Someone with a user name like yours should know better than making a post like that. What you said isn't even worth the dignity of a serious response.

At this point, surely criticising Venkys is basically just stating the obvious to the football community. A bit like announcing footballs are round. I'd expect most other club owners would fancy themselves to be considerably better owners than Venkys and not come in for the same treatment.

Of course, you do a great job digging out these rules and making them clearer. It's appreciated!

The GBE calculator has Ohashi on 14 points. I was talking about 15 only to say he would probably be on 15 so far if he hadn't been injured.

Oh that's a lot less than I thought, I thought it was 3 if you dropped to 75% or so, then 2 if you dropped to 50% or so, etc. Our only non-Brit players who have been used are Siggy (barely featured), Toth (2 or so appearances) Ohashi and Gueye. Ohashi has been injured for a while, both have spent a chunk of time on the bench. I'd guess we are above 80%.

Toth has 12 of the 15 needed points, but 10 of those are for being in this league so I doubt we'd be able to make the case. Ohashi has 14 which is very close to qualification, clearly he would have 15 if he hadn't had the injuries, so it's possible we could make the case (if we were signing him from another Championship club, say, he's extremely close to auto qualifying). I don't know what percent of minutes are needed for auto qualification after a year (from what Wilsden said I think that's a different thing)

Sounds like Vale will be lucky to get more than a smattering of sub appearances now. Not too fussed about him anyway, he won't make it here and his attitude has been shite when given a chance here.

Like I said before, if thay was the case I'd much rather have kept him as a squad player in an area we are weak for cover. Given how low down we are sending him, his career is probably doomed here as I outlined earlier, impressing off the bench or in an injury crisis would probably also be his last chance of impressing enough in time to make it here.

I guess if we were desperate we could try to get Ohashi qualified after the window shuts and get a freebie. So that last bit, you're saying you can try for an exceptions panel qualification after one full transfer window (ie Tuesday), but can't apply for auto qualification through minutes played for the club until a year?

We might not get the full amount of ESC slots again in the summer. You get less slots if too many minutes have been given to non-English (or might be non-British) players, regardless of whether they have a work permit. Not been a problem before, but not sure whether Ohashi, Gueye and Toth have had enough minutes to cut into it. My guess would be not quite, still got a few months to go though.

Thanks, forgot all about Kargbo taking the last slot for some reason. I do see Toth and Ohashi have enough points for the exceptions panel, I think based on playing for us now...Ohashi has 14 points. I don't think you can apply for a year though? And even if you could, Swag etc don't have the nous to realise nor do it.

I'll correct myself actually, looks like he gets 15 points so he should qualify (the calculator is indicative, doesn't mean he definitely gets enough, but seems to have been right so far). 10 points from league quality, 2 from their European participation, 2 from playing 66% of European minutes, 1 from playing 68% of league minutes. https://analyticsfc.co.uk/gbe-calculator/

There is a much bigger issue than this. We can de-register the likes of Hilton, for who we could just use Michalski or someone as third choice keeper due to their age. The real problem is we would be using our last ESC slot unless he qualifies for a work permit (thinking he doesn't?), meaning our best chance of value for our budget on a striker, our key need, is unlikely to come from abroad unless they also auto qualify for a work permit.

Why do you presume that?

What if he's a total flop, costs us millions and does none of that?

Garrett won't be on enough to make a huge dent in the finances, nor will Tranmere likely pay all of that wage. He will have been kept off the bench because if he played even a minute for us he couldn't be loaned out (technically he could but he wouldn't be able to play). Yeh personally I'd definitely rather Garrett than Forshaw.

Agree, they're clearly just looking for cheap backup. Might as well keep him as backup here, I don't believe he takes up a squad space due to his age.

Leveraus morb.

Not a discussion thread remember (glib comments posted with links aside)

Yep, incompetence yet again. We are really bad at this.

I think it's a complete waste of time. Garrett has 29 Championship appearances and has scored 4 goals for Rovers (albeit primarily in the cups). It's a massive backwards step, and nobody on this forum is going to convince me that Garrett isn't League One standard despite what happened at Bristol (so please, I ask they don't waste their and my time). I don't think games at that level will benefit him, and it's not as easy for someone who isn't an attacker to shine, Markanday's numbers spoke for themselves. If we plot his likely career trajectory after a move like this...even ignoring that he's playing in a shit League Two side who are in the relegation zone and will probably struggle every week, so not easy to shine. Let's say he does well by the summer, what next? We aren't going to go 'oh well you did well in League Two so come and join our Championship squad again'. We are going to try to get him in League One, where he already should be. He then probably spends a season there, and comes back with a single year left on his contract. At which point, if he's done well again, we probably consider using him as a squad player. Given how shit we are with contracts, by the time he has had chance to impress enough to earn one, he doesn't end up signing it. And this is assuming everything goes well. For me this leaves us waiting too late in his development to know if we want to keep him around, and is just a backward step that didn't need to happen. If a League Two relegation battler was the only option, I would have MUCH rather kept him around as backup. He's better than fucking Forshaw, who we keep having to rely on, and for me no worse than Buckley (in fact I prefer him to Buckley, doesn't vanish in games as often). He's also the only other midfielder who you could say can play a similar role to Travis and Tronstad, who are absolutely key to how we play, as has been seen. I'm much less interested in some poor quality development football for him for 6 months than I am in having acceptable backup in CM. We better have somebody lined up. If we were going to plump for League Two you'd at least think we'd try to get him in at Chesterfield having done business with them twice already this season. But I'd have rather he try to establish himself in League One, IMO he was unlucky at Bristol and is definitely capable of playing in that league right now.

I can't imagine compensation being less than a million, more likely approaching 2. Dolan has 176 Championship appearances at the age of 23. We've had him since he was 18. We ain't only getting a few hundred k for him in a tribunal. It's possible he'll move abroad, and that's a risk, but I don't see it, and it's worth rolling the dice. A few hundred k is an absolute pittance, and probably about a fifth of what we could expect at tribunal. He's also a useful player, despite what some of our fans think.

Don't know, but I do know Eustace talked about Kargbo playing all across the front three, and he appears to have played exclusively through the middle when starting games this season, mostly up front but sometimes in AM: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/augustus-kargbo/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/549791/wettbewerb/IT2/saison/2024 Meanwhile, Youan can also play all three positions, and has also played primarily through the middle this season: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/elie-youan/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/465715/wettbewerb/SC1/saison/2024 So entirely possible signing both, or Kargbo plus Cissoko would have been as part of a fluid front three (or Kargbo playing up top in the latter case). Maybe this isn't the case, we really can't know unless the club come out and say, but it's theoretically possible (whether posters on here think it makes sense for other reasons or not, as I know I'm about to get some 'yeh but...')

Transfermarkt has it that Hibs paid about 580k Euros for him. I read an Edinburgh based article the other day that suggested a similar figure.

Well that was a quick collapse! Within 3 minutes, two of our main reputed targets heading to Championship rivals. Must be a record outside of deadline day.