Doubt it. Chelsea v Leeds if that one happens, Liverpool v Watford/Southampton, Bristol/Forest v Manure and Sheff W/Coventry v Maidstone are all likely to be bigger draws for the tellybox I'd say.

He joined Albacete in the Spanish third tier, which is dogshit. So it does seem a little strange on the face of it, but tbf it has worked out fairly well for him (moved to second tier, freshly relegated Valladolid for 1.2 mill Euros).

For a League One side? Yes of course it is. 3 and a half years left on his deal. We took him from a promoted Plymouth so you can be sure we offered more than they did and it would be a financial burden for a League One side to match it, especially when they consider his injury record. We're not 'concerned' about NI contributions, we're just aware they're a factor in what a player costs.

True, though after his wages, agent fee, national insurance etc, probably more like breaking even. Doesn't sound like we will get the 500k we are asking for though. Not from Bolton anyway. And even if they agreed, I think a League One side might struggle to match the lengthy, lucrative contract we have put him on so it could fall down at that point.

Ah that makes a lot more sense. Fairly sure you're right, that he's talking about us wanting a permanent transfer for 500k, whether now, or in the summer as part of a loan deal now.

Probably more like 35 million in 2024.

Sounds like bullshit to me. No way we are asking for 500k to loan an injury prone non-scoring striker to a League One side for 6 months. A chunk less than that and with the figure including his wage contributions and maybe I could buy it, but we'd still be asking too much for them to reasonably pay it.

Because he appears to be worth 2 million quid in the market.

50 million is? I think you're in for a rude awakening when we do sell him...

It was January though not summer. We really could have done with him at that time, almost a certainty we would have made the playoffs. And then who knows what could happen.

Yeh Whitehall has looked really good whenever I've seen him, and has had rave reviews from more regular watchers. A real shame he's had such a bad time with injuries. Like you say, probably too late now to make it with us even if he stops being injury prone.

I just fundamentally disagree about Pears. In form he is a steady Championship keeper, but he's rarely in form for long. He makes lots of mistakes that seem to go unnoticed by most fans, in the form of awful positioning. So you get comments like 'he couldn't have done anything about that' and that's because he wasn't in the right position in the first place so leaves himself with no chance. Almost as iffy on crosses as Leo. Lower Championship quality (I'd say he's bottom 5 material over a full season) isn't good enough unless we want to stay scraping around at the ass end of the Championship. I'd make the opposite argument to the one you make about great keepers of the past - that by having only a badly out of form Leo to compete with he's starting to look to many like he's a better keeper than he actually is, as your last paragraph hints at.

I wonder how much Mowbray's abject surrenders in the cup year after year cost us.

Agreed, we also need a striker, we shouldn't have sold Kaminski (at least not for that pittance or with such a poor replacement) and I doubt we will use limited funds to rectify that mistake. But we were talking about what we should do, not what we will do. We miss chances to kill games, so do all teams. But we have the league's top marksman. We have one of the league's worst set of goalkeeping options. Furthermore, worth considering that a good striker will cost a lot more than a good goalkeeper, generally. Those limited funds aren't going to manage it. If we bring in a striker it's likely to be another Telalovic/Ennis type signing and I just don't see the point if that's the case.

I was a CB and can totally agree. With a good keeper behind me I was twice the player.

They call that forlorn hope.

We're scoring. We're conceding. I know which one needs changing. Pears isn't a decent Championship keeper, he's a decent backup Championship keeper.

A journeyman player is one who has been at quite a lot of clubs. When we signed him back from City, he had only played for 3 clubs, over 9 years. He wasn't a journeyman. In fact he played for 5 clubs after he left us the second time, so he was arguably more of a journeyman later.

Speak for yourself. I know that goalkeeper is the key signing. Not that I expect us to sign one.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2024/january/23/loan-rovers--gent-grabs-first-senior-goal-/ Gent seems to be impressing at Motherwell.

He wouldn't be teaching them how to suicidally pass it around with the defence, so I doubt his services would be desired here.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24070847.blackburn-talks-advance-hope-third-january-transfer/

I dunno what makes them think a 20 yr old League Two CB who has question marks over his defensive ability even at that level should be going for 2 million. I'm not even convinced it's a profile we should be spending 500k on.

Well I think if we're being technical, he's still on loan but signed to a pre-contract for when his deal expires.

That's what it sounds like to me, if it's true. I wouldn't mind that, bringing in an experienced keeper on loan and sending Leo to League One whilst he adjusts to English football. Or abroad, to see if it can tempt buyers or restore his confidence.