In fact I'll follow that up, I just read the comments back. He talked about Lewis O'Brien and then said "At the same time we are dealing with a striker who we were still waiting on the club to make a decision on so those two things are live." So we were looking to do both deals, not one or the other. And we were waiting on another club to make a decision. They obviously decided no.

Well not everything is lucky or unlucky. Some things are just standard business with no luck involved. Some things are incompetence, or skill. I think the skill is in short supply here though, when it comes to the administrative stuff...

Yeh that comment I heard. It should have been followed up on, but I assume it just went the way of the Kone and Undav deals, rather than it was abandoned in order to pursue LOB. It would be moronic to do the latter.

On the first quoted para, good point that if they were heading to Brockhall anyway it might make more sense to do it there...all I can think is the facilities may be better in Manchester, and that we don't have a club doctor anymore (I think that's right anyway). I don't know exactly what's involved in a medical or whether you need a doctor rather than a physio to conduct it. On the second para, the bigger question for me is why we even agreed the match for Tuesday night. It didn't enable TV coverage, it was 3 days after the last game and yet 5 days until the next game after, and most of all, it was on bastarding deadline day. Numerous fans on this forum identified that it seemed stupid, so why can't professionals in the industry? The very least they could do if they insisted on that day for some reason was make sure that ALL staff who might have even the least bit involvement in transfers, apart from the manager, stay at fucking home.

I think tempers are high, and some people are letting emotion override reason and the ability to view things from multiple angles. Some people are running with anything that sounds like a defence of the club on even a small point, and assuming the poster is defending the fuckery of the last few days. Which almost nobody is doing. I hope posters manage to remain respectful, because we're all in the same boat and it has a big fucking hole in it.

Only because they haven't seen the whole sad tapestry of ineptitude that has been the last decade+ at Rovers.

Has he said that, that we ignored the striker target in order to pursue O'Brien? That's fucking idiotic if so. Not seen that comment from him so far though.

O'Brien didn't get them there. He got Huddersfield to the playoffs. Forest bought him as part of their 'clear the decks, replace the lads who got us there with better and splashed the cash' approach. Then within 6 months decided they don't need him. They also let him finish his training session before asking him if he wanted to move, for some bizarre reason. It is of course, primarily (and by some way) still our fault. I just think they're being a tiny bit hypocritical by saying they care about the lad and haven't done anything wrong. But they're not my problem, the shambolic operation at Ewood is.

Dunno why any of that was directed at me (quoted my post anyway). I know we messed it up, I used the term cockup in the same post you quoted. Doesn't mean I won't continue to look at things with balance. And I certainly don't feel sorry for him. As you say, although LOB would have been an excellent signing, the position wasn't the priority, striker was. I get that targets fall away and you can't control it, but we have needed a good striker signing for both the windows GB has overseen, and all we have mustered was Hirst, who was dogshit and is now gone. It ain't good enough however you slice it. The only thing in GB's favour in that regard is he hasn't been here all that long and there is probably a fair bit of work to sort out our shambolic recruitment. By this window though, I expected him to have been getting to grips with that. I know we have financial constraints too, but there ARE cheap gems out there, there always are. The problem is it takes skill to source them, and our recruitment department in general must still lack that. Between now and the next window, that should be where our recruitment focuses...on finding better recruitment staff! And of course a free agent striker of reasonable ability wouldn't go amiss.

What other clubs are impressed with the honesty and interview? Where are you getting that from?

Yeh, people in senior positions can't wait to throw themselves under the bus. He's not dropping breadcrumbs to try and get himself sacked, he's just explaining what the day entailed. He probably only mentioned it to try show we were taking care of the player (as the overall cockup certainly wasn't taking care of him) and that various things go into a deadline day. When he said there were things outside of our control, I hardly think he means he intends to submit in the EFL appeal that the waiting service took too long. Whilst I'm on the topic of these things allegedly outside of our control...I do understand why he isn't talking about them yet, and agree. It could damage the appeal (hell, I think the interview already did that, by acknowledging we shoulder some of the blame and that he takes full responsibility). However, once the appeal is inevitably rejected, we sure as shit better hear what these supposed factors were. The local journos better not forget to follow up.

Yep, sounds pretty pissed off at us, and he's right to be. That said, I think he's foolish to assert it isn't their fault whatsoever. It's at least 90% ours, probably more like 95% or more, but why would you keep your player in training when an offer has come in on deadline day that he needs to decide on, and travel, do a medical and sign forms?

And I think you're reading into it what you want to. Why would anybody, and I do mean anybody, be stupid enough to go and have a sitdown meal a couple of hours before the deadline when they still need to travel? Extremely unlikely it was something like that. Eating from lunchtime to 8.30pm? Wtf are you talking about? He was in Nottingham at lunchtime...they only got the memo that the wanted to join us at 1.30/2pm. Then obviously he had to travel to Manchester, and do a medical. Stop making things up. He made a passing reference to making sure the lad had some food in his belly, you're trumping it up into something it's very unlikely to be. The whole process has been enough of a fuckup, there isn't any need to fabricate things in order to criticise it.

Interesting. Take whatever we were paying for 6 months of O'Brien and slap it on top of BBD's contract offer. Unlikely to make any difference but might as well try.

I should think that's exactly the sort of thing they did. Nothing in the quote says or implies otherwise.

Don't listen to Sparks. He didn't say they were 'having a meal', he said 'we wanted to make sure he was okay and had had some food'. Whilst those might technically be defined as the same thing, there is a large difference in inference. I took it as they brought him some butties or a pizza or something, probably whilst waiting on something else, rather than they went and had a nice cosy meal on Curry Mile. I'd be astonished (and annoyed) if it were the latter.

Christ, do you take valium or does your body naturally produce it?

I think it's understandable to a degree for Broughton to be reactionary. He's new in the role, let alone at the club, so it was probably always sensible to go through the club's processes for now until he was fully used to the role and had at least a year of experience to accurately identify shortcomings in the process. If he came in thinking he knew better as a rookie DoF and fucked it up, that'd be worse I think. And yes, this is also a reason it would have been far preferable to appoint an experienced DoF and not a rookie to the role, for a club of our stature. Recruitment has been let's say flawed for years, we needed somebody who knew exactly how to fix it, with a proven track record. That said, there is such thing as initiative, and as you rightly say, one of my first instincts when watching the interview was 'why the fuck did O'Brien finish his training at Forest?'. As soon as he said it that was my reaction. If he isn't going to play with them for 6 months he doesn't need to train with them. Pull him out of the training as time is of the essence on deadline day. Forest should have been pulling him aside anyway, but if I were Broughton I would have definitely been asking them to take him out of training. Perhaps another sign of him being a rookie, not being sure if it was his place to tell the big Prem club what to do.

It might almost be worth the whole debacle if this were the outcome...until you remember they'll just be replaced with another couple of shady shysters.

Not in the literal sense though I shouldn't think...

I probably wouldn't admit that in public, some people might take the piss knowing that.

I read that somewhere too.

In fairness if we were the only clubs making offers, he was going to end up not playing whether he gambled or not. If he had said nah I wanna stay he would be in this same position. It does suck for him though, and it's our fault.

Perhaps it suits all parties involved to keep it quiet until it's resolved.

If there really are a bunch of delays for other clubs (still yet to hear actual details of that) then this seems a reasonable hypothesis. Something would have to be wrong on their end if it's the case.