interesting that transfermarkt's 'market value' for Brereton at the time we bought him was £4.5m: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ben-brereton/marktwertverlauf/spieler/426192 I'm pretty sure transfermarkt's market values are purely based on regressions of historical transfer data against various explanatory variables. So, an 18/19-year-old striker with 8 goals (1 a pen) and 7 assists in 3,326 minutes of Championship play and 1 goal (a pen) in 273 minutes of Cup play would be 'expected' to be worth £4.5m. They now have Brereton down at £2.7m. Obviously looks to be an example of why "top-down regressions" should be treated with extreme caution when evaluating players and the 'eye test' is still needed (particularly for a pretty basic statistical approach haha), but I thought it was an interesting idea of what his 'expected value' was at the time given an 18-19-year-old with goals in the Championship are relatively rare!

Bit of a tangent, but I was thinking about that Smallwood contract. It is an odd case if he's still around at the end of the window. He's obviously keen to see out his current contract (which is fair), but if it's been made clear to him he's out of the squad picture, it's hard to see why we couldn't at least loan him out for a portion of his wages to cut costs a bit and get him some lower league game-time. I'd imagine Smallwood would have to push for such a move himself too, so it is curious if he's not keen on it given a whole year with only 2 appearances hardly looks good on the footballing CV! Perhaps Rovers are playing hardball with lower league clubs hoping to take him on loan at zero cost (Mowbray briefly alluded to that about potential loans out) or Smallwood only wants to move for a guaranteed contract for next year. That would potentially mean sacrificing some of his current contract, but even then, Rovers could maybe subsidise his wage a bit for the rest of this year as long as it's still cutting our wage this year, effectively making it a subsidised loan for the rest of this year and then a professional deal lined up for next year... No signs at all that he's a 'bad egg' in the dressing room and I can't imagine he's on prohibitive wages, so not a big deal in the end, but very curious from Smallwood's POV. In terms of Smallwood being wrongly handed an extension, 1) he did do a hell of a job for us in L1. There is some sense/honour in rewarding him accordingly (and I don't recall many complaints about it at the time). 2) If you look back, there is evidence that we did hold the line on his extension. Smallwood hinted that the negotiations dragged a bit and that he wanted a longer-term deal (who could blame him): https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16354537.signed-lifetime-contract-rovers---smallwood/ Perhaps in retrospect a regrettable extension, but having said that, I took a glance at Smallwood's games last year, and our results were surprisingly effective with him in the lineup at first. Up to, and including, 10 Nov, over 15 games with Smallwood in the lineup, our record was 6-6-3, a 74 point pace. However, for his last 17 games in the lineup, our record was 2-5-10, a 30 point pace... Now, obviously can't attribute all those results to Smallwood, but as a quick control, compare that to our season split: front 23 games, 62 point pace; back 23 games, 58 point pace. Perhaps those results were more in spite of him instead of because of him, but there appears to have been an initial delay in Smallwood being 'found out' at the Championship level (again) and, then eventually (probably too long), by Mowbray. Aye, The Athletic had a great read on this recently too (excuse the paywall if you can't access it!): https://theathletic.com/1536639/2020/01/17/brentford-b-reserves-scrapped-academy-premier-league/ Apologies if this repeats what's in that article above, but some general notes from the Athletic article: - Brentford essentially concluded that running a Category Two academy was not worth the cost, as players very rarely rose from the u13s to the pro level, and even when they did, the compensation for Category Two development is not nearly high enough (the article suggests Brentford only got something like £30,000 each when Ian Carlo Poveda and Josh Bohui went to City and Liverpool). - However, I'd note that this doesn't quite apply to Rovers' Category One academy. For one, I don't know the specifics, but I think the compensation is much better for a player coming through a Category One setup (I'd be interested to know what we got for Callum Wright, for example). Brentford mentions the difficulty of grabbing youngsters with all the top London clubs next door, which technically applies to Rovers as well, but I suspect we wouldn't lose out to too many of the Manchester catchment area clubs on facilities-alone (which sounds like was the case for Brentford) - There's also a 'sunk costs' element to it, with us already having top academy facilities that should still be utilised. It wouldn't be as simple for Rovers to suddenly decide to liquidate the academy and start up 'Blackburn Rovers B'... - Instead, Brentford have opted for a roving B team of 18-21 players, shunning the PDL leagues as insufficient prep in favour of travelling against international reserve squads or even top-league squads looking for a tune-up (the article mentions they got to play Slavia Prague's 1st teamers as they prepped for the Champions League). It gives these 18-21 players, perhaps not ready for Championship football stiffer competition than the PDL leagues can provide (kind of reminds me of Chelsea loaning out an army of footballers each season rather than putting them in PL2 year after year... except Brentford is keeping them all within one team) - Should be noted that Brentford's efforts have not been welcome, given they're essentially sticking their nose up to the EPPP and PDL, and it evokes the possibility of B teams starting up in the lower leagues... - Lots of Scandis in that age range have come over, with some breaking through and others on the cusp. However, this is of course linked to their owner also owning FC Midtjylland (some of whose players have been loaned to Brentford B, and vice versa). Definitely could highlight the need for creativity in scouting Europe. - One bit that I think we do follow to some extent is trying to poach the cast-offs of other top academies. Brentford, apparently, offers to buy top teams' youngsters for a low fee, but with heavy sell-on fees. Apparently the case for Maghoma, who was just brought in from Tottenham. For us, see Travis, JRC, Butterworth, Thompson, Hilton, or even someone like Hart, as recent, generally successful-looking, examples. (Considering how much I just wrote, you might as well just read the article Kamy posted haha...)

In fairness, that is comparing to essentially our peak last year. Game 28 was the 3rd of a 4-game win streak, which put us into 10th place. The game 29 win had us in 8th, on pace for 68 points, and 3 points out of the playoffs... We then went on that horrid 1-1-9 run (our season cushioned somewhat by the 4-1-1 run-in...) Ugh, I'm remembering now how things were looking so promising at Brentford in game 30: Graham scoring to make it 2-0 in the 7th minute, which I would guess would've had us 1 point out of the playoffs at that point in time. Brentford pulled back one... then Maupay, Benrahma, and Watkins tore us apart in the 2nd half... (From my recollection, it was more a case of those 3 being simply unstoppable than us being particularly 'bad' that half!) We're on pace for 66 (ok, 65.7...) points at the moment, compared to 60 last year. Not playoff pace, another huge win streak obviously needed for that, but technically still on pace to 'progress' from last year. Link for reference to last year's place by game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_Blackburn_Rovers_F.C._season#Championship_season