This must be the first time a Rovers fan has ever said 'Hurrah!' to our owners not being departed or gone.

Crewe would be stupid to accept our structuring a deal right now. If they've done even rudimentary research on us, they'll know our finances are uncertain until things are sorted out in India. If they let us delay payments, they might never see them.

How are you suggesting it could have been handled much worse? All I can think is he could have encouraged a panic about it from the supporters. Perhaps initiated a firesale, but we know he doesn't get to decide that kind of thing anyway. Also I'm not sure that not handling certain situations horrendously qualifies as handling them 'relatively well'. On the second point, keeping us in the Championship and developing young players are two things that don't come under his remit. The manager and, to a lesser extent, GB, are responsible for those. The academy staff to a degree. Not Steve Waggott. He can't really take credit for JDT or GB either really. We hear the DoF thing came from someone in India and that SW really doesn't rate GB, and GB seems primarily responsible for hiring JDT. Swag was bumbling around over a managerial appointment for ages until GB showed up.

That isn't a fact that's out there. The fee was undisclosed, as they annoyingly tend to be. Transfermarkt has it as 1.75 million. Footballtransfers.com has it as 1.8 million. Some sources (Cov Telegraph and Covs Live) do say 2.5 mill though, but the Lancs Telegraph and Lancs Live reported 1.5 million, with the LT explicitly saying it was 'lower than the 2.5 million quoted in the national press'. Incidentally, Brittain was reported at anywhere from 'in excess of 1 million' to 1.5 million, so there might not be much between their fees.

His ability in comparison to them is even lower.

Oh aye, I didn't mean to infer any competence or ability to scrutinise at the door of Venkys. Merely pointing out that he doesn't in reality save them or the club anything, quite the opposite. Regardless of how he presents it or what codswallop they'll swallow.

Is he even saving them small amounts? Most of his cost-saving initiatives probably cost more than they save through lost ticket sales. Then there's the multimillions lost through failing to tie down assets. The majority of what's good for Rovers, in these types of areas anyway, are also what's good for Venkys. The more he loses, short and long term, the more they have to fish in their pockets to swerve FFP and save face.

Really?!? What is it you think he has managed relatively well? I can't think of any successful initiatives he's responsible for, but there's a list of failures as long as my arm. I'm confident that Swag has cost us more money than he's saved us, even before you consider his salary.

I think it typically is stated in these clauses, or maybe even just a law of the game. Otherwise, clubs would just say 'Ok, 10 million quid release clause? No problem, we'll give you a tenner up front, then we'll give you 10 quid a year for the next million years, job done'. Like Exiled said, on FM you can't trigger a release clause by doing it in installments. FM isn't the gospel, but it gets a helluva lot of things right, especially when it comes to the laws of the game etc.

It was more a pear. Which is ironic, because that's the shape of our goalkeeping department.

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/blackburn-rovers-face-obstacle-to-six-figure-january-deal/ I find it a bit concerning that Football League World's writer has a better grasp of our recruitment needs than our recruitment team seemingly do.

Yeh, that's especially surprising, especially since Transfermarkt has data for where he played in 47 of his career appearances at all levels, and not a single one of them was at CM! (36 LB, 10 LM, 1 RM). That data won't be complete of course, they have him having played 63 games in all at club level (U18 and upwards), so there are 16 games missing there. But they'll likely be the games played at the highest levels he's played. Of course, sometimes a player might switch position mid-game, so maybe he does move into CM mid-game sometimes and the stats won't record that. But if he was genuinely better there I'd expect at least some appearances purely at CM by now. I knew about one serious injury last Jan (ligaments I think) during his spell at Kilmarnock which gave me a little concern, but it sounds like he has had more injury woes than just that.

Hah, no I didn't. I kept swapping the two in my head all weekend too. Just interchangeable poncey poshboy unis after all...

Let me ask you though, we are 9th in the league for goals scored and 2nd from bottom for conceded. Why do you think we need to score more goals more urgently than we need to stop them going in, and if it's not the goalkeepers at fault, why are we conceding so many in your view?

That's absolute madness IMO, Pears is just as shit as Wahlstedt. Which of them is better is just a case of who is or isn't in form at the time, and Pears could certainly be ropey coming back from an injury...he was also becoming ropey again before it. Even if he is better than Wahlstedt he is still woefully inadequate and will cost us a lot of goals over a half season. But to each their own, if you think he's hunky dory I think you can't spot a keeper at all, but you're entitled to your opinion.

For the second time, I'll remind you he won Player of the Season.

Fair enough, thought he was quoting gate receipts. I thought the prize money at this round was much pezzier than that. I might be thinking of the League Cup.

We need a good goalkeeper before we need any of those, for me, but you don't think we need one at all? For me that's easily our weakest position with in our best 11, and the main reason we have fallen away from the playoff chase.

Why on earth would we want a 19 yr old keeper from Brighton when we are all lamenting the inexperience of our two 24 yr old keepers? Also the last goalie we loaned from Brighton was probably the worst keeper we have had since Fettis.

Is that before or after Cambridge get their half, player match bonuses are paid, matchday staff are paid and we are taxed? These earliest rounds of the cup don't really spin income for clubs like us unless we get an away tie at an OT or somewhere.

The fact he spent 2 hours saying we would be better without GB, and making out things initiated from before his time are personal triumphs certainly sounds like an agenda to me. I also don't trust very much that Swag says, so I'll be taking his claims with a truck of salt. Logic tells me what's happening here is Swag feels threatened by the DOF model and is hoping to undermine it by spreading discontent towards GB. Wouldn't be surprised if he was happy about the O'Brien debacle that was in part caused by his attending a game instead of negotiations.

We have board meetings?

Although that didn't start with Williams. If I remember rightly, Williams resigned as he felt he was being undermined. It was the next bloke who got potted for sending a letter listing all the problems. I think that was more because it leaked, too, tbf.

Aye, we need a striker too, but the discussion was about whether that's more pressing than our need for a better goalkeeper to stop them at the other end. Since we are doing much worse at keeping them out than we are at putting them in, our goalkeeping situation is equivalent to our striking situation if we didn't have Szmodics in the first place.

We're seldom capable of being 2-0 at 70 mins because the defenders and keeper can't keep the opposition out. And it's a lot to ask to routinely put the game to bed at 20 minutes. One goal would be plenty, more often, if we could stop being the league's 2nd worst for conceding.