Shearer hurt like hell, but he went to his boyhood club who had just challenged for the title. There was no reason to think he would pick us in that scenario on the basis of loyalty. I honestly thought Friedel loved it here so much was going nowhere unless forced out. I'll never be that naive again.

Seaman was 'the' England keeper. Flowers won 11 caps.

He could have chosen to invest a more sensible amount that he was willing and able to lose. Didn't he have a degree from an Ivy League uni in finance or something? Always surprised me he managed to balls that up. When Friedel left it was the last straw for me in terms of never letting myself get too emotionally attached to a player again, or assuming their loyalty and love would keep them at the club. That one hurt, I was so sure he was going nowhere, and then it was only to Villa.

Has he actually publicly used the low uptake on that game as an excuse for not reducing season tickets? If so, it's well worth pointing out that's precisely what several on here predicted he would do when the Reading pricing was announced.

I'm not a fan of one or two of the data points used, we need to remember it's just stats based off comfortably the best season of his career (could be a purple patch) and it's only League One....but, I feel a bit more confident about Ennis after watching that. To regularly rank in the top 10 (sometimes top 3) for his position in his league on a range of important metrics is encouraging. On a free, presumably fairly low wages (this would be the kicker for me, if he's on 10k p/w or something like that then it's a big risk) and on a 4 year deal with a 1 year option, still quite young at 24 but has some experience...you can't really argue with that business. Sealed nice and early to give him time to adjust to the playing style, manager and his teammates. I'm not going to say I'm expecting immediate fireworks, and I can't say I want to risk him being our main man up top out the gate, we still need someone who has shown they can smash them in at this sort of level. But on the face of it, he seems a decent squad addition to compete for a regular goalscoring role. The proof, as always, will be in the pudding. With him still having room for growth and perhaps needing time to adapt to the level, as well as with it being expensive to permanently buy established Championship strikers, I'd think a loan is our best bet of reliable goals in the middle. Cannon or Archer are the two firepower options (see what I did there?) I'd prefer in this regard, then we get a season to see if Ennis can deliver for us.

Them too, but I was mostly referring to fans of other clubs. I used to hang with a few Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs fans at uni, and I remember trying to tell them just how good Brad Friedel was. They actually laughed when I told them he was a better keeper than Jens Lehman, but it was me who should have been laughing. As far as they were concerned though, nobody could be considered world class playing outside of the top 4/5 teams in England. I don't feel like Brad got his full dues until he'd played at Villa and moreover Spurs, and even then he doesn't get as much credit as he should from many. Far as I'm concerned, the top three keepers in Prem history are him, Schmeichel and peak Cech. Whatever order people want to put them is subjective, but those have to be the top three for me. On ability, not shit like trophies (which really depends a lot on the other ten players around you). I'm quite sure many football fans from the general public would replace Friedel with Van der Saar (who isn't far off tbf), and for me that's purely because he played for Manure. Incidentally, Friedel was also under consideration by Manure at the time, and the main reason they went for Edwin instead was reported to be because we would have wanted a lot more money than Fulham. There have been plenty of other terrific keepers who aren't too far off the reckoning (Jaaskelain was another underrated due to who he played for), but I reject any notion of that not being the top three. Still personal opinion of course, but I'm not for budging. Brad was superhuman, and so consistent. A human wall. But many couldn't see it until he was at higher profile clubs. Another bone of contention for me in this regard is how many players haven't been called up to England (or not often enough) due to playing for us and other 'unfashionable' clubs. Even in favour of 'big club' bench warmers at times. But that's a whole other rant.

Who else has ever scored only 13 goals (all competitions) for a club, and yet 10 of them are of that standard? Truly didn't score tap ins. Unless my memory is bad, it didn't seem like he shot from distance very often, but when he did it was usually a quality effort. Not sure why he didn't take more pops, other than that maybe he was smart enough to know and feel in his bones when it was likely to work and when it wasn't.

I'm not on about our fans.

Not that anyone was willing to admit it until they left us.

I feel like every day should be that time of year. I love how he clearly shouts 'Fuck off!' after scoring that Fulham goal at the end.

As a Rovers fan, surely you've been disappointed plenty this last decade?

I mean, it wasn't for me, but I don't find it helpful to call people morons for having different taste in what media they enjoy.

Are Luton moving to a new stadium, or it doesn't meet Prem league standards or something? Confused by the pundit saying 'I really hope we get to see Premiership football at Kenilworth Road'... they just got promoted so, presumably, yes we will?

Wouldn't surprise me if the crumpled up piece of paper being tossed around is how we handled the O'Brien deal...

I remember Mowbray saying when we signed him they thought he was going to play in the Prem. Looks like it'll come true, unless they buy a couple of new LBs.

All those quality penalties and then Dabo absolutely skies his. I was saying all you need to do at this point (sudden death) is gently chip one down the middle. No way those keepers weren't going to dive before the kick with pens landing right in the corner. I like a minnow success story, even if it makes me jealous whilst we flounder like this. Both were surprise packages for promotion, and I know a Cov fan who's a good bloke and respects Rovers, so I didn't have the hate of them some seem to. I remember them being good with us when we mathematically lost the title at Highfield back in the day too. But Luton are the smaller minnows and I wanna see Manure fans walking through that terraced turnstile. So had no real preference overall. Cov will surely lose Gyokeres now, either to a weak Prem side or a relegated one.

If England could take penalties like this lot, we'd be laughing.

I'm not sure why you used Tugay as an example. Much more exciting signing than Niall Ennis. I think the main reason this video is a bit cringe is the player in question is a freebie from League One, and we already knew about it hours before the announcement. If it was a genuine surprise and a marquee signing, I'd understand building some 'suspense'.

You yourself frequently seem to think they should put more money in. Ungrateful eh... Top 10% of owners, don't make me puke. I hope your post was tongue in cheek.

In fact, to answer my own question, yes, it would be just over 1,000 less capacity than Bournemouth's was when they went up. https://www.si.com/fannation/soccer/futbol/news/luton-town-smallest-premier-league-stadium-ever-kenilworth-road

Wiki says they were in the Conference Premier (their first time ever at that level) from 2009/10, and got in the playoffs 3 out of 4 seasons whilst down there, finishing 7th in the other season, so they weren't dabbling with the Conference South. Still an embarassing difference between the two clubs' fates from that starting point under billionaire Venkys to where we both find ourselves today. Out of curiosity, if Luton go up will their stadium (10,356 capacity) be the smallest in the history of the Premier League? Not counting capacities limited due to building work and strictly talking Premiership not top flight.

Since we're offering Whitehall a new deal, with all the injury issues he's had, you'd think we'd be offering Harlock one too. Seems to have played well.

'To who? There's only one 5 ft 6 lad in the box!'

He lost me at 'selected on merit...in games'. Anyone who couldn't see there were light years between Wharton and Morton on match day, in favour of the former, can't spot a CM. What happens in training is scant consolation if you can't deliver it consistently on a match day. One of my biggest fears for this window is that we try to get Morton back and Wharton gets benched again.

If we sell him for less than double that, we aren't doing this right. (Entirely possible of course)