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

His wife has come out and said what?! What do you mean he needs a minder?

Ah, I see we were of a mind! Freddy Adu wasted his talent. Wayne Rooney just perhaps didn't quite reach the extreme heights he could have.

Wasted his talent is a bit harsh. I do think he could have been an even greater player than he was, potentially could have been the greatest English striker of all time, but he was generally regarded as world class for quite a while. England's second most-capped, and second-highest goalscorer. Over 200 Premier League goals, over 100 assists. Manure's all time top scorer. Most Champions League goals of any English player. 5 prem titles, 1 FA cup, 3 League Cups, 1 Champions League, 1 Europa League. He had an excellent career. Just because he could arguably have been even better doesn't take away from that. Good role model as a person, no, but that's a vast level of top end football experience. Not saying I want him, but wasted his talent seems a push.

Everyone used to hang around in the concourse after the game to hear Souey speak, especially if the ref had done us over! No other Rovers manager has or will talk to the press that bluntly with that much passion. It started to go off the boil near the end, and it hurt a little that he jumped to Newcastle (even if we knew it wasn't working for him at Ewood anymore), but he is well up there with the modern great managers at the club. Promotion, cup win, top six finishing, passion...and he brought in Tugay (1.3 mill) and Friedel (free), and got the best out of Duff. Three of the greatest players in our history, and definitely the three greatest since the title-winning team. He also brought in Hughes, without which we probably wouldn't have ended up with Hughes as our manager. Souey was a vital part of our history.

If he does, we either get promoted or lose him.

Tugay didn't need to be in the last third to play the killer/final ball to open up defences.

My impression of Ostenstad was anything other than professional. I still remember a cup game against a Rochdale or Rotherham or someone like that, and him getting a chance to force his way back in, and him barely looking arsed. One ball in particular he could have easily got to that he didn't bother chasing. Either he was very unprofessional that day or tbf, maybe very unfit and shouldn't have played.

Never seen that tough bastard look like he was going to cry before. He must really feel for her.

Why would Broughton not have come cheap? He was in charge of an academy in Norway for an obscure club, with no experience in this role and clearly making a hugely progressive career move. He will have come as cheap as Directors of Football come.

I'll say it again, there don't seem to be any quotes of him saying 'nice food'. It's just a message board snowballing food into some sort of luxury dining.

Harsh. He seems like a nice bloke, and my hot lodger I used to have thought he was the only one on my Rovers calendar she was interested in. It's also just as shallow to attach that much importance to her good looks as it is to his money. She could be a terrible person with a boring personality.

I don't think it's that we rate him at 1.5 to 2 mill, it's that we have just dropped him for half a season in favour of someone who isn't that good. If he also wants out, chances are we won't get more than that in the market, we've essentially driven his value down. Maybe we could squeeze a little more than our estimates but I can't envision someone paying 5 million for our backup keeper. He's also not an international btw, no caps yet. Worth considering also that Raya was very young for a keeper, he had many many years ahead of him and tons of time to grow into his obvious potential. Kaminski is 30, generally speaking with keepers you'd expect he may still improve a little til he's about 32, and then typically last til about 35. Absolutely it can be a year or so longer, and some outliers make it to 40 or so in great shape, but the point is there are theoretically about 7 less years of service and also far less potential growth, compared to Raya who was 23 and already an established Championship keeper of quality when sold. Apart from his occasional brain farts I'd say he was lower Prem quality. Yes we got shafted on the Raya deal, and we'll probably get shafted on a TK deal. All the more reason to keep him instead. As far as I'm concerned his reduced performance levels are probably mostly due to the injury we hear he was playing through.

It won't matter who we have up t'other end if our goalkeeper is Pears for a full season. Keeper is the most underrated position on the pitch. You keep your best one, not your least valuable one, unless the decision is taken out of your hands or you get an offer too good to refuse.

Probably both clubs sent too many good youngsters out on loan.

You're right, you really fucked up there - you should have tried to become a professional goalkeeper.

I'd worry JDT was the waste of a wage if that's his opinion.

Worst part of it is it's not even true. He did let us down at times. Had a fantastic couple of months, a fairly solid one or two, then was a bit shakey in the crucial final run in. Just because he wasn't chucking it in the net a la Wigan last year, people don't seem to have noticed much. I fear our biggest achilles heel next season will be in goal if we intend to rely on him as first choice and a youth keeper as backup.

Thought I would just re-contextualise my comment.

Surely that wasn't a serious question? Anybody who saw Duff play doesn't need to have that discussion. Duff was literally world class. Brereton may still struggle in La Liga and just scored something like 5 goals in the last half of a Championship season. Even if Brereton has another Diaz-level improvement in him from his current best form, he won't be as good as Duff. You might as well ask if Shearer was better than Rhodes.

He said Gallacher, which was indeed Kevin's name. Paul was a Gallagher.

Not sure I buy the notion that the Championship is weaker now than it was then. English players have increasingly been pushed further down the pyramid by more and more top class foreign imports. Players who would have been Premiership under the domestic percentages back then are instead playing in the Championship. As are more foreign imports than before. The Championship of the time was composed of more also-ran British players than it is now, is what I'm saying, so in theory it should have been weaker. The England team of now also reaches semi finals and finals, which it wasn't back then, so I don't think you can argue English players are worse now than then (although a bit of random luck comes into tournament football of course, and the standard of the best players doesn't necessarily dictate the standard of the players below them in the pecking order, I accept). Ultimately it's very difficult (and essentially pointless too, if an interesting aside) to compare different eras of the game in quality. Edit - although I've just checked the record books for Jansen, and he scored 23 in this tier in 2000/2001 anyway, so maybe you weren't suggesting it was particularly weaker now. Although, the 2002 Jansen you mentioned was, after the summer anyway, the one who had suffered the serious motorcycle accident, so I assume you mean the 2001/2002 season Jansen who notched 10 in the Prem.

93 onwards is hardly missing the glory years?

Now that we know he's leaving for free, I think it's an interesting question, maybe worth a poll: with hindsight, did signing Ben Brereton prove to be a waste of money? 6-7 million on his fee. Unknown amount for signing on fee, unknown amount of wages but reputed to be low (I once read on here it was believed to be about 8k p/w I think it was). Some slight debate over exact numbers, but the below shouldn't be questionable... First two seasons a complete bust, waste of a shirt. One goal each season. Third season contributed effectively, 7 goals from out wide, played nearly every game. Fourth season phenomenal..up to January, then essentially vanished as a force (partly circumstances beyond his control like injuries, Chile callups etc a big factor, but ultimately we're talking about what we got out of him). Fifth season very good until January, again. Then a bit of a liability most of the rest of the season until the last day send-off. The club achieved zero playoff placements and zero financial return on investment. We were never in relegation fights during his effective years, so I think it's hard to argue he saved us from relegation either (guess you never know where we'd have been without his goals, but I don't see it). So, that's what we got out of him and during his time here - was it worth it? Personally, I'm going with no. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't judge the worthiness of most transfers by whether we reached the playoffs, or we'd say every transfer we didn't make a profit on was a waste. But this was a very, very substantial outlay for a club of our financial strength, and none of the money came back to us. I don't think his wage particularly comes into the equation as we'd still have had to pay someone else a similar wage to be a solid contributor, and let's say 1 or 2 million of that fee too. I'm not talking about someone as good as Ben was at his best, just that we'd have bought someone else for the role who for the sake of argument let's say was an average contributor. I know someone is going to say it, and yes the club is to blame for not managing his contract and sale better, but that's not the question I'm asking here. No coulda woulda shouldas, just, in the end, did this transfer work out to be a good one for the club, worth what we spent?

Why though? If JRC can play as a defender, he can play as a physical midfielder.