RevidgeBlue

Nail,hammer, head. For all the praise in certain quarters about "spending £12m" or "spending "£4m -£5m over the transfer budget" it had to be done simply so we could put a vaguely competitive looking side out** The transfer business this summer was about desperately trying to plug some of the holes left by outgoing players for less money. It wasn't an intentional attempt to improve the squad. It wasn't a case either of us selling one player for a huge sum and then being in a position to spend a fraction of that on a replacement and pocket the rest like when Wharton or even Szmodics were sold. **Sadly, probably not competitive enough.

Wow. Para 1) Pretending Dolan doesnt count as a player who refused to sign a new deal this summer. Classy. You yourself said you would have offered to put Dolan into our top bracket of earners on £15 k p.w. which clearly never happened Para 2) You can insist it's all down to greedy players/agents if you like but in the last few seasons we've seen at varying levels Rothwell/Lenihan/Nyambe/Brereton/Dolan/Travis/Brittain/Hyam/Batth and Weimann all refuse to commit to new deals. That's if they were ever offered anything at all. Just the odd ten players. And driven out two great Head Coaches in the process. Never the Club's fault, always the greedy players huh? Para 3) It's useless setting a wage cap if it's too low for the Division we are in Para 5) The Pears "situation" appears to be that he's been completely frozen out therefore we're paying him good money for absolutely nothing. Seems to be acknowledged by Jackson at the LT. Are you denying that's the case? Para 6) We didn't bring in a Hyam replacement so thats why there is debate. No point saying "it would have been ok if we'd done X,Y or Z". We didn't!

Im sure there'll be net savings on incidentals as well but Im not really bothered by that. I just can't get my head round anyone trying to spin a £2.5m trading surplus over the summer as a £4m - £5m overspend on a £5m transfer budget. To me that would mean purchases of £9m and sales of zero. Each to their own though.

Genuine question because I dont know, but would that be part of Rhodes' remit? If we've decided we're not keeping them on, is it our job to fix them up with a new Club? Sounds callous I know. They'd have been Ok if good old Uncle Tone was still here. He'd have kept them all on until they were 35.

I must be in a minority of one but I didn't think Radford was all that bad. Obviously well past his best by the time he joined us but you could see his quality in flashes.

So you dont even acknowledge we sold £12.7m worth of players? Just because Gestede said in the car crash interviews that sales made no difference to the transfer budget, it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. You're treating it as the done thing because the Club via the 3 stooges said at one point it was the way things happened here. Vi also said after a certain point in the window that anyone going out would be replaced. Where's Hyam's replacement?

Don't be silly. Anyone's better than nothing. Even Gallagher. A rare outbreak of common sense from the Regime if true although they've probably just been looking at the cost of free agents and had a nasty shock. Pity they didn't experience a similar moment of clarity before Hyam was sold.

You're twisting words there to make it sound impressive. If we'd spent £5m on players and not sold anyone then that would have been spending a £5m transfer budget on players. We're probably around £2.5m in profit from this summer's dealings having sold Hyam.

That's poor even by your standards chaddy. We've replaced our Captain and the heartbeat of the team with someone who we dont seem to have any idea when he'll be fit. We could be down before he's fit for action or at least before he's properly match fit. If we'd signed a suitable replacement for Travis and then this guy had come in in addition as a relatively low cost gamble that would have been fine.

That's not really a fair comparison as the two were starting from two completely different levels. VI inherited a squad that finished 7th then instead of building on that, him and the regime CHOSE to completely dismantle the squad. Eustace inherited a squad that narrowly avoided relegation but Id still expect Derby to finish comfortably above us. Along with about 21 other teams. I predicted us to finish 22nd at the start of the season and I've not seen much to change my mind yet.

According to reports we got £3.5m for Travis and Brittain and £2.7m for Hyam. Then roughly £1m each for JRC Buckley and Leonard. Don't try to make out as though we actually spent any money this summer.

What, do you think there's actually the faintest chance he'll finish 6th or above?. If you do you make chaddy look like a pessimist!. He's no excuse not to mind - he's got all these more mobile athletic types he wanted.

I remember him having a particular obsession with getting Steven Warnock out of the Club years ago. Cant remember if it was about Warnock specifically or just in general but I called him out at some point and he didn't like it. Got fairly abusive. Wonder if he ever found "Dan Williams". Probably riding around on Shergar with Lord Lucan somewhere.

There's a big difference between those two, Howard was looking for somewhere to cut his teeth in management and luckily we made the genius move of appointing him. Stapleton was a great player in his prime, but I thought he was absolute bobbins at Rovers, just going through the motions.

Im not certain either but if we have no control at all, why are Chelsea allegedly prepared to pay £750k?

He wasn't really. He calmly stated Brittain had received an offer he wanted to accept, (inferring that was the end of it in his eyes) and then then made unsubstantiated accusations about Travis in Public to help ease him out of the door.

Not sure why this has got 6 likes, is it only me who finds the fact we appear to view kids this age as an extra income stream fairly disgusting? If you're going to bring them in, at least develop them and then let's see them in the blue and white halves before we flog them on.

Don't think you're saying it early, most of us said it before he arrived.

I think you're crediting them too much with something approximating to a plan there. He was a warm body still available and brought into the building at the last minute after Hyam left. Hyam hasnt been replaced like for like.

It's been a desperately difficult watch, granted, but surely you have to give him one chance to show what he can or can't do in a tournament.

Anyone watching today? I've just remembered why I dont usually bother watching England outside of tournaments. Like watching paint dry. We'll win the game, we always do against this sort of opposition, but it's completely joyless stuff. Football by numbers. What on earth has Marcus Rashford done in the last few years to warrant selection.?

Posh 2-1 down now with just under 10 mins to go. As things stand they're bottom of League 1 with one point from seven games.

Three of them aren't/weren't fit and there's not a cat in hell's chance the option is ever taken taken up on Baradji imo. But yeah, sorry, you're right they've all been great.

Don't know if this is the right thread but stories on the LT and BBC 😯 website about a crackdown on parking on matchdays. Yet more efforts from the Club/ Council/ Local Police to make it as difficult and disheartening as possible to attend games. When I first started watching in the early 70's, the CarPark opposite the Red Brick Theatre and the site now occupied by travellers were available. And crowds then were maybe 50% of what they are even now. Now there's nowhere anywhere that isn't Club owned (and Im assuming a small fortune) and the Council seem to delight in making any usable space "Residents only" for no real reason. They're not private roads and they dont pay for the upkeep thereof so why should they have their cake and eat it? The Council are scumbags, go out of their way to make life difficult for us but the at the sniff of any success, they're the first ones in trying to get a photo opportunity.

They were never in partnership. Venky's granted Kentaro a contract to run the Club on their behalf in the early days although that formal arrangement was shelved fairly quickly after they got burnt is my understanding. There's no doubt though that the general modus operandi has enabled agents to have a beano at the Club's expense over the years and it seems to be getting worse again just recently. Dennis/Baradji/Forshaw x2 /Gueye potentially out on loan. Only one party benefitting out of those transactions, the agents.