Harsh. He seems like a nice bloke, and my hot lodger I used to have thought he was the only one on my Rovers calendar she was interested in. It's also just as shallow to attach that much importance to her good looks as it is to his money. She could be a terrible person with a boring personality.

I don't think it's that we rate him at 1.5 to 2 mill, it's that we have just dropped him for half a season in favour of someone who isn't that good. If he also wants out, chances are we won't get more than that in the market, we've essentially driven his value down. Maybe we could squeeze a little more than our estimates but I can't envision someone paying 5 million for our backup keeper. He's also not an international btw, no caps yet. Worth considering also that Raya was very young for a keeper, he had many many years ahead of him and tons of time to grow into his obvious potential. Kaminski is 30, generally speaking with keepers you'd expect he may still improve a little til he's about 32, and then typically last til about 35. Absolutely it can be a year or so longer, and some outliers make it to 40 or so in great shape, but the point is there are theoretically about 7 less years of service and also far less potential growth, compared to Raya who was 23 and already an established Championship keeper of quality when sold. Apart from his occasional brain farts I'd say he was lower Prem quality. Yes we got shafted on the Raya deal, and we'll probably get shafted on a TK deal. All the more reason to keep him instead. As far as I'm concerned his reduced performance levels are probably mostly due to the injury we hear he was playing through.

It won't matter who we have up t'other end if our goalkeeper is Pears for a full season. Keeper is the most underrated position on the pitch. You keep your best one, not your least valuable one, unless the decision is taken out of your hands or you get an offer too good to refuse.

Probably both clubs sent too many good youngsters out on loan.

You're right, you really fucked up there - you should have tried to become a professional goalkeeper.

I'd worry JDT was the waste of a wage if that's his opinion.

Worst part of it is it's not even true. He did let us down at times. Had a fantastic couple of months, a fairly solid one or two, then was a bit shakey in the crucial final run in. Just because he wasn't chucking it in the net a la Wigan last year, people don't seem to have noticed much. I fear our biggest achilles heel next season will be in goal if we intend to rely on him as first choice and a youth keeper as backup.

Thought I would just re-contextualise my comment.

Surely that wasn't a serious question? Anybody who saw Duff play doesn't need to have that discussion. Duff was literally world class. Brereton may still struggle in La Liga and just scored something like 5 goals in the last half of a Championship season. Even if Brereton has another Diaz-level improvement in him from his current best form, he won't be as good as Duff. You might as well ask if Shearer was better than Rhodes.

He said Gallacher, which was indeed Kevin's name. Paul was a Gallagher.

Not sure I buy the notion that the Championship is weaker now than it was then. English players have increasingly been pushed further down the pyramid by more and more top class foreign imports. Players who would have been Premiership under the domestic percentages back then are instead playing in the Championship. As are more foreign imports than before. The Championship of the time was composed of more also-ran British players than it is now, is what I'm saying, so in theory it should have been weaker. The England team of now also reaches semi finals and finals, which it wasn't back then, so I don't think you can argue English players are worse now than then (although a bit of random luck comes into tournament football of course, and the standard of the best players doesn't necessarily dictate the standard of the players below them in the pecking order, I accept). Ultimately it's very difficult (and essentially pointless too, if an interesting aside) to compare different eras of the game in quality. Edit - although I've just checked the record books for Jansen, and he scored 23 in this tier in 2000/2001 anyway, so maybe you weren't suggesting it was particularly weaker now. Although, the 2002 Jansen you mentioned was, after the summer anyway, the one who had suffered the serious motorcycle accident, so I assume you mean the 2001/2002 season Jansen who notched 10 in the Prem.

93 onwards is hardly missing the glory years?

Now that we know he's leaving for free, I think it's an interesting question, maybe worth a poll: with hindsight, did signing Ben Brereton prove to be a waste of money? 6-7 million on his fee. Unknown amount for signing on fee, unknown amount of wages but reputed to be low (I once read on here it was believed to be about 8k p/w I think it was). Some slight debate over exact numbers, but the below shouldn't be questionable... First two seasons a complete bust, waste of a shirt. One goal each season. Third season contributed effectively, 7 goals from out wide, played nearly every game. Fourth season phenomenal..up to January, then essentially vanished as a force (partly circumstances beyond his control like injuries, Chile callups etc a big factor, but ultimately we're talking about what we got out of him). Fifth season very good until January, again. Then a bit of a liability most of the rest of the season until the last day send-off. The club achieved zero playoff placements and zero financial return on investment. We were never in relegation fights during his effective years, so I think it's hard to argue he saved us from relegation either (guess you never know where we'd have been without his goals, but I don't see it). So, that's what we got out of him and during his time here - was it worth it? Personally, I'm going with no. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't judge the worthiness of most transfers by whether we reached the playoffs, or we'd say every transfer we didn't make a profit on was a waste. But this was a very, very substantial outlay for a club of our financial strength, and none of the money came back to us. I don't think his wage particularly comes into the equation as we'd still have had to pay someone else a similar wage to be a solid contributor, and let's say 1 or 2 million of that fee too. I'm not talking about someone as good as Ben was at his best, just that we'd have bought someone else for the role who for the sake of argument let's say was an average contributor. I know someone is going to say it, and yes the club is to blame for not managing his contract and sale better, but that's not the question I'm asking here. No coulda woulda shouldas, just, in the end, did this transfer work out to be a good one for the club, worth what we spent?

Why though? If JRC can play as a defender, he can play as a physical midfielder.

Can't believe one poster above is pleased they made it into the playoffs because of him. Personally, I hope they get dry-bummed in the playoffs and contract a venereal disease. Metaphorically speaking.

The recruitment team headed by the man who used to head our recruitment team, until Mowbray - whilst still our manager - encouraged him to go to Sunderland. He then went on to poach at least one more of our recruitment team. Fuck Tony Mowbray. Charlatan who even now has some of our fans hoodwinked.

Lol where has Nixon said you might get Adam Wharton for 3 mill? Even he can't be that stupid.

That's not the smoking gun you think it is. He doesn't even describe himself as a Burnley fan, he says they (his friends) are. Most players aren't really fans of anyone, their experience with football is very different to a normal fan's, it's a career. He would come if it was the best move for his career. Not that I'm advocating we sign him, excellent player in this league over the years but getting on now. I'd rather look to the future.

Including yellow cards. Somehow they only got one.

Someone said he should be sacked at half time. That's all, nothing to read into.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure to avoid ever watching it.

Fair enough, we don't disagree, it was the way you phrased your post, something like today is the final nail in the coffin for the villain, then immediately named him. Sounded like you thought today had some significance in regards to him. His cuntish credentials were firmly in place a long time ago.

Take that point from that handball away, and they suffer our fate, missing out on goal difference. Infuriating.

I think Brittain's mostly poor performances since coming back made that difficult.

The first part of that second season is why there was pressure on.