Alternatively, we could keep a 29 yr old facing a difficult second season in the PL, or sell a 20-goal a season striker for £8 million, is the flipside. So, we can lose. As for cash...I should think 8 mill is the minimum we could and should expect from a club like Chelsea. Personally I'll be angry if we sell any of our best three attacking players (Bents, Benni, Pedersen) for less than 15 million. Or in Bentley's case, less than 25.

Well, maybe he'll finally find out that Phil Neville is a crock of crap and shouldn't be anywhere near the England setup.

For christ's sakes, he's 20 years old! And you can't say he hasn't shown flashes of quality. He's done some fantastic crossing. There's time for him to develop. To me, it was ludicrous he never got a real run when Pedersen was playing awfully, and it's also a reason he isn't playing consistently. Pedersen was USELESS when he first showed up don't forget. We give foreign buys chances all the time. And like Eddie implies, if Peter isn't going to make it, I struggle to see which of our other youthies is likely to!

The last one they did about him didn't say that either. But either way, I don't expect this to be the last time we hear that phrase attached to him. Could be a couple of years before it drops, if ever. Even nowadays, I still see Savage referred to as the former Manchester United trainee. The guy's 32 and was there when he was a teenager.

I don't think it matters how long ago his injury was. It was SAVAGE, and a lot of injuries like that, you never really heal from. I got a much gentler toe injury over two years ago now. I didn't play for over a year and a half, and I don't think it's ever going to fully heal. In the meantime I picked up an ankle injury just because I tripped over something while kicking around. And that seems even less likely to heal completely, and very likely to cause me future problems. What didn't happen to me in either case was my toe or my leg get slammed to a ridiculous angle like what happened to Shabani. But do I think we should keep him around for 2 million? Nope. Oh and I see very little similarity, apart from being African, between Benni and Nonda.

Er, that's Garry Flitcroft...weren't we talking about Matt Derbyshire? And I don't believe everything it says...my lecturers won't let me!

*Shrug* Wikipedia says born Blackburn.

Er, no? Born Blackburn

I don't need to read the thread to know my answer. Without a doubt, it's Mark Lawrenson. Total ass.

Can anybody give Mafioso a hand with that then? Oh, and Cletus..

Not being very old (I'm 22), I have never seen any footage of Simon Garner playing. I looked on youtube and there doesn't seem to be any clips of him there. I'm wondering if anybody could obtain footage of this legend plying his trade, and put it up on youtube? (EDIT: I thought I'd compile all the clips onto the first post so that people can easily view them instead of trawling through the entire thread. So, here...and thanks to Whittle Blue, Elwaxo and Hasta:) Rovers v Barnsley 1989 - Simon Garner hat trick 5-4 victory just found this... Rovers v Villa vStoke(a) (No Garner goals on this one, just David Mail) Rovers v Derby 1987 Welling (a) FA Cup v Wolves (a) v Wolves (h) And while we're at it, nothing to do with Simon Garner other than that it's BRFC, but why not: Burnley away 2000 If anyone knows the scorers (in order) of any of the goals there, let me know and I'll edit the info into it.

It's nothing short of a travesty if Warnock isn't called up at all, with Bridge and Cole out.

Well said.

Abramovich to more than just an extent DMTP, if the rumour that he's put £400 mill into a trust fund to secure Chelsea's future is true. I heard about 500 or 600 mill was Fred's fortune, a couple of years ago. Maybe Jersey Airlines has done amazingly well since! Doesn't the trust terminate after a set amount of years? I'd promise to buy the club if I get really rich, but I already plan to buy Darwen FC and make them a league club again If I get super rich and can get away with owning the two clubs though, I'd invest in the Rovers too of course. I agree we shouldn't get supremely desperate for somebody to come and buy us though. Like has been pointed out, the majority of these takeovers will see early investment peter out, and then we'll be in as good a position at least as the other clubs try to make regular profit, whilst we continue to get trust money...should balance out our smaller fan base. I don't see the sense in Sparky getting frustrated now- the summer was obviously the time to invest in players. We all knew where we needed bolstering, and we've all been proven right. And most of us anticipated the money soon to come in which meant that effectively you might as well pay up to about 30 percent more for a player now than you thought he was worth, because in a year he would cost 50 percent more. Now, everyone's spotted that the money is due in just over 6 months, and they're buying to anticipate, meaning we'll have to do the same.

I know this is a touch off topic, but I just want to clear this up. Middlesborough are NOT a bigger club than us at all, nevermind 'much'. We outstrip them on pretty much every category except for recent average attendance, where they have a small advantage. And ok, they had one good UEFA cup run. Our trophy cabinet outstrips them substantially, as does our recent history, and our attendances used to be better than theirs. We also finished above them last season. Anyway, with that out of the way... Indeed it was, and here's my answer to it. I'm repeating myself a little, but the main problem I perceive with our academy output is our will to blood players. We should be making overtures to lower league clubs to loan some of our more promising players out- we're finally loaning youngsters out to some degree, but I'm sure more could be done. In some cases this would reduce our wage bill very slightly, but far more importantly would give our youth players the competitive experience they need and let us see what they're about. Those that impress will likely earn loan moves to higher clubs, or even a shot in the first team (If we were more willing to try). Now, if nothing else, this should enable us to extract some fees from players that leave our youth setup. As it is, they all seem to vanish into mediocrity or retirement, having never shown any clubs what they can do. Players who have perhaps shown they can be handy in League One or Two (Like Derbyshire already did) are likely to be able to earn deals. It would also be wise to tag sell-on clauses onto these deals when possible. Although in most cases the fees for these kinds of transfers would be quite minimal (if indeed they were anything more than a sell-on), it would be something, and go part way to making the Academy more self-financing- which of course should be the goal of our whole club. Now, to players who do have a chance of pushing for the first team. Frankly, we've been pretty disgraceful to our youth players in this respect in recent years. A few games of Premiership experience gives somebody a market value to lower league clubs. But of course it also gives them a chance to prove themselves (And I don't mean those pitiful 10 minute cameos they get- seasoned pros can't always deal with that so why should kids be able to?)- a chance we are always more than willing to give other players who have often fallen by the wayside. The most notable example this season is of course Sergio Peter. The kid is GOOD. Pedersen is playing god awful. He is supposedly 'injured' (I think I've said some of this stuff previously but hey). Whatever the case he definitely needs either a rest or a kick up the backside, and Peter could allow for both. Especially with our congested december schedule, I feel it's a must. Peter is only going to get dispirited if he keeps being turned down. And as I said before, more games= more resale value. We should also invest in the best youth coach we can reasonably afford.

Yes, but you were saying that the old youth system picked players up later. I'm quite sure that extra years of that training and coaching makes a player better. I certainly wish I'd gotten into football a good few years earlier, think I might have been able to make it at a lowish level, or at least had a better pop. I think players who played more unsupervised football when they were young are inevitably the ones most likely to get scouted, because they look good at an early age. I would agree with the viewpoint that the lack of restrictions helps though. You can get ticked off for the fancy malarchy when you're under a training regime. I would expect that the majority of the point in creating the Academies was to provide the right kind of training. But any kind of training (except for woefully misguiding or demoralising training) ought to improve a player anyway. Practise makes perfect- the more times you kick a ball the better you get at it.

Well it's impossible to find any evidence for that whether it's the case or not. Nobody has a clue whether a player would have been worse if he wasn't raised through the system. Personally though I feel pretty certain that yes, an extra 7 years of football training WILL make them better players. I can't see any evidence it doesn't . But I have a strong personal conviction that training more makes you a better player. If it didn't we wouldn't bother training- it isn't just for fitness, it's for refining your skill. I've certainly found training made me a better player.

The manager fails to play youngsters that are talented enough. That's the real problem. But Den, I don't think that is actually what LDrover is getting at, no. He didn't say anything about the old youth set up. I think his point is (and by think I mean, this is what he said), we spend millions a year on bringing players through the youth system, and over the last few years have seen very little reward for it. I personally feel the main reason is managerial unwillingness to risk a youth player. I remember Duff's first game and wondering why the hell we hadn't played him before. And I remember plenty of Peter games which make me astonished he isn't getting the nod before the severely underperforming and supposedly 'injured' Pedersen.

Like, what is the meaning of life?

I don't see how that'd make it too easy, since most people will just presume Reid is Irish, and think of him as a midfielder. Seems to me just as likely to be a set up for a trick question as the Gray thing. However, I think it must be around the Broomes period on reflection. Because the most obvious answer, if it was quite a bit after Broomes, would just be to say 'later than that', rather than discount him for not being a regular.

I don't think you read what I just put. The question said 'is ENGLISH', it didn't say anything about who they play for. Reid plays for Ireland, but nonetheless, he IS English.

I'm a little confused- how is it not Reid? He's English- your nationality isn't decided by what country you play for, or most of the country wouldn't have a nationality. And he's played at RB for us. Can someone tell me how that's wrong?

Except a) Calm down and don't be so self righteous, and markatkinsbaldpatch reckons you're wrong, and I've an alternative slant on it which so far I don't see a fault with.

Which doesn't really matter. Anyway the question doesn't say 'regular', so Broomes. Or with some fact fiddling, Reid might be 'Irish', but he's obviously English (Born in greater london, only qualifies for Ireland through grandparents, even represented England at junior levels). And he has played at full back for us, right?

£2.023 mill, apparently.