Exiled_Rover

Ryan Porteous on loan from Watford, for anyone wondering.

Wooof, that puts it into perspective. 1 point behind us and they've brought in 4 players that would walk into our first team.

As far as I understand it; first it was a straight cash deal - then at some point shortly after he was told the deal was off and not to get on the plane. By that point he'd already said goodbye to Orlando and his agent thought he'd be able to get a deal elsewhere, if not at Rovers. So clearly someone at Rovers (Suhail?) decided there's no way we're paying £3m for someone and scuppered the deal. It's at this point that I think Broughton went rogue - bearing in mind McGuire was sat in a Sheffield hotel lobby - and tried to rescue the deal with Orlando by offered a loan with a mandatory buying fee. Obviously by now Orlando were pissed off, so asked for £1m+ more, which we agreed to. Again someone at Rovers scuppered this at the last possible moment by 'forgetting to press send'. Silvestre fell on his sword and Broughton was sacked shortly after.

I still don't know how they manage to pull it off financially, or why Carrick is still seen as a fantastic manager - he's had an embarrassment of riches for this level.

Bought him for £9m and paid him £40k a week? Yeah they've not made that money back. They've been desperate to sell him for a while.

It'd be a strange one given his pedigree and considering he's clearly in and around the Braga first team (started about 30% of their games). I just fear it means they plan to play Beck further forward.

We lost A. Wharton last January. Nothing will top that for the foreseeable.

I thought they were skint? As in staving off bankruptcy, couldn't pay the compensation fee for any manager, skint?

I'm delighted Cooper has failed miserably since then. Absolute nonsense statement by him - and yes, we all hate Rovers too, but it's our club. How dare he say anything negative about us to the press, especially in the situation they found themselves in with O'Brien.

If Kargbo doesn't walk into the team ahead of Dolan and Hedges then we've wasted £1m.

Talk about low standards.

Do we watch different games? Our defence isn't our 'main form of attack', we're just very well drilled and don't concede soft goals. We hardly park the bus. Our attack breaks down because 2 of the 3/4 we have up there simply aren't consistently good enough.

Yeah he's crap.

What's more absurd is that he's been at Forest for 3 years and barely played for them. He must have been on top of the world as a 23 year old: leading Huddersfield to a Playoff final and being bought by the club that defeated them there for surely a glittering Premier League career. Now at 26 he's been passed around more times than a cheap hooker - D.C. United, Middlesbrough, LA FC and now Swansea.

He's not going to score you the goals to get you there.

Yes and no. Ipswich paid his wages and we probably got a loan fee. He simply couldn't play in JDT's system and was being disruptive. The mad thing is that JDT and Waggot / Suhail fell out almost immediately afterwards and the system Travis couldn't play in left with JDT.

We all want a better option than Forshaw, but what's done is done. You have Buckley and JRC to hold down the fort until Tronstad returns. I'd LOVE another option in there (it looks like we have a few Academy kids they really like the look of in CM), but I'd be looking at standout young L1 / L2 players than loaning O'Brien for £40k a week. You're talking over £500k on wages. I'd rather buy someone and pay them a quarter of that.

£40k a week to cover for a month? What does he do for the rest of the time he's here? We're through our busy period, it's basically 1 game a week from here on out.

They spend big every window, it's crazy.

Genuinely, what problems does O'Brien solve? An expensive loan to play third string to Travis and Tronstad. Even Dann - he'd have been great as a third option at CF. He's not someone you want to hang your hat on upfront. We've fucked it this window as we should have sorted transfers at the start of the month, but I'm not losing sleep over a lad who's lost two years of his career in the MLS and a lad with 6 professional games under his belt. I am losing sleep over us trying (and failing) to loan an international striker who's available for only £3.6m and of course our lack of another winger.

We don't rely on anyone misfiring. We're a very, very well drilled defensive unit.

We're a tough out. If we got into the Playoffs I'd fancy my chances against anyone not named Sheffield United.

He essentially hasn't played a game of professional football since May 2023.

A polite "thanks, but no thanks" should suffice.

Window closed, team in the bottom 3 on 27 points and in horrendous form? I doubt he'd be chomping at the bit to take that challenge on.