NcnsBcfc

20 hours ago, richwwtk said:

This guy certainly seems to not have a lot in terms of experience or qualifications for an in depth role at a football club.

He went into Fleetwood as a 'consultant' and somehow bagged the DoF role while there. And is now just hanging around in the background for the fewers.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/eddy-jennings-joey-barton-bristol-7107802?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

So being a scouser and working at Fleetwood also now seems to be a prerequisite for getting a job at Rovers as well as playing there.

Is Barton some sort of charity for lonesome scousers who found themselves against their will, stuck on the Lancashire coast?

Just now, Davefevs said:

As long as he doesn’t pull a mooner!!!

God that must have been at least 15 years ago now?

Sometimes these things come back just to put a smile on your face again 

Going to be a massive sell on clause in the deal isn't there.

If he does well in L1, and gets that sort of move then it will be a good bit of business.

I think this works well for all parties, I can't see him getting any game time at all with us this year.

On 09/05/2023 at 14:59, Davefevs said:

I think Stockton could score at Champ level…he can score any type of goal, he’s just one of those players.  I’m surprised nobody took a punt last summer.

But I doubt anyone will this summer (again).

Amazed in a way that he's signed so early in the window for Burton!!!!

You would have imagined better offers perhaps from a top L1 team at least?

On 18/06/2023 at 23:02, Mr Popodopolous said:

Back closer to earth, our level I've read snippets that imply Sheffield Wednesday are going for it this season.

We still are none the wiser as to their position, they haven't even released the 2021-22 accounts yet!

The same people that said Cardiff were "going for it" no doubt.

Somewhat difficult when you're under a transfer fee embargo in their case.

I have no doubt that Weds will have to improve their team. It is full of 30+ somethings, plus a large number that have no experience of playing at L1 level.

A big job, and probably playing some part in Darren Moore leaving.

1 hour ago, richwwtk said:

Eddy Jennings appears to be real - he's a mate of Barton's who seems to just hang around whatever club he is at doing made up jobs.

It's clear that Wael thinks Barton walks on water. So has allowed him to basically bring his mates into every key position in the club, whether they are able to do the job or not. What other Chairman would allow a manager that not only had 1 crown court trial, but two, to carry on. Every other manager facing that would have been on gardening leave. I know he got off both cases (by various means), but that's not the point is it?

I know there's normally a bit of nepotism in every club ( Look no further than our current chairman), but the CEO being Barton's mate as well is not the best in any shape or form.

NP has said that sometimes at clubs you have to have really difficult conversations, where things are challenged. This cabal of scousers are not great for Rovers in the medium to long term for sure. 

1 minute ago, petehinton said:

Another day with no signings. But that’s expected because staff are on holiday apparently….blimey. Not like that stopped us signing 3 already. If Barton really does want to do recruitment all by himself and that involves nothing happening until he’s working, then god help them!

I'm guessing the well of scousers that used to play for Fleetwood is starting to run dry after 3 seasons.

1 hour ago, !james said:

Nope

 

Obviously Lee must have decided to take the Leeds job instead? 

 

 

1 minute ago, bert tann said:

Speculation mounting within leading football circles that David Dim is about to be appointed Rovers’ new CEO.

Instead of Tom Thick?

1 minute ago, frenchred said:

Brentford ain't doing too shabby without an academy!

Not too sure there are many parallels between Rovers and Brentford though....

40 minutes ago, Negan said:

Might not be the best manager for them and can understand the confusion around it but I really don’t get all the stick and hate LJ gets by our fans. Yes it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing all the time but in my years watching city there’s only been 3 managers I’ve genuinely enjoyed watching the club with and actually brought some excitement/joy and that’s Gary Johnson, Cotterill and Lee. Granted the first 2 won promotions and a cup but with LJ it’s the first time we were considered a genuine threat to the league and a team that could challenge. Also worth remembering we were his first “big” job and he was still learning his trade. Things could have gone differently for him here if he had someone above him better than Ashton to oversee spendings.
 

Might be the only one who thinks this but I reckon he’d do a decent job at Leeds. If you look at his jobs so far it isn’t that bad. Kept Oldham up and settled, went to Barnsley and got them in the promotion mix and to the cup final before leaving for us, they went on to get promoted and win the cup, took us from relegation fights to pushing for play off spots and a very good cup run. Went to Sunderland who were an absolute shit show and again had them top 4 and it was a bit of a weird sacking with the timing. Where’s he’s at now there’s only so much you can do. Never making top 2 and at best can make a domestic cup final. He needs to come back to the championship again imo.

I don't hate LJ for his time here.

I just look on it as a missed opportunity for the club (collectively).

We had a CEO who bought and sold players like second hand cars. But in essence, we had the chance to get into the Playoffs in at least 2 seasons, and eventually on both occasions fell away at the end of the season.

Would NP or another experienced manager have failed to get us into the playoffs with the resources available to him. I'm not so sure.

The story of the LJ years are like the metaphor of the story of Icarus and the general overreaching of the club at the time. It all came back to bite us over the proceeding 3 seasons.

23 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

Got ya.

Many thanks @Marcus Aurelius

Apologies @Davefevs

So basically his wheeler dealings bought £37 million from transfer sales of players not at the club when he got there, and over the same amount again from players that were already here/bought by SOD, Cotts, GJ etc.

A classic case of selling the family silver rather than astute transfer trading then.

43 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Sounds like they’re appointing someone else today, so have gone behind his back basically

"Welcome Lee Johnson to Bournemouth AFC"

"We had to move quickly to beat Leeds United to the appointment" 

11 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Julie wasn't it ?

And the Henbury cretin couldn't/wouldn't give any details..

Julie H isn't the Football liaison officer anymore, It's a guy called Tom Williams nowadays.

The gas have their own FLO, Mark Neal. So Henbury Gas could always have contacted him of course as well.

2 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

Loans and transfers under Ashton, as in players he signed himself, excluding players already here.

Got ya.

Many thanks @Marcus Aurelius

Apologies @Davefevs

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

here’s a summary of all of the loans and transfer under MA.  Transfer fees only (pretty reliable), no loan fees / signing on fees / agent fees included.

 

Just 4 players signed remain:

Weimann, Kalas, Wells and Williams.

Webster £20m, Brownhill £7m, show that £27m out of £37m received was on just two players.

Thats not world-class recruiting, whoever is responsible…

Those figures for received seem a bit low though aren't they?

Reid, Bryan, Flint, Kelly, Pack - that's another £35m+ combined isn't it. All gone during this period.

Just now, italian dave said:

 

It almost seemed like it was done on a kind of percentage basis.

We've bought from lower league/France and made money before. 

Therefore, buy 5 from lower league/France, and if 4 fail, but one makes a 6x more than he cost then we're in profit. And it didn't go much beyond that!

I've heard that MA only used 1 agent to cover France/Italy, so all the signings in essence came through the same source. It all seems a bit of a cosy arrangement to say the least.

I think @Davefevs or someone else shared MA's remuneration package with City before. Like Barry Fry's supposed situation at Peterborough it was quite obviously in his own self interest to continue the recycling of players in order to allegedly boost his own salary (amount of transfers consistent with his large increase in salary during the busiest two seasons). That's never a healthy place to be as a club where change is actively promoted over continuity and stability.

On 18/06/2023 at 09:18, Smith & Gavin said:

Here’s how it was looking last night!

I wonder what the pitch is looking like at the Memorial at present.

No doubt, they will get around to it at some stage, and then have to drive lorries across it to build the prefab stand in record time.

43 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

I disagree, we got good money for great players, Webster, Brownhill, Reid etc.

Nagy - Essentially a free transfer out

Famara - Record signing / free transfer out 

Walsh - Essentially a free transfer out

Paterson - Essentially a free transfer out  

Wright, Adeluken, Eliasson, Smith, Szmodics, Watkins, Pack, Eisa.. all wakes for free or a nominal fee, and that’s just the last couple years of his time with us. 
 

I’m sure @Davefevs has a spreadsheet with profit/loss on player sells, we made a loss on about 90% of ‘his’ signings. He only got good money for the players that actually commanded it, and the majority of those players were here before he even joined!

Thanks @Marcus Aurelius some really interesting posts today.

I think the thing for me is that for all of the mantra around MA's philosophy of buy cheap and sell high, from memory it was only really Webster and Brownhill that fitted this strategy.

Of the others Reid, Bryan, Flint, Pack, Kelly and others of course were all here, or part the academy. Yes, he got good prices for the players at a time when our profile was high as a club from playing well against the Manchester clubs.

But really the players that we bought to replace these players (90% of whom, left for either free, or minimal amounts) showed the fallacy of his and our lack of guile and foresight. Engvals, Watkins, Duric, Adelakun,  Fammy, Palmer, Nagy, ; christ I could go on and on. Having 2-3 clubs in the bag for every position (Why .....)

2 minutes ago, petehinton said:

They have a dev/mini academy type squad that’s not in a league as far as I’m aware. Their academy was pretty awful and had no proper funding behind it, so  King Wael basically got rid of it all as he thought it didn’t warrant the money, and argued the catchment was great….. I mean, how stupid can you be. 
 

R Joe also banished all academy staff and players from the first team set up when they started poorly in L2. Lots of pretty talented academy staff left in droves soon after. 

Thanks @petehinton.

That is woeful on Rover's part isn't it?

A family club without any real academy/development pathway for it's young players. No wonder a load of them jump up into the midland's academies, at the first chance of the club getting a fee for them.

How the club thinks they will progress on the pitch whilst having to rebuild every single summer is beyond me. Surely you need the ability to build a squad over a number of years, whilst providing continuity and giving opportunities to younger players to step up.

If you're having to replace 12-15 players every season, you're relying on luck more than planning in order for it not to go completely wrong.

You can imagine whoever follows Barton, will look at the infrastructure of the club, and think this is a cluster####.

39 minutes ago, Swede said:

. . . In Row M

I'm pretty sure that the "South Stand" is the new deluxe stand behind the goal that hasn't actually been built yet. It was very nice of Rovers to move a vulnerable 80 year old to a new seat in a stand that doesn't exist.

Judging by the seat ticket prices, they probably have made a few more quid out of it as well.

15 hours ago, Bristol Rob said:

The signings won't be quite what they hope and the Fewers will pretend to be delighted that they have become a development club for Championship and Premier League teams as they take yet another handful of loan signings, whereas all that does is push any of their own young players further down the pecking order.

I know that the Gas don't actually have an Academy as such. But do their development squad actually play in any sort of league?

My eldest is in the SGS  Football Academy squad (coached by Dave Hockaday) and they play Bristol Rovers throughout the season (as well as other CAT 1, and CAT 2 Academy sides) as well as being in a league (Elite College Football Academy).

I can't see that Rover's have a Youth/ development side that plays in any sort of league at all?

Any young player seems to get farmed out at the first opportunity to a step 3/4/5 side. Greenslade and Ward were at Hungerford where their "Successful" season ended in Hungerford's relegation from Conference South as the rock bottom team.

Not sure Joey has to many dealings with the under 18s of course, as he would probably not pass a DBS check . 

8 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

This is fair but I assume this is only for a start plus we don't necessarily know the types of fees and wages they will be offering.

Quite a lot left too but I don't see a huge difference in percentage terms or indeed actions in terms of Covid claims and then those of Everton- thinking more historic than present.

Elsewhere, Cardiff still want to sign up to 10 players as per one report.. .some have left but their FFP position seems interesting, maybe they would be on track to breach this upcoming season. They reportedly cannot pay fees or loan fees as it stands.

I think the inability to pay any sort of fees is tied to a UEFA sanction for the next 3 windows over the Sala saga.

So much for the wealthy owner spending tens of millions on transfer fees this summer then.

16 minutes ago, Jerseybean said:

Wolves have agreed a 55m euro (£47m) deal to sell captain Ruben Neves to Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal.

Alex’s potential move perhaps about to enter the centre-stage phase. 
 

 

Great money for Wolves there.

Seems like the Saudi clubs are going to start paying the high transfer fees, as well as the high wages now. Not too dissimilar to the Chinese clubs from 5-10 years ago (Oscar for £67m still makes me laugh).

@Carey 6 Louis what's that player valuation software that you showed me that professional clubs use?

Would be interesting to see what price they put on Scott?