Congratulations on having a well-run club. I know it hasn't always been the case at Palace. Our supporters should be envious, instead many are sinking to the usual dumb insults. Your current state feels somewhat reminiscent of what we experienced in the 2000s.

Agreed, the conspiracy theories can get a bit wild on here at times. Our biggest issue is our inability to plan and know what we are doing months ahead of time. I actually think JDT would have found that kind of transparency and planning refreshing.

Didn't realise you were on first name terms with him. All I'll say is this, keep defending the messaging and you'll soon need to change from 'Dreams of 1995' to 'Dreams of 2011'. There are few things more dangerous for a company, a club, or a person than consistently lowering their expectations. I don't expect him to give up his job, but I do expect him to take on a role with ambition and a desire to actually succeed, not simply maintain a salary.

Their odds of sneaking into the top 4 would have been long even had they won last night. Villa would have only needed a draw to secure a Champions League spot. When you then factor in that an equaliser would have done nothing to help them, I can somewhat understand why they weren't particularly fussed. The reaction would have been exactly the same at Ewood had we been in a similar set of circumstances. You can't have it both ways.

If he is then he has the choice of either speaking up about it or walking away. He'll get little sympathy for me for taking a job and lowering expectations through the public messages that he sends out. There was a stark contrast in the aftermath of the final day between the messaging from Eustace versus the messaging from some players. There were players stating that it was good to survive, but we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Then there was Eustace saying that it was cause for celebration and making it out that he'd pulled off the great escape.

I don't know. City have spent astronomical sums, but so have every major side in European football. They've at least built a squad over time, have some academy influence, and have key players who've been around for years (the same can be said for Liverpool and Arsenal). We really aren't in a position to be overly critical of the way money changed football. We were one of the clubs that started the fire.

As if we wouldn't do the same if it were Burnley? Half of our songs are focused on Burnley and we're not even in the same division as them...

Yeah, of course it can be done, but the chances of nailing 4/5 signings at those prices is highly unlikely.

So, from loans we've had a few decent ones. It would be difficult to say that we saw the best of them as most of our loans are fairly young players. Elliott, Tosin, van Hecke, Khadra, Reed, Armstrong (as a loan), and Gallagher (if he had only stayed a loan) were probably the highlights. We've done OK, we've just been over-reliant on signing loan players to fill key first-team roles. But we have had plenty of players in the past 5/6 years even who we probably got the best of. Adam Armstrong, BBD (so far), Lenihan, Rothwell, Nyambe, and honestly a host of others. I don't think we do any better or worse than most other sides in that department.

I think that's a little unfair. I could make a long list of players from the last 10-20 years who had their best spells at Rovers and subsequently underwhelmed - or at least didn't improve - elsewhere.

Could be wrong, but don't know why it would be:

Wait, so you have Szmodics leaving and you're still only reinvesting 7-10 million? Also, I won't even bother to look into all of those figures, but why would Duncan McGuire be available for a fraction of the price that he was in January? You do know that there appear to be club options on his deal for a further 2 seasons? IF we are also selling Szmodics (for, at the very least, 10 million), then it would still be unacceptable to only see 10 million spent this summer.

Sure.

How on earth are we bringing in 4 or 5 quality players for 10 million? Is that including wages? Let's say it isn't, you think we can average 2 million a player and get 5 quality players with it? Without even looking at how our club is run, that would be expecting us to have a 100% recruitment strategy. Between Raya, Phillips, and Wharton, there's no excuse for there to not be 15m in the transfer kitty this summer (not including wages). That would allow for a premium signing and a decent amount to be spent on 2 or 3 other players. Sadly, that won't happen.

I have far more confidence that Wahlstedt will turn good.

It's in the top 15 highest transfer fees ever received for a Championship player under the age of 23. There's a few bizarre ones ahead of him (Lavia in particular), but the list is mostly filled with players who were widely regarded as top talent, some had Premier League experience, and some even had international experience. Yes, they got more for Alex Scott, but it isn't a bad deal. The issue is that we won't reinvest the money. It was the same problem when we sold Adam Armstrong and the same reason as to why many didn't want to see BBD sold as his deal was running down. Other clubs would find a way to spin that transfer into a stronger squad. We will be left with a weaker squad and are now missing one of the few players that was genuinely enjoyable to watch.

Agreed. Rovers supporters aren't unique in this respect, but we'll also then expect our incomings to all be great deals under the logic of 'he's only proven in League 1' or 'he's only played a season in the Championship'. We got a good price for a player of his age with his level of experience. The problem will be that we sold him in a rush and that the funds aren't available to strengthen the squad. If we were about to reinvest 20m then things would look a lot better and you could justify the sale.

Probably a little more, but there's a cap on a player in the Championship with no Premier League experience. Not to defend our owners, Waggot, and anyone else involved in this decision making, but if he were to be sold to Bayern (or a similar club) this summer for 60ish million then it would actually end up looking like we go fair market value for him.

It's entirely possible and I'm sure he'll get his chance in the not-too-distant future. It's not that dissimilar to the situation that Jansen found himself in prior to the 2002 World Cup (although Jansen was vastly more proven and experienced in club football). I just think it would be a big risk to throw him in at the deep end and a waste of a spot in a squad to take a player when you're not certain that you can totally trust them at that level.

I took a break from the messageboard because I grew tired of how people were disagreeing, not because they were disagreeing. An example of that being the fact that the way that you responded to my post is different to how you would have responded had it been virtually any other poster. That's tiresome for me, but if some messageboard grudge gets you through the day, then more power to you. And if you're only just realising that saying someone's name at the end of a response can come across as condescending or patronising, then that's somewhat surprising.

Gosh this is depressing.

It's a pretty sizeable difference when it is such a limited sample size. Not to mention, as bad as United's season has been, it also involves him playing in some 'bigger' matches than Wharton has ever got close to. Plus, there are the two England caps. Wharton will likely get his chance at some point in the next 12-18 months, especially in the post-major tournament shakeup that's likely to include a new manager and a few of the older heads in his position stepping aside (Henderson, for example), but you would be throwing him in at the deep end to include him at this stage.

Well, he is also significantly more experience at a higher level when it comes to selecting a young player for a major tournament. He's got more Premier League experience and a couple of England caps already.

I think this is the toughest pill to swallow. The 'no excuse' culture has been filled with excuses and, what's worse, the lowering of expectations to a point where an excuse is perceived to not be needed.

That's probably true and things were very bad at the time that he left, but I can't imagine they would have been any worse than they've been under Eustace. We've won 3 league matches since JDT left. Would we have beaten Leeds? Probably not, but we would have picked up a win or two against the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth, Birmingham, or any of the host of other bad to mediocre sides we played. Would our goal difference be worse now? Probably, but we've also lost by 5 to Bristol City, by 2 to Sheffield Wednesday, and drawn against a weakened Coventry side that played a third of the match with 10 men. So, are some rewriting history as to how bad or good JDT was? Probably. But the sad reality is that things couldn't have gone much worse since February. He had to go, but let's not pretend that if we stay up it is because of some Eustace turnaround. I think JDT would have picked up a similar number of points. Fewer draws, more big defeats, but a couple of those draws would have turned into wins.