Only passing on what I heard. Didn't say I expected him to be a superstar in his 50's.

I don't recall hearing what the fee was. A google search just says undisclosed, and that he was sold in January...also, looks like he played 5 games for their U-23s last season, scoring none. This season, 4 games (but one only for 4 minutes) and 2 goals. From the pattern of his appearances, looks like he's either had injury niggles, or it's just tough to get into that Leicester U-23 team.

Maybe! If I'm remembering rightly, there are other ex-pros in the group they play with, so the standard won't be so bad, and this convo was a couple of years ago. Col has battled some demons in recent times, maybe he was having a rougher time of it back then than he is now.

Was in the LT a few days ago I believe. I have a mate who has played with him in Lytham a few times...says he is a very sad shadow of his former self and one of the worst players in their group. As a CB myself, I used to idolise Big Col. Hard to remember him as fondly after he did the dodgy on his kindly neighbours. Legend on the pitch though. I do still remember when I was mascot against Leeds, and he came and shook my hand in the dressing room...stark bollock naked! And all those Colin show us yer arse moments. I wonder now if he was secretly a nudist.

Of course they'd still be signing him for their under-23s or the bench at best. My point was, the better he does, the more money they will throw at him to make that happen, and young lads are easily influenced by a fat paycheck. I agree managers are too cautious, and I feel TM is arguably more cautious than most. Promoting him to the first team already would be hasty though. The best balance lies in-between - seeing if he can replicate over 10 or so U-23 games, and if he can, starting to introduce him from the bench. If he's still doing the business, start the lad. But you do have to go through stages. Hopefully we don't go through them too slowly. Jack Doyle seems a good example of too slowly. Was highly rated and has ended up being 22 in February and on loan at Maidstone. He'll never make it with us now. Operating too many levels below us for his age (and injured now too).

Not necessarily. If he did well it would only raise his profile, potentially demonstrating he can already cut it in the Championship at 17, so maybe he will be cutting it quickly in the Prem. This would encourage the big clubs to throw more money at him. Young lads are easily swayed. Anyway it's just one quote from an unnamed 'insider' about how good he is. Seems like he has made an excellent start, but Joe Nuttall was smashing in goals for fun at a higher level than Vilius (U-23s) and got the nod for a lower level (League One rather than Championship as it would be now) only to show that whilst goals were in his locker, not much else is yet and he still needs a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, all sounds very promising if we can tie him down and he can recreate that form at U-23 next, but it's a little early to be so sure he is a revelation or potentially displace players like Palmer or Rothwell from the subs bench (depending what week it is).

Do you? He's only 17 and has only just come over from Lithuania. Ripping it up at U-18s in a handful of games doesn't mean he's the next Messi. They're not looking to buy him for their first team, they're looking to take him for his potential obviously. This is what the big clubs do, they try to hoover up all the best young talent whilst they're still cheap. I find it strange you want him to go straight to the first team after 4 (I believe) appearances for the U-18s. Surely the U-23s is the next logical step, even if only for a few games if he continues in the same vein at a higher level. We have a whole bunch of talented, more experienced players struggling to get in the side in the first team. I do agree he would be best staying here though, the top 6 is a graveyard for young talent.

Surely he should step up to the u-21s first and see if he impresses as much at that level?

You do get a bigger slice of the pie. You keep being televised, with extra cash each time. Which further promotes inequality (club with bigger fan base, already has more income from that). Somehow you still manage to fail year after year.

Well it is the richest second tier in the world, so you could argue it is making what it should. I'd tend to argue that football in general is making far more than it should, but that's a whole other debate. However, looking at it within its own 'ecosystem', the balance is all wrong and more Prem money needs to drip down. The Prem is basically the reason Championship teams have to overstretch themselves. This is: 1) Because of the lure, as we all know, of that Premiership money making teams want (or even need once they get into enough debt) to make the gamble of going up. When it fails, as it mathematically must for most, debts become harder to service. 2) The strain placed on teams coming down from the Prem. To survive up there, they've had to build a wage structure that isn't remotely sustainable down here even with the parachute payments. Selling off all their players though to deal with this will mean they get less than face value for them, and risk a highly destabilising impact of huge personnel turnover. It also reduces (usually) their odds of going back up. 3) The simple proximity of the Prem to the Championship, as our domestic top tier, causes other strains in itself. Prem teams have money, and we know this (and need it), so when they come calling for our players the premiums are huge. This is fine, but it distorts our internal market. We all ask more of each other for our own players, knowing they might be close to Premiership attention, and seeing X player elsewhere as being worth 20 million, thinking this must make our player worth 10-15. Probably worse though, as wages are the real backbreaker of profitability, we are the natural port of call for most failed Premiership players, who are only willing to take small (if any) wage drops to play here. This seems logical in a way - the player thinks OK I didn't quite make it at the 60k p/w bracket but I must still be worth 45-50k. If the leagues were closer financially, this would be true, but that kind of wage is monstrous down here. Clubs should probably stand firmer on this sort of thing, as that player is highly unlikely to earn that in another league usually, but another club making its gamble, or who just sold a player for 20 million and needs to appease the fans with Prem qualitt, will just swoop if you don't. All of this could be eased significantly and allow teams here to tread water and be stable, if the money distribution was more even, but don't expect it to happen any time soon. It will probably take the bubble bursting, if even that helps. The package of an exciting, even league could be advertised better I'm sure, but most viewers will ultimately always see the Premiership as the elite, therefore more interesting league, so it would help but not fix matters. Capitalist principles will always suggest that, since they're the main draw for viewers by such a huge margin, the huge, huge bulk of the money is going to stay up there.

To be fair to him, he immediately said he wasn't being a baby about it because he knows we definitely deserved a goal. He just feels it was offside (looked it a bit to me too to be honest). His comments make it clear he was happy with the point. Even he seems to know it would have been daylight robbery for us to lose that game.

About what Villa wanted for Grealish. Who is better? The market has gone a bit insane these days, it's easy to forget since we've been gone from the promised land for so long. Before looking up those stats and figures with Grealish though, I'd have been saying we should be looking at the 20-25 mill range. Of course, from his stats and the video I watched after I posted earlier, I don't see why Grealish is a 30 million quid player either. But IF he is...

In fairness, at least that Manure side are second in the league above so far. I suppose they might have put an impressive financial case forward, that they were going to put X amount of money into it and be more than competitive. Still no excuse to be in ahead of us though. Leicester are 5th in the same league. Part of me thinks, well at least they didn't put teams who ended up being whipping boys in ahead of us...the other, bigger part of me thinks we could be riding high in the league above instead. If Leicester are 5th and finished 10 points below us, we could have been up for a second consecutive promotion. That West Ham side that got jumped up from 7th in the third tier to the top tier are 8th out of 11 in it, and 5 points clear of the bottom. Makes me think even the top tier isn't all that, and we could be conducting ourselves respectably at that level right now.

I know Dack's general play has been cramped lately by tight marking, but I was just thinking about how much we would want for him if Spurs do come calling, and did a little research. In the summer, they had a £25 million bid for Jack Grealish rejected by Villa. I haven't seen Grealish play really, but he is listed as an attacking mid, so I presume he has a similar role to Dack. If he does, the stats suggest he is a lot less effective at it. Grealish is one year younger. With experience of playing in the Premiership (which should help him at this level), as well as two seasons (plus this one) in the Championship, his goal and assists return in the two and a bit seasons he has had in this league? 9 goals, 10 assists. Bradley has (these are just league stats) 8 goals and 2 assists just this season, and it's only early November. He's done that in 14 games, whereas Grealish's record is over 78 games! You can argue the assists difference, though we know Dack can put them on a plate too, with nearly half as many assists as goals last season, and 3 assists (and 2 goals) in the cup this season. Obviously, they're different players, in different teams, and I haven't really seen one of them. Plus Grealish is also listed as a winger as well as attacking mid, which may explain the higher assists and less goals (although if you extrapolate the numbers Dack would get similar assists over 78 games). But it all just makes me wonder, if £25 million isn't enough for Grealish, shouldn't we be looking at that kind of figure for Dack if we were to sell?

Ffs! Really want to see this lad in action, sounds ideal for improving our approach. Starting to think it won't happen.

Utter piss take that they still have to play in that league in favour of a bunch of media darlings...well done to them for keeping it together and showing the corrupt decision up for what it was. Can you imagine if something similar had happened to our first team?

Terrific yesterday. Has he somehow gotten even better whilst out injured? You'd have thought he was our right winger. Changed the complexion of the game.

Haha! Not very charitable Chaddy, let the man buy you a drink with all that gambling money he's won...

OK. It's just, that isn't looking like a sound strategy. No offence, but your hunches (at least about Rovers) seem to be terrible. Which does usually happen with your own team to be fair, hard to look past the red rose tinted spectacles. But all these grand proclamations rile people up - could you not just keep them to yourself, or at least state them less matter-of-factly? Ie, 'I've got a feeling we're getting back into this' rather than 'Just sit back with your pipe and slippers, and crack open the champagne lads' when we're 1-0 down?

Do you ever look at your own 'Don't worry, it's in the bag' style comments after the game and think..."Ee eck, I'm a bit of a wazzock sometimes, maybe I shouldn't say that crap?"

Thing is, Armstrong is full of pace, Nyambe has been bombing down the other wing second half, Palmer has OK pace...maybe needs a runner directly in front, like oh I dunno, Brereton. Graham has been off the boil lately with some shocking finishes, and Brereton supposedly smashes them in for fun in training... Edit - thinking about it, a runner coming from behind too, like Rothwell, would help when Dack has his back to goal. I just can't quite figure out where Rothwell belongs.

He doesn't need dropping. The main reason he isn't shining like we know he can is that teams are double-marking him and making sure he gets zero space. The fact they have to do this to him opens up space for others though. He just needs to learn to cope with it better.

Thanks Mercer, that settles it. 1-0 Rotherham it shall remain. Edit - OK that went in quickly haha....still, never seen a Mercer prophecy come true, so I doubt we are going to win it.

It should be immediately apparent why. If you think you're going to be happier with Jayson, I think you're in for a surprise.

Bizarre comment.