Tbf, that's not the club's stated aim as far as I know, that's Chaddy's optimism. The club are probably less ambitious than that, and are merely targetting survival (or less, if you believe the conspiracy theories).

When the most optimistic poster on the board has us down for 12th place if we are able to sign the players Eustace wants, which as you say is a big if, I think most of the rest of us can agree we're down for another relegation fight.

The thing that has gone massively down rather than up is what Venkys put into the club. It's quite a void to fill, which will have been covered by the Wharton sale but they may be thinking 'how do we cover it next season?'. Szmodics won't go for 20 million. Still, I'm not having it that a further 25% cut is the only option. Perhaps a Szmodics sale would undo that. Whatever the reasoning, this entire thing is very much Venkys fault from top to bottom, as is the more than a decade we've been living a nightmare. Although I do have to say, everybody seems to be taking this 25% cut as gospel, when as far as I can see it has come from one poster here who as far as I remember doesn't have any particular track record of inside info being proven right? Maybe I'm wrong there, but perhaps we shouldn't assume just yet that it's accurate, even though it fits the pattern of recent years.

The one about GB a couple of days ago? It's the shortest statement about a high-ranking person at the club leaving that I've ever seen. I'm certain that's because he and Swag had come to hate each other. GB thanked every person at the club except the CEO, so Maggott insisting GB got the bare minimum for a club statement is no surprise. God I want him gone.

Finished 8th after being a strong 2nd due to a ludicrously awful freefall, meaning we were in terrible form. 10-15 million we couldn't really spend, younger players the academy had brought through. Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe leaving for free (that's not necessarily his fault though, but the club wasn't in great shape...I was predicting a relegation fight was possible).

Sorba Thomas is under contract until 2026? Jake Cooper signed a new 'long term contract' in August. I think the reason sites like transfermrkt have it as ending this summer like it was previously due to is because Millwall never announced the length of the new deal. Josh Onomah hasn't had a club for a year, bit of a risk.

Probably because we have repeatedly shown a preference to promote from within in recent years to save money.

The (possibly) ITKs have said in the past that the decision to go DoF came from above Waggott. No surprise, can't imagine him wanting anyone who might reduce his own power.

Gally is meant to be on about 15k.

It took Matty Pearson a solid 5 years after release to become a Championship player, when he was in and out of a Barnsley side that got relegated, and then they sold him to League One Luton. It was 7 years after his release that he became a Championship regular. He's never played in the Prem and has mostly finished below us in the league when up here (in 4 out of 6 seasons, including two relegations but also had one play off finish). I don't think we can consider that release a bad decision as such, but fair play for him for building himself up. Fisher was sold not released. I do think it was a bit of a mistake, 100k and he was sold for about 4 times that a year later, though we'd have got a bit from the sell-on you mentioned. I was a bit annoyed at that one at the time, as MK Dons had loaned him from us the season before, but didn't play him for even a single minute, which obviously drove his value down, and once they bought him on the cheap they immediately made him their first-choice keeper. Since he didn't play a single minute for Swansea this season either, I'm not too sad he doesn't still play for us, although it's possible he's better than our two flappers. A very low bar though. Yeh I'm pretty sure Boyomo rejected us for a Spanish third tier side because he wanted regular football. He's still never played above the Spanish second tier, which I think most would consider weaker than the Championship. So again, not too much to regret there anyway.

That would mean relegation.

We sold him. I think they meant actually released. So from memory I can only think of Anthony Pilkington. Even there isn't he the one that was only released because he was caught stealing from his teammates?

I read you say he didn't thank Waggott and I though eh, so what, you don't always thank everyone in this kind of letter. Then I read it - and he thanks everyone. From the kit room staff to whoever Les and Bev are. And rightly so, but it makes the absence of the CEO (and the owners for that matter) speak volumes and I'm certain that's intentional. He obviously knows what a weasel the man is.

Perhaps regular viewers can explain for me, but I struggle to understand why Saadi and Baker are being offered new deals whilst Walker, Weston and Harlock have been released. The latter three have always seemed to get better reviews (and look better in what little I've seen of them) than the former two.

In talks with Fleck?? Are we smoking crack?! Maybe if we spend a half million we can get another 17 minutes out of him, ffs!

In case anybody thinks all fans are against Waggott at this point, here's something to induce vomit:

Is he a desperado? Thought he had a reasonable reputation. Was one of the best DoFs on FM a few years ago, still had him as mine after repeated Champs League wins. Has Premier League DoF experience, not sure what happened to him at Norwich though, Wiki has a brief note about fans protesting against him, but he was still there a year and half later and left on his own terms.

I fully expect the new guy will be one of Swag's mates and/or somebody with zero experience of the role or anything like it, and very glad of the job. Essentially, someone he can control. I get the impression he didn't enjoy his temporary loss of power.

I think the explanation is you're taking the comment too literally. He just means there is a rot in the club that is negatively affecting all aspects of it.

It's not his wages at Orlando we would need to compete with. It's the wages offered by the other interested clubs. And then the little apology bonus we would have to slap on top too for being such fuckwits.

It's really quite pathetic. The 'project' yielded great results in the first season, right up until they cut the legs out from under it. It doesn't prove the model was wrong, it proves they're blithering imbeciles in India. Not that we needed more proof. Their egos are preventing them from pinning the blame in the correct place.

Rovers duo receive international callups Adam Khan has been called up to the Pakistan national team. Yes, the senior one. Bit of a surprise, I know they're not much good, but either they're worse than I thought or he's better than I thought. Good for him, being called up in goal at 18 for a nation of nearly 250 million people, when you've only played in an academy nearly 4,000 miles away (2 games for the u21s seems to be the most advanced experience he has) is no mean feat, even if that country is far more interested in cricket. If he does well for club and country it may even nudge a few locals into following us. You'd imagine he won't get his cap just yet though. Cirino has also been called up to the mighty Montserrat again.

Why though? We aren't 'going to spend quite a bit of money this summer on a new team', and we certainly aren't bringing in 10-15 players, we know that. So the net result of saying all that would be: a fanbase who feel cheated again by more lies and falsely raised expectations, a pissed off board and owners for claiming there'll be loads spent, and a demoralised team who know the manager (who isn't exactly Klopp himself) doesn't rate any of them, but they still need to play for us. Cue some truly shit results and him getting himself the sack. So why should he do that? I get that it's what he 'should' be saying because it's true, except for the spending part, but naivety doesn't help anybody. Even if we somehow did have a pretty big budget, banging on about it and saying we'll be replacing our whole team would see clubs raise their prices on us.

You're certainly right that it's a tough proposition for Usyk, Fury is very awkward to fight as you say, due to his size and technique. Joshua had size over him too, but he managed that...of course, Fury has a further 3 inches of height and 3 inches of reach compared to Joshua. There's only a year and 8 months between them though, I don't think the age will be a factor, as Usyk probably keeps himself in better shape. Think you're exactly right that will be Fury's gameplan, it usually is. But I'm not sure he will manage the KO against a very tough opponent, and in that case Usyk will have a good chance on points as he's technically better. I'm not saying Usyk will win, I just think it could go either way and wouldn't rule him out. It's not likely to be a fight I pop a bet on.

Apologies if already mentioned (it probably has been), but I remember being told that the great thing about the DoF system was that it put continuity in place, so that even if the manager has been fired, the long-term vision remains the same. I kinda thought that would last more than 3 and a half months after the manager left. And only 2 years for that DoF in total (most of it with his hands tied behind his back). More bullshit as usual.