If it's your first time on linkedin on your browser, you should be able to scroll down and see all that. When I tried to open it again in the same browser it forced me to log in to see anything and I had to switch browser. But he was Club Secretary at Brighton for 3 years 11 months. Also at Sunderland before that for 6 years 4 months, where he was Assistant Club Secretary, then Club Secretary, then Head of Football Administration, which is his role here. Before that, Deputy Head of Administration at Birmingham for 4 years 7 months, and a Player Administration Assistant at the EFL for 8 years. So he's been in these sorts of roles in football for about 23 years. Honestly I'm a bit surprised to see us hire someone who actually has a decent amount of relevant experience.

Silvester out, Baker in...my first thought was it sounds like we're swapping Time Lords! (I wish we did have a Time Lord helping run the club...first mission, go back and sabotage Venkys' purchase of the club by any means necessary)

Pretty certain the injuries had at least a bit to do with it...

So if Gent gets his debut in the first team, will that mean he stood out at youth level?

It mattered, it doesn't matter now. Btw don't Batty and Gent play the same position? So I assume if Batty was playing well at the time, Gent wasn't playing much. I remember it being said that Hanley was once considered a better player than Jones. Their career trajectories soon went very different directions and nobody questions that Jones was better at senior football (injuries notwithstanding), or said it was a problem that he wasn't as good as Hanley at youth level. Gent seems to have progressed and Batty has regressed, that's what matters at the moment.

I don't see how that's a problem with Gent. It doesn't matter what he looked like in the U23s. It matters what he can do now, in senior football. Like you say, he may have (and appears to have) improved.

It would be very Venkys/Waggott. Restructure the operating model by bringing in a DoF...but, make him an inexperienced one, then undermine and underfund his transfer activity, bin him off and write that model off as a failure. Reminds me a bit of what the government have done with the NHS.

I don't think he's been 100% fit for several weeks, and kept expecting him to break down and our season be over. So whilst I was dreading it turning to be a bad decision to keep him on the pitch at all times (bizarrely even at 4-0 up when he had clearly taken a knock, and at 5-0 down), his application, selflessness and persistence are unlike anything I've seen here since probably Dickov. The man loves playing football, and I hope he loves it as much at his next club. He deserves his move, and as long as he doesn't force us into accepting a lowball offer (probably won't be any forcing needed for this lot with their track record though), he'll leave with the blessing of all Rovers fans. Which isn't all that common.

You know correlation isn't causation, right?

They're not really our paying customers though. They're there to support the team we're trying to beat. To use an analogy, it's a bit like if you run a pub, and there's a few customers who always start shit whenever they come. Maybe smear their excrement in the cubicles, start fights, break the pool cues over someone's head. Would you tun away those paying customers? Of course you would. I know opposition fans aren't (usually) doing those things specifically, but if they contribute to us losing points (which is exactly what they show up hoping to do), it's an enormous false economy to say put as many of them in there as possible. Football comes down to small margins a lot, and players are always saying they need the support of the fans, that they're a 12th man etc. It might be a cliche, but why would they say it if they don't thrive on that support? If those small margins cost you a promotion or a relegation (remember, we missed out by GD last year and stayed up by one win this year, small margins can change those), how on earth can it be justifiable to earn an extra 50k or so but lose out on millions?

Wow, bizarre take IMO. Conway was quality for us. Best winger we've had since relegation, hands down. Delivery was excellent.

Disagree on all 3 counts. McFadz I'd be ok with 6 months and a 6 month extension option. His legs will go by January I suspect. Gally isn't good enough, but January showed we could probably extend and sell for a million. Even so, any wage savings will likely vanish and we won't get the funding needed to sign a bog standard forward, which is what he is. Dolan is good enough for us at this level and whilst he frustrates at times is criminally underrated. Can we do better? Probably, with more money and/or better scouting, but we don't have those things. Even if we did sign someone better, he's still perfectly good enough to be a squad player.

Might have distracted him though

That's not quite right. If we lose, it doesn't matter by how many. A Birmingham win would give them a better goal difference than us by at least 2. Sheff W wouldn't need to win, a draw would put them a point above us. And Plymouth winning would put them a point above us, goal difference won't matter. The only way goal difference could change in a way that matters is if we lose, Plymouth and Birmingham win, but Sheff W lose too. In that case, we would need to lose by 11 goals more than they did, which realistically is nearly impossible. So really, the amount we lose by is irrelevant. Also, if we draw we are safe no matter what.

The real question is if he's at a fantastic club with fantastic players and supported by fantastic fans, why have results been utterly shit?

Dunno, we managed to balls up Ethan Brierley and that cost very little.

Do you go around your ex's to see how they play then? 😂

Whilst I think he had a better record than suggests, I don't think that second statement is close to true. The current debt is about 200 mill. I don't think we were getting anything like 100 mill from selling Dack, Brereton, Rothwell and maybe getting a bit more for Armstrong (even that one is predicated on if he was fully contracted at the time, rather than the actual timing being any different). More like 35-40, assuming we didn't replace them.

Exactly. I'm finding the misinterpretation a bit baffling personally, but hey. I never said it was proactive, ambitious, etc, and I went to pains to point out that I wasn't backing Venkys, that they're incompetent, and that the need to put money in was necessitated by their incompetence. Yet still people seize on things and go off on tangents. Fact is, Venkys have spent 200 million (ish, I don't have the exact figure). They haven't put any money in since November. Their ineptness plus putting money in has put us in the shit situation we have been in. Their ineptness plus zero money being put in will only be worse (unless it results in them fucking off of course, but that's a great intangible for now).

That's what the books say.

So what's the 200 million they've injected if it's not support? Don't get me wrong, they're a fucking cancer but it's not in doubt that they've supported us financially, even if much of that need is from their own colossal fuckups. The fuckups aren't going away, so I'd like the money to come back.

True, but Wharton won't be at Palace long. Will depend where he ends up.

You think none of those 14/15 players are the keepers? Tbh I'd agree with him on that if it's the case (he seems like somebody who is happy with all the players no matter what, but I'm sure that's a facade). But I can't agree that 14 or 15 players are trustworthy tbh. And I don't think he's getting any money for keepers without a keeper sale. Even that may be optimistic given our recent history... priority will be replacing Szmodics though, with whatever crumbs drop from that sale, if any.

Come on Chaddy, you know there's nothing 'deffo' about it. Remember you've made plenty of predictions with that certainty before that have proven wrong, as we all do. Personally I think the odds are low that we recruit there. Money is likely to be limited, and we already have two keepers we spent fees of 500k upwards on. One of them got a new contract last summer and one was signed last summer. There are many areas of the pitch that need improvement especially when we lose Szmodics and the loanees. I doubt the club will see it as a priority within the constraints, and I don't expect them to move for a keeper unless they sell one. I can't see who we would sell one to.

In fairness, we haven't been battered game after game. We've mostly just had shit keepers in the sticks. A quality, consistent keeper would have had us at least 10 points higher in the league, probably up to 15 points when we consider some of the horror shows and the added confidence from them not happening, which would put us anywhere from 13th to 9th at the moment. Of course, when you take out Sammie next season, it probably puts us right back where we are! However, I would agree Johanson is likely to get far better offers than us, especially at that bargain bin price. He was being very well spoken of earlier in the season, and I think I heard he was being rated in the 5 million bracket?