One year's wages, not a year and a half. But certainly an odd decision to bring in a head of recruitment for just one year. It's the position where long-term planning and accountability is probably most important...let alone going into a summer where we will lose half a squad. So now we are going to need to replace the head of recruitment and the manager, presumably after the annual late summer summit with Venkys where budgets and plans get decided upon. And after that, we need to replace half a squad, probably with bugger all money and with a few weeks of the window left. Yay for forward planning. Oh apparently the medical department have scarpered too (good that we let that happen during a promotion charge where loads of key players kept getting injured) so also need replacing.

He is definitely going back to Brighton. Our only hope of keeping him was being promoted. I'd be amazed if he shows up in this league at all next season, but if he does it will likely be for one of the relegated teams who can pay generous loan fees for someone who has just shown they've cracked this level.

Doubt he will be gone before the Birmingham match.

And only one for them. That doesn't correlate with what I'm seeing on the pitch. Brereton keeps getting chances but at tightish angles. We need a central chance, ideally for him.

Lol Merseyside apparently.

We are 9th as things stand.

Apart from Brereton, I can't recall one that actually was a dive though. Hedges didn't dive today and he got booked anyway, so clearly not easily solved. Other teams have dived tons against us but aren't getting booked.

Not sure if you know this but they changed the ref apparently. As I predicted to two friends on whatsapp though, we still got a shit one. Dunno about biased (Bournemouth could have had a penalty) but definitely shit.

The most ludicrous booking for a 'dive' I've seen in a very long time. Even if you don't think it was a foul there was definitely enough contact for him to hit the ground.

Anyone get a good look at whether that was offside?

Incredibly soft yellow given to Wharton there.

It's frustrating to wonder where the urgency and commitment we are showing so far has been for the last few months.

Yep! Agree, although in fairness he almost certainly didn't think he was going to be in charge for 5 years. Especially given out managerial turnover before him. He probably thought he was getting a quick 6-18 month gig at best.

Well that result makes this match almost a dead rubber for us. Which ironically might give us a better chance tomorrow than if QPR won...

And you've clearly made up your mind that none of them have, so it's pointless trying to convince you otherwise.

Ahh, like the one here at 30 seconds that got disallowed anyway:

Sorry, but no, you can only speak for yourself and for what other English referees told you. They'd have to be idiots to tell anyone they took a bribe. And that's only in regard to direct approaches from match-fixers, innate bias is a much harder thing to quantify, sometimes even for the person who is biased.

It really isn't. I don't know why people are talking like the integrity of referees is beyond question. There are corrupt people in all walks of life. ALL. Refereeing isn't so hallowed it's immune. I'm certain some of the referees in the era where Manure dominated took some bribes from them. The decisions they used to get were 'beyond credibility'. Have a look at this and tell me again how it's beyond credibility for match officials to be crooked: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calciopoli And those are just some that got caught. There's usually a lot more criminality going on than actually gets proven.

I've even seen a few goals that are beyond doubt get disallowed. Hell we had one the other week. But yeh it helps!

Please, tell us more about what we can discuss.

Half a squad and no money to replace them is not 'a fairly healthy position'.

It's not baseless. You just don't agree with it. His demeanour at the side of the pitch and in press conferences has been extremely poor on numerous occasions and has made him look like he doesn't give a shit. You think that doesn't prove he has poor application and commitment, but it's certainly fair to question it on that basis.

God knows why we have got people defending Keith Stroud's integrity.

Surely that's not allowed, you would think. Ok he supports a different team, but being from the town means he could be biased either way. He will know and have grown up with a lot of Bournemouth fans, which is likely to bias him for or against them depending what kind of person he is. Professional refs should be banned from reffing who they support, as well as within 20 or so km of their hometown, as well as maybe 10km or so of anywhere they've lived for more than say, 5 years.

Jack O'Connell wasn't released, he was sold. I seem to remember it was reported to be something in the 300-500k region, and included a small sell-on which would have been triggered when he was sold on to Sheffield United.