We have Hilton, Eastham, Khan and Honor. With Goddard already out on loan.

He has more credentials than Upside Down, but that doesn't exactly make them adequate credentials. He was the joint 16th top scorer, along with 3 other players, in an 18-team league that is worse than ours. If he were 20 years old, that might be promising, but he's pretty much at his peak age. It's unambitious, and regardless of how it turns out if we buy him, people have every right to be concerned about it when we nearly got relegated and have brought in an inordinate amount of cash. Demeaning that right because you don't like that people aren't beating the happy drum about it is closer to acting like a 12 year old than Upside Down's use of reductio ad absurdum, which is a valid form of argument used since antiquity in philosophy and mathematics. Unless the likes of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Archimedes were 'acting like 12 year olds'.

Surely you didn't mean to say that there aren't any strikers with a proven record in England? The 'B' is the reason we aren't going to get one.

https://therealefl.co.uk/2024/07/16/blackburn-rovers-transfer-blow-confirmed/ Theo Bair gone to Auxerre for £1.4 million. I wouldn't consider that a blow personally. Also mentions we're interested in Millenic Alli from Exeter, not sure if that's been mentioned before. 24 years old, scored 4 in 10 in League One (didn't move there til January, had 7 in 21 in National League for Halifax).

I can see only two possibilities with this new keeper, one is worryingly that he (or I suppose one of the other young keepers we already have) is seen as the competition for Pears. The other is that we're looking to sell/release/loan multiple young goalies. We currently have, outside of Pears: Eastham (22), Hilton (24), Goddard (20), Khan (18), Michalski (17), Honor (18). And now Barrett (22). That's a ridiculous amount of young goalkeepers for the U21s and U18s, plus one sitting on the first team bench. 7 goalies for two and a half teams. It was already OTT last season without throwing another one in. Surely at least two will depart even if temporarily. Feels like this lad has brought in just to let someone else go, unless we're insane enough to think he's a suitable number two. Edit: Just remembered, Goddard is already on loan at Dundalk. So at least one more, but really I'd say more like 2 or 3 tbh, should be let go or loaned out

Yes. Because of all the other times we've done it.

Are you sure you're remembering that right? Last time we were in the final we went 1 nil up after 2 minutes, not down, and drew 1-1 by the end.

Sounds like you don't give much of a shit about the club tbh. Certainly not like the rest of us. You might find it a better use of your time to set up a forum for your local U10s team and put your attention somewhere you actually have passion for by the sounds of it, instead of lecturing those of us who care deeply about BRFC about being whingers.

Yeh I'm not remotely interested in the fact that he once managed Burnley. This is England. Quite frankly I'd take him at Rovers too. I'm not as keen to cut off my nose to spite my face as you seem to be.

I've criticised Southgate at times and I don't feel the need to eat any humble pie. Getting to the final is great, but apart from Netherlands (7th, we're 5th) we didn't overcome a team ranked higher than 19th in the world - Switzerland, who we drew with. We managed to draw in normal time with Slovakia (45th), Slovenia (57th), and our form in normal time leading up to the final read: D-D-D-D-W, against mostly poor or average opposition, but all of them ranked below us. Obviously FIFA rankings are from the be all and end all, but we had no impressive victories, and a string of draws against teams that, rankings or no rankings, we'd be expected to beat. My expectations pre-tournament didn't involve us getting a highly fortuitous run of matches. Getting to the final was an achievement, but given our run of games it isn't an amazing one that requires everybody to about-face with their opinion on Southgate's decision-making during it. We have a top tier team and mostly struggled to defeat inferior opposition. We lost as soon as we faced a truly good side. I don't regard Southgate as an absolute bungler, but I think a better manager could have brought the trophy home. Thanks Gareth, some great tournament placings despite some fortune in the draws at times, and he probably does deserve to be considered the second most successful England manager overall, but I think you were right to choose now to move on.

Klopp is the best candidate, but won't get the job even if he wants it for the simple reason that he's German. Howe is the best English candidate, comfortably. I've no fucking clue why Graham Potter is the bookie's favourite. Realistically, I hope Howe gets it.

Eh? It's an ok return at a league that is shitter than ours, at an age that is typically the peak for a striker. It's nothing to start jizzing about. Unless you've seen him play, I can't fathom why you'd see this as more than an ok signing in theory.

I'd offer to chuck a tenner in, but it would just get added to Swag's pension pot.

I saw the post, I was quoting the post, and I summarised the post. You listed 7 players. One of them was 'depending on what we do with Garrett', and one said 'potentially', but you listed 7 signings you want. Sounds like 6 if we don't loan out Garrett. So you will be unhappy if we sign 10 players without loaning or selling first team squad members? You'll think 7 players if we don't loan anyone out, or 8 players if we do, is too much? Or will you just be happy with whatever the club does? Because you can just say that, you know. It will involve a lot less mental gymnastics and a lot less pointless discussions if you just say you trust the club and trust Eustace and whatever they deliver or don't, you'll be happy with.

So, you want potentially 7 players, up to 3 more than Eustace wants? And 3 less than RF99 wants. And if we sign 3 more than you want, we might as well get rid of the Academy?

And vice versa. Saying it's beyond doubt, or words to that effect, implies nobody can doubt it. Well they do. It would have been more accurate to say 'I have no doubt he's the greatest'

Ok I've read the earlier posts and know who Barrett is now. No prizes for guessing which of these two we end up with...

Who is Jake Barrett? Saw he is in the Austria preseason squad. Never heard of him.

If people, quite a lot of them, are doubting it, it's in doubt.

Well, I've literally seen people doubting it in this thread. So, yeh, in this case I can.

Even though people are absolutely doubting it.

I think you've misread my post. I was asking if someone is actually claiming to have information about a release clause, or if it's a essentially a chinese whisper as I've seen happen on here many times, where someone speculates and next thing you know half the forum are treating it as gospel. We didn't protect our asset if we gave him a new contract that forces us to sell at a certain price, especially if that price is 6 or 8 million. Rather, we hamstrung ourselves, and paid a nice bonus and a wage bump for the privilege. We still had 2 years of protection, presumably at whatever price we deemed fit. It's shit negotiation.

Has anybody actually quoted a rumour, or claimed inside knowledge, that Sammy has a release clause? All I've seen was a post speculating it, and someone saying they'd heard the club and player had agreed a fee he would be able to leave for (which is not necessarily the same as a contracted release clause) and it seems like some other posters have got carried away with it.

We didn't really need him to if we're selling him this summer.

If I remember rightly, his old deal would have been going into its last 12 months...then had a 12 month extension option. His new deal only added one year of security for the club. If we allowed an 8 mill release clause in that deal we're even fucking dumber than I thought.