I’m wondering who we’re potentially signing early this week and before the Accy game!?

They’re more than happy to let Ayala go. Doesn’t fit with the plans….too slow.

You don’t have to believe me brother. Keep trying to make sense of it all with no basis. I’m just passing on what I was told from people who were there…I’ve no reason to lie. But I respect your pov.

All I know is that Suhail has worked in many of V’s businesses and is arguably their most trusted man. He IS the conduit but once the budget is set it’s his decision and his sign off that GB etc will need on V’s behalf 👍🏼

I got that info from someone who was working with Mowbray at the time mate, but I can see you know best - sound pal 👍🏼

They don’t need to go back to Venkys. The budget is set and Suhail (their nominated representative in the Uk) signs everything off. It was he (not ‘them’) who declined Mowbrays plan to sell JR to Bournemouth and sign Wallace, Dembele etc in Jan.

LT reporting that we’re aiming to make signings early next week and prior to the Accy game. Strap in boys!!!

Dack and Ayala are in the danger zone in this set up. Dack isn’t built athletically for the press and Ayala won’t like being isolated with strikers when both fullbacks are pushed on. Its going to be interesting….I reckon both will be gone in 12 months.

Nothing, but it’s weird to wanna discuss it constantly and then keep referencing how many pages the threads upto when it’s being driven by chat about players who have left us.

Absolutely - I think JDT will get what he wants when he’s ready. The four youth lads will do REALLY well to impress him enough. Fingers crossed they do!

That’s nothing to do with the club though. If we moved the ‘out of contract’ trio discussion out it’d be about 20 pages 🤯🤣

Re the contracts - surely we can draw a line under them now. No one can be forced to sign them, it’s based almost purely on the individual and how they perceive themselves. That’s why the likes of Dack, Buckley, Trav and Kaminski signed whilst the others didn’t. You offer them what you can and it’s then upto them. The biggest and only real mistake is not pushing them out of the door for a fee in one of the last two summers. Havong Wallace, Dembele and two others lined up for net zero on the Rothwell deal in January is a sickener. Though I can understand the stance of Venkys not to want to let Joe go, in hindsight, it would’ve been a good move for the club. Of the youth - They like Phillips. Very excited, there’s £4m - £5m on the table now from a couple of circling PL clubs but we believe he’ll be a £25m+ defender very soon. Adam Wharton and Harry Leonard are the other top ones but none are expected by us to breakthrough and be mainstays so we need those 5-6 senior positions filling sooner rather than later. The big one for me is Bezza. He needs to be pushed out of the door now if he’s not signing . Gone to the highest bidder to prevent us losing a fortune next summer and to empower us to buy this summer.

Cool 👍🏼

I only had hand luggage. The baggage drop off queues were HORRIFIC!

Well, if we are in any face to face negotiations then they must be happening in Portugal. I bumped into Gregg Broughton and Mike Sheron around 6am this morning in Manchester T2…nice guy!

They will be given a chance Chris but the consensus of opinion is that there’s no one banging the door down this season. Phillips, A.Wharton and Leonard are the golden guys but not expected to breakthrough this time… We need to acquire some players 👍🏼

That’s fine. Everyone tries to apply their own logic. Quick one though….Venus asking the lads not to sign elsewhere in the belief that Tony would get the WBA job this summer in no way stops the lads from disliking him because he’s a bully. They’re not related. But I’m fine with whatever you think went down pal.

Sound. Have a lovely day…early night for me! Flight out to the sun early doors tmrw 👀😎👍🏼

It wasn’t actually that wrong….believe it or not, Mowbray was WBA choice before Bruce and he turned them down. Bruce held onto his job by the skin of his teeth or it would’ve come to fruition…. As for Nyambe, his relationship with TM is / was brilliant. It’s Venus who created the bad feeling…which I’ve been told is the thing which destabilised RN 🤷🏽‍♂️

JR - Agreed - the fee was £3.5m rising to £6m if / when they went up. DL - I think they went above and beyond. Boro just went (a lot) higher. RN - has become disaffected by Venus (bully) and thought he’d get a lot more money elsewhere. As of last week those offers were not forthcoming. I have a feeling we have dug our heels in and he will end up on the same / less money at lesser / similar club.

I agree with you but that’s only because we are a soft touch. Sell him and buy someone who wants to sign a 4yr contract.

I don’t know any of that, but the person who told me this was as close to those negotiating these deals as you could be…🤷🏽‍♂️

Yep, I’d probably have been pissed off too mate. But Dembele, Wallace and a couple more would’ve appeased me.

Nail on head. Its true that Waggott had his hands tied at Christmas. I think, by his admission he’d have taken the cash for any one of those three and they did have deals lined up for some good players. But this should NEVER have got to the 6 months point. We don’t have the finances to let out better players go for free. If they (or anyone) isn’t going to sign they should have been sold the summer before last or last summer at the very latest.

Agreements were apparently in place for those two plus another two and wouldn’t have cost us a penny with the fee plus freed wages for Joe. Suhail stopped the sale. That was the end of that.