It's no more bizarre than you convincing yourself the club is at fault. I'm not convinced of either yet, I'll wait for more details to emerge. We know. Bugger. All. About what has happened. I don't get why people have to jump to the extreme of a position all the time, instead of seeing nuance. Especially when the details of what has actually happened are scarce. It's a blight across society.

Not sure about that if there's a 5% chance they'll then receive similar actions in future transfer windows.

If it isn't just Nicko doing his favourite sit-on-the-fence trick, which it probably is, then reading between the lines it implies this. That we've lost the appeal but are taking legal action, or going to the court of arbitration for sport or somesuch. I'd be fine with that, if we do actually have a strong case when it gets put outside the self-serving decision-making of the EFL. Obviously it would be financial compensation only, but if we have a 70% upwards sort of chance, might be worth the legal fees to try and spin a bit of revenue for the club. Maybe it's embarrassing, maybe it's not - again, we still don't actually know the details of what has happened, only what the unreliable Nixon has 'leaked'. And even that, I'd say only the misspelling of the agent name reflects poorly on us and it's pretty minor. (The Rochdale lad is a fairly insignificant case, and it was alleged he was the one who didn't fill the form in fully...yes somebody should catch it really before it's sent, but late in the day with a much bigger transfer to worry about...I don't really care about that one) But the real story could be absolutely anything at this point, so I'm not going to rush to calling it embarrassing.

Yeh I've read about it before, thanks to this forum. Basically snatched the signing on fee for himself if I remember it right. Something like that anyway. When that was a lot of money to Cole at the time as he was new on the scene.

I just want good players. I don't care if they're off Kim Jong Un's list.

Not entirely in the past yet, sadly. I went to a bear sanctuary in Bulgaria a few years ago, where they look after bears that used to be subjected to this treatment. The mutilation wounds they still have from the chains, ropes etc are horrific and heartbreaking to see. At least other ill treatment of animals is usually for something more than just a cheap laugh and amusement for punters. It's banned in Bulgaria now, but some other countries still permit it. Ironically enough, India is one of those countries. We really are Venkys' dancing bear, as you say. It should have been stopped by the authorities a long time ago, but I'm sure our gaping wounds and scars will remain long after our owners and handlers have departed. I just hope subsequent conservation efforts will be as kind and considered as they were in that sanctuary I visited.

That was a whole lot of words to basically say, 'There have been a lot of different plans for the Ewood Park stadium area, so we've consulted with various parties and come up with a cohesive plan. Which we're not sharing with you here.'

Heaven forbid they accept they were wrong to criticise us for saying the fee was far too small. In fairness though, we would never have got all of the transfer (if the transfer is indeed anything like 40 million in the end) keeping him here, as Championship keepers (especially those developed by Ben Benson) don't sell for anything like that. Without the Premiership spotlight there is a much, much smaller ceiling on the fee. One wonders how much difference a good keeper would have made that season we had to put up with Walton though...I know we finished way, way off the mark so it's hard to see that it would have pushed us up that far, but do better in a few games and the team's form can start to snowball.

Lol good one

It's irrelevant what we came away with, the point was what clubs were willing to pay.

Nah it's pretty poor. We got £15 million for Armstrong a season earlier in the same situation, who wasn't an international or carried marketing value, and players with less goals have gone for a lot more money. We shouldn't have accepted it, and clubs rarely give their best offer first time around. The problem was it sounds like we pretty much went 'no, he will cost £20 million' and that put clubs off even negotiating. I think if we had said 'no, he costs £15 million', we would have had bids up to around £12 million, which still would have stuck in the throat a bit, but would have been best to accept and reinvest since it was clear he wouldn't renew with us.

Highlight didn't show how the freekick happened, so I can't comment on that. I'm not sure what you expected from Gally's header. There wasn't really a 'good' place to direct it, other than arguably to flick it behind him to give away a corner. He was also pushed in the back a bit as he went for it. Travis wasn't originally marking the scorer, he had eyes on the guy standing off from the line. The scorer pulled off as you say, and for me that's the point, when Trav turns around and can see him, that he should have got closer to him. I think he's possibly not sure whether to commit to it as the lad he originally had is unmarked behind him, but it looks more to me like ball watching. Somebody doesn't peel off with the scorer when he holds back, I think Wharton, but that's understandable as the ball was heading into a more urgently dangerous area where an extra body could be needed. By the time it lands back with Hoedt, it's too late. I don't see how Carter could reasonably be expected to stop it. Put yourself low and the shot could easily go high, plus it did take a bounce off the turf. Only Travis to blame for me, maybe I'd say Brereton too if I could see how the freekick was won. You can maybe say Gally could have flicked it behind him for a corner (which they could have scored from) or tried to direct it a bit wider (where there was another Watford player lurking in a danger area) if he wasn't being pushed, but I don't think any of his options were good, so it's splitting hairs a bit. The man shouldn't have been umarked.

Just watched the highlights on sky's website. Very composed indeed from Dack, the only player we have intelligent enough to realise that quickly that the first shooting option was closed down (that close to goal anyway, where many players would just think they have to shoot immediately before the chance is gone). The only person I put blame on for the Watford goal is Travis. The keeper doesn't have good enough eyes on that to be culpable, fired through too many bodies. Travis though, he was ball watching instead of sensing the danger and getting close to the goalscorer. It was a fairly small window to figure it out though, since he had started off by 'marking' the space between two unmarked players, so not tons of blame, but ideally he should be doing better for sure.

I keep seeing this and it's a bit harsh. Yes to post Christmas loss of form (a little earlier this year), but people are acting like he was useless in the first part of the season. He wasn't ripping the league apart like last season's first half, but he still had a good goal return until it dried up. Still our top scorer. We would probably be mid-table or worse right now without his goals in the first third or so of the season.

Given I also had relegation concerns in the summer (though these were eased a bit by the end of the window), I'm also seeing our current and likely end position as positives. But throwing away the position we were in with a very poor Jan window, for two seasons running, really sticks in the throat. Also, I'm very concerned about the summer ahead, as it's sounding like we won't have a pot to piss in but will desperately need a good striker, the most expensive position on the pitch.

Football is so weird. No league draws all season, then three in a row. With one in the cup even thrown in for good measure. 4 draws in 5 games after only one cup draw I think previously all season.

https://www.brfcs.com/magazine/articles/page/1 The articles 'Costly slip of the pen' and 'Box ticking exercise foils Rovers'

Brereton is naive if he thinks he's going there to play. There's a reason they wouldn't pay a fair fee and waited for him to be free. Players should be wiser to other clubs exploiting their contract situations, but he'll think of the short-term and the money instead.

Sickening on so many levels.

Amazed he is still in this league and nobody has bought him tbf. Class player.

(Football Manager 2020 related, skip if you're not interested) Not gonna lie, I fudge player sales. I think it's some weird sort of OCD thing in me that I feel the need to get maximum value (save, offer to clubs at what I think I should get, reload and try again with a smaller or higher ask depending what happened). Yeh it's cheating, but it's more an obsession, as I do it even when I have way too much money in the bank and for players worth about 100k! I don't do it with matches. Sometimes you can get way more for players than you think (like with JRC, I probably started asking about 12 mill which is what the game said his value was), and I don't like the idea that I'm missing out. I also like to pick apart how the transfer system on the game works, cos I like to know how stuff works. Doing so has made me see there are some really weird, sometimes unfair and unrealistic, quirks in there, which heightens my sense that I don't want to get shafted out of a good fee lol! Things like, a club is willing to pay up to 10 million, but if you ask for 10.5 million they won't even make a bid, rather than offering 9 or 10 and seeing whether you'll accept. Frankly it's a waste of my time but I weirdly enjoy it. It also helped me figure out that almost universally, you can pay exactly 1/3 of a player's price up front and the other 2/3 in 12-monthly installments over 3 years. Super useful, as only the first third comes off your budget for this season (the rest comes off when installments are due, but gives you time to make the money for it). And you can usually pay about half the fee based on league appearances (and still split the guaranteed bit into thirds), very useful for players you know won't ever play for you and are just development and resale projects. They only want slightly more (like 10 percent maybe) than they'd want if you paid it all up front. Might be different on later FMs. Ahh the inevitable Watford equaliser...

Very badly, on the version I have (20). Somehow I got an MLS side to loan him from me for way more than he was worth, for 3 seasons, which shot his value up, as for some reason player value increases quite well when they go over there, I think it's a bug. He never averaged over 6.75 in those seasons (fairly poor, for any non-FM fans reading). Then sold him to a Chinese side for an obscene £21 million even though he's clearly League One level at best on the game. Couldn't believe my luck!

My radio just won't pick this up clearly unless I'm stood in very inconvenient parts of my room...is there any way to just listen to it on a website? I can't be doing with the fuzzy commentary I'm getting.

Tbf that might be the best plan...

That would make two windows running where we brought in a player with a very good assists record and plonked them in an unfamiliar position. Hopefully just a one-off experiment (unless it works obviously!)