Spot on

Looks like we could have hit 7 or 8 with better finishing.

With the amount of money Chelsea have spent they will expect success. If they continue not delivering Potter will be gone. The only exception which proves the rule is Rovers under Mowbray.

Not the time for any kind of protest. If you'd asked me what my demands were of the club at the back end of last season, it would have been the type of structure we are putting in place with someone like Broughton at the helm. The transfer window was a farce. But we simply do not know all the facts right now. Nixon has released info as to what happened. I'm aware these could be half truths to take control of the narrative, but if true then I can't beat the club too hard with what has happened. Any criticism which I would level at the club, Broughton has stated we will learn from and I appreciate his honesty. More information needs to come to light for fans to have the full picture of what happened this January. Anything prior to this is a knee jerk reaction.

With the amount of deals potentially going through close to the deadline and everything being submitted and possibly returned in real time the EFL must have a team of people manning the operation. The relegation clause is such an arbitrary thing to pick up on and dependent on the wording, legally speaking something which would have needed no clarification. It is also such a stupid request that you can guarantee there would be no consistency between those registering the deal. There is a clear argument that had this ridiculous request not been made there would have been plenty time for the correction of the misspelled name. If these are all the facts surrounding the O'brien deal then the EFL don't have a leg to stand on. Lawyer up Rovers.

Working on the assumption that Nicko has given all the reasons and its not a half truth with spin from the club I wonder if Rovers could threaten the EFL with legal action should they reject the appeal. It's hitting the nuclear button, but if true they need to understand they are in charge of a billion pound industry and thus need to be held accountable when making random decisions / requests. I assume the clause we had entered stated if Rovers are promoted we pay £10 million, not if Rovers are no longer in the championship next season. Legally that wording is clear and there grounds for it to be sent back.

Pretty obvious that the club is leaking news to Nixon as a means of trying to strengthen their chances during the appeal. Those reasons for the deals being rejected are ridiculous. Make the reasons public and expose the EFL for the unfit organisation that they are. If they reject appeals out of fear of a backlash from other clubs having this information in the public domain is a last chance attempt at getting them to see sense.

Wow. Just, wow. If this is true then I agree that we need to be more careful and diligent with our paperwork. But how petty is this? The EFL aren't fit to govern. If paperwork is sent back for a reason plucked out of thin air. Surely if there is clarification needed on these sorts of things then the initial timestamp of the submitted paperwork should be honoured.

Forest were notified immediately once the deal was in jeopardy and easily could have had him in their sqaud, especially since Cooper said it was a tough decision allowing him to go out on loan. Basically we're shit and have cocked up massively, but he can't preach about treating players respectfully.

We were never going to clear out all the incompetent people and processes in one clean sweep. I think it's a reasonable assumption for Broughton to make that admin wise our current set up would be able to get the correct paperwork done, since they have been doing that for years. It's an assumption he'll be gravely regretting right now and one I'm sure he will put right. He's been let down big time. He could easily point the finger at our incompetent process. But credit to him that even though it wasn't his specific task to complete, in my eyes he has owned up to the fact he's made an assumption that the person in place was competent in their role. He has said we'll learn from it and I've every faith that we will.

Agreed. I think Broughton hits on most of the points made on here. An apology, admitting communication has been poor and is as honest and transparent as he can possibly be whilst the appeal process is ongoing. I also appreciate his honesty around having little hope the appeal will be successful. It's clear to me that somebody in the process (Silvester) has let him down. If he were to point the finger directly at him, people would level the same criticism at him that we are at Waggot and many others. That he's all about self preservation and trying to shift the blame. Broughton taking full responsibility at this moment doesn't excuse what has happened, however its the right thing to do. Personally I have faith that he will ensure this doesn't happen again. Calling for him to step down is calling for the only open/honest bunch of the lot to step aside.

It was stated, clear as day when Broughton was brought in that Waggot looks after the commercial side and Broughton looks after the footballing side. There was absolutely no need for Waggot to be in Birmingham. Sure player transfers creates a grey area around whether it's commercial or footballing side, however the fact is only two people at the club have authority to sign off on paper work. Waggot and Silvester. So what on earth was he doing in Birmingham. Either he just fancied it and doesn't take his responsibilities seriously. (Does he attends every Rovers game, specifically away games. If not, why this one.) Or he knew there was potential for this to go wrong (or wanted it to go wrong) so travelled to Birmingham to take himself out the firing line. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but the fact it's been leaked that he was in Birmingham is suspicious. It's either that he knew something was afoot or that his main priorities in the aftermath of this mess is self-preservation, rather than engagement with the fans and fixing this mess.

Why are we talking for for multiple pages about attendances? Threads get derailed but could this not be discussed on its own thread. With the mess we've made of this transfer window it's not as though there is nothing on topic which we can discuss.

Regardless of whether this does or does not go through, when the club finally decide to communicate we need a proper break down of exactly what has happened. I don't like hanging people out to dry but if GB wants to retain any respect, names are needed, exactly what they didn't do and some kind of evidence this will be learned from. I don't necessarily want to see heads roll, but accountability is the bare minimum.

I've worked it out. They're waiting for the planned downtime of this messageboard to announce its fallen through.

It's plain common sense that any type obligation to buy would need a contract to agreed with the player in question. Otherwise its not an obligation. The buying club could offer the player in question £1 a week as a means of backing out of any deal. Even if this does go through it points to people being grossly out their depth that this caught them off guard and needed to be rushed through at the last minute.

I've defender GB thus far. He's felt like a breath of fresh air. However if this has fallen through its a major failure on his part. Regardless of the above though, GB has preached on multiple platforms about the value of good communication and how he prides himself on this. Utter failure on this front over the last 18 hours or so.

Feels like we may not even have an answer by the end of the day at this rate

Sounds like a promising player. Happy for us to be completing these types of deals. It's just frustrating when we were chasing a striker ready to slot into the first team.

Moving Dack into a false 9 would be foolish. He's been our best players since the world cup break.

Even Rich Sharpe is getting twitchy. If O'brien has fallen through do the club not realise it would be better to just fess up rather than playing this waiting game. Even if there is some kind of appeal going on, communications 101 is to keep people in the loop. Sure people would be frustrated, but the deafening silence only makes things worse. If there's no announcement soon it's becoming very disrespectful to the fans. This is our club. We invest our money and time. We want to know what is going on.

Maybe Gregg is waiting until we hit 300 pages

Anybody starting to wonder if we've cocked this up. They were able to announce Markanday leaving. Why no announcements of incoming players....

Going to have to change the name of this thread to the February transfer window soon.

This wait is getting a bit silly now. Better be worth it.