Calling an all-hands on virtually no notice is not the action of someone who thinks they have control of a situation. Something - and I have to doubt it’s a few Twitter replies - has spooked the exec level. If we want something out of this, the fanbase has to press the advantage. Monday could be a huge evening in the recent history of the club, if the fanbase does make themselves heard.

Why are you on such a wind-up?

He even says “we followed the same process the club has followed for ten years… but the process didn’t (work, or something similar).” How long has Sylvester been here, again? It could be very subtly pointing at him, might just be a slip, but it does lead the conclusion to that point.

If I’m being blunt, the point of taking that shit is because when I sell this business, I’d likely never need to work again and everyone we pay to work here will get a comparatively smaller slice. They’re contributing to it and doing things to enable me to grow that pie elsewhere. You don’t let them get covered in shit in the process, if you’re actually a leader and can recognise contributions. In my view, at least.

In a similar position to yourself. Day-to-day is for delegation, deadlines/crunch time are for coordinating and leading. Trying to avoid those situations through observation, communication and leadership in the day-to-day are the remit of a business leader. Sh*t does hit the fan though and your job at exec level is to step in and eat as much of that for your staff, by being a leader and deploying yourself. I’m aware people are split on this board, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think this should be pinned on Broughton. This is a symptom of a chronic condition and that condition is the ownership. By extension, Suhail is the ownership’s ops point person. Waggott is a yes man. I think those three factors, bundled, are the root of the issue. Indeed, so cack-handed was the managerial appointment by the in-situ administration, they were appointing a manager before the DoF, or at least aiming to. Only when Broughton was appointed do JDT come into the picture. I don’t think it’s worth debating that the board/exec leadership were about to make an absolute blinder of an appointment. Wasn’t it Big Dunc and David Unsworth Dream Team at one point? 😐 I’m confident Broughton’s out in public, eating sh*t because he recognises the frustration and that nobody else is going to. For me, that’s leadership. He’s setting an example that nobody else has done before under this ownership and essentially challenging those that he’s covering for. Frustrations are at ownership and long-standing executive level and that’s where all the ire should go.

Doubt very much there’s any legal recourse for the player and I’d prefer my agent to be sourcing a viable alternative for a loan abroad at a reputable club, rather than putting a speculative case out to tender with ambulance chasers. Reputationally, while there’s probably some sympathy among the administrative teams at other clubs, if I were an agent, I wouldn’t be engaging with the club on deadline day for the foreseeable or until there appears to be some progress on our facilities to handle a transfer on that day. That’s a bit of a blow as we seem to only be able to move deals forward as the last one with our hat in the ring. It’s impossible not to be cross at this as a fan, but it is interesting that this seems to be a lot of peoples’ final straw. I wonder if it’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back after 12 years or particularly egregious. I’m simply unable to travel from London to Ewood on Monday. I would be willing to buy someone a ticket as my proxy, so long as they agree to participate in some coordinated action/disobedience/dissent before during and after the game. Also happy to participate in offline discussion about action.

Honestly, not really, from my reading. Agents brinksmanshipped the future contract negotiations based on need to get everything done very quickly for deadline and created a rush/panic, which leads to confusion and then a mistake on a form. I have no idea about the grounds on which the EFL would allow this to go through, but it’s one form, that was probably signed in time, hopefully wouldn’t materially change the nature of the registration and should be looked at as a small admin error. If there’s enough conclusive evidence of agreement and adherence to the rules otherwise, you’d hope it goes through… he says, as a total layman with no experience in football administration.

Rules are rules and if we haven’t followed them, I don’t understand the grounds for appeal, save for desperation. it sounds as though it’s a f*ck-up on our end, which is basically inexcusable, as the buying entity. I’ve not got experience of a deal with a firm, third-party deadline, but I’ve experienced deals that have fallen through from taking too long and a competitor comes in. In the majority of cases, someone lost their job over it (or with it as a major contributing factor). I’m not even saying it should definitely happen here, without understanding exactly what happened. But if it doesn’t come off, I fail to see another outcome in any other, rational industry. There has to be an explanation and there has to be pressure to elicit that explanation.

I’m not currently a rational thinker, because it’s Rovers. However, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s an air of “who’s gonna tell them?” to the silence, an effect of people shirking announcing bad news. For balance, the rational part of my brain is saying, “he did the medical yesterday afternoon, there’s no way they don’t file the paperwork immediately.”

If they’re holding off to announce a novice from Rochdale, that’s me checked out.

Rovers have tweeted a match report from last night, which is both expected and somewhat unexpected, as first tweet of the day.

I suspect that there’s media being done/been done and it’ll be released in a barrage. I have to assume only O’Brien and the Rochdale youngster, unless there’s a free transfer happening. Disappointing, really. We need goals.

My thoughts as well.

You/me/everyone on this board right now.

Surely anything aside from O’Brien would’ve already leaked?

Best I can make out, this isn’t being broadcast, not even the Philippines, but audio commentary available. Would obviously like to watch, in case anyone’s had any luck.

No luck.

They’ve got Bennett on co-comms… but nobody’s able to watch or hear it? Am I missing something?

Asking purely due to the fact there’s no other FA Cup game on and ITV4 (regularly broadcasting FA Cup this season)‘s schedule is ‘The Chase Celebrity Special’ followed by ‘Monster Carp’ and then the original Mad Max. Surely we could muster more of us tuning in to tonight’s match than there are fanatical carp botherers?

How do we find out if there’s a chance of watching this? Seems odd that neither BBC nor ITV are interested, given it’s their remit to broadcast it.

It’s like we’re smashing a random footballer generator if today’s names have any credibility/accuracy. If we’re going to sign someone today (I genuinely believe we’re trying but I think we’re failing to) then it needs to address the two big issues we face, which are losing the midfield battle and not scoring enough goals. There are all manner of approaches with the latter and Sorba Thomas is a signing that could help with that. The former is very much narrower. Strong, confident and capable centre midfielder. If the staff believe nobody is better than Morton in that sense, then I don’t see why they’d sign anyone. If the staff see it as the weak point that apparently everyone sees it as, then they’ll sign someone to that description. Ignoring any restrictions, it should be Chalobah over O’Brien for me, but I’ll wait and see.

Wasn’t Duncan Ferguson due an interview or something? This administration could really mess up a managerial appointment, the kind of decision that sees us fall at least a division. JDT leaving within a year of being appointed, because of issues around recruitment is borderline “basket case club” territory. The outcome on the pitch might not be much worse short-term, but for a manager who has consistently toed the line on “budget” to become exasperated by transfer windows sends a reminder to anyone we’re trying to bring to the club that the owners make us a no-go. It’s so obvious. They’re so out of their depth.

Christ.

Is £100k/week playing staff reductions a hypothetical here or do you know something for definite?