bluebruce

We've got about 5 of them. We don't need him. He's 22 and pretty low down the backup keeper rankings. It's an odd contract to give.

Aye but even with that mantra it doesn't make sense. We have more young keepers than we need, by some distance.

I saw yesterday that Jake Barrett has signed a new two year deal with a one year extension option, and my immediate thought was: why? 22 year old keeper (we have a lot of youth keepers) who seemingly hasn't pulled up any trees. Has he even sat our bench? Because younger keepers have. I don't get it. Whatever his wage is, just add it onto an offer for a senior player instead.

I can easily accept him idolising Wharton too. But he has a Rovers shirt with him on, and an England shirt with him on. I don't get what he wants a Palace one for. I can sort of see why people might collect signed memorabilia in glass displays too, maybe I was slightly harsh on that count. But I can't imagine why you'd go to another club's website and give them money to plonk a player's name on it, and then, presumably, wear it. It's always been bizarre to me to see Rovers fans in another team's shirt. And yes idolising players is part of football, but not idolising the teams they play for too, which is what the vast majority of a shirt is about. The main thing about being a football fan, if you're not a neutral, is loyalty to your club. The main reason for buying what are now obscenely overpriced shirts is that loyalty.

Sorry I'm gonna have to diverge a bit here and say I do think him having a Palace shirt is a bit cringe. I've never understood why any Rovers fan would own another club's shirt. Rovers shirts, England shirts, maybe a Darwen shirt if you're a local and like to check out a bit of lower league football. Anything else, absolutely not. You could give me a signed Zidane Real Madrid shirt, or a signed match worn Wharton Palace shirt and the only thing I'd be interested in doing with it would be selling it. I wish him well but another club's paraphernalia is a hard pass from me.

Thanks for answering the query. That sounds like 90% the fault of the ref and our own team, and no need for us to wish Palace every misfortune over 30 years later, as I suspected. Especially since we had the last laugh by getting promoted a few years later and winning the league. Thanks again.

Actually some more...the O'Brien debacle. The Maguire debacle. The Brierley debacle. The every January transfer window debacle, even when poised for promotion. I can't imagine them not being well ahead in anybody's list no matter how they feel about this.

That's the strangest thing that's been said in here yet. There are absolutely loads. The dwindling fanbase. The fact we can protest extensively but know that nothing will likely be done. The fact managers don't get sacked here due to fan pressure like they would everywhere else. The embarrassingly long stay in this league. The total lack of ambition from the club. The lack of communication from our own owners. The fans at each others throats, with one half infected with some kind of weird Stockholm syndrome about our blatantly poisonous owners. The inability to get anybody to renew their contract for more than a snickers as a pay rise. The decaying state of Ewood. The charlatans we've let have a big say in running us. The fact Waggott is still here. Just off the top of my head. The fact some fans are still following the exploits of a local lad and fan who we built is really neither here nor there.

You're allowed to view them, obviously. I'm just pointing out it's weird and pointless to do so if you're not interested, just to come and bitch about people who are.

I meant we can know that Unleaded was only speculating. Given that's what we were talking about, I thought you were responding that we can't know he was speculating, which we can. If you meant we can't know which rumour is correct, if either, then I agree.

Why do you keep checking into it then? I think it's cringe how many people are commenting on a topic they claim to not care about, telling others they shouldn't care either. Seems to happen a lot on here though, the data thread was clogged with similarly strange input. If you don't care about it, don't come here and read about it, it's not hard.

We can know this, with an extremely high degree of certainty, because we all understand the English language, and the difference between saying something is 'maybe' the case, versus stating that it is the case.

Thanks, but he is very clearly just speculating there. He says maybe. When @unleaded knows things he doesn't talk like that, he confidently asserts.

We don't have to spend the entirety of our interest in football on purely Blackburn Rovers current issues in order to not have a tiny club mindset. We can love the club, want it to succeed, think we are a sleeping giant, and still follow the exploits of a Blackburn born, Rovers trained ex player who is a fan. The two things are not mutually exclusive. There's only so much you can talk about current club events without becoming afflicted with clinical depression anyway...

He has the potential to become a world class player. He was hardly going to slum it at this ambitionless circus in the Championship for too long and waste his career. He didn't force the club to sell him, in fact the rumours were that the club basically forced him to leave, saying they needed the money to keep running.

Fair enough, not seen that but Unleaded is fairly reliable. I think people do forget though, he is also sharing rumours, he doesn't speak directly to all (probably many at all) of the people he talks about, and isn't infallible. But believing him is understandable.

Whatever, just be dismissive about it instead of replying to the last words and sharing what the problem is.

Yes I can't think of why we would be interested in a Blackburn-born Rovers fan's career who was raised and built by our club since age 6. I wonder what could possibly cause this fixation...

I forgot, it couldn't be the club's fault.

I mean, I wasn't there, it was maybe 3 years before I got into football. But from what I infer from the moaning I see, a lot of people are holding a grudge against them for more than 30 years because a referee handled the game poorly and cost us promotion. Which doesn't sound like good reasoning. I'm sure someone can tell me what I'm missing about it.

Jesus christ that's embarrassing. With all the money we have brought in. And right after getting compo for Eustace and Ismael for no compo. Pathetic. What if that extra coaching had got our shit together one game earlier and landed us in the playoffs? This club are the absolute masters of false economy.

If that ends up being the case it would still be disappointing because with a halfway decent negotiator on our end, it should have been 40+ million. Although as has been pointed out it seemingly doesn't matter anymore anyway.

Was it even decided? They really drag their feet with these tribunal things and aren't the outcome details usually public? Or did we agree a fee with them instead?

He seems quite reminiscent of Nyambe from what I've seen so far.

Some spots being reserved for them in the overall squad I don't necessarily have a problem with. As long as they're mostly at a point we can be confident they'll contribute reasonably if called on. But that's different to setting a target of a number of minutes. If you have a strong 15-18 core like you say, they're unlikely to rack up 3,000 minutes between them on merit, using the system we both agreed on.