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RND - Whats occurring ??
at 19:59 9 Jan 2026

I think he’s much better than 6/10 most weeks. I also think he’s significantly better than Bidwell or Wallace or Paal. I really do. Best left back we have had for a very long time. Physically he’s meets the needs of modern football too.

The issues are a) his injury record, and b) at 26 he’ll have limited resale value.

Now, I’m a believer that you have to balance signings between the “will turn a profit” and “make today’s team better” camps. He certainly fits the latter.

All that said, I’d probably say £1m is fair deal.

Problem is, I suspect Utd will want him and play him. He was highly rated before he missed two seasons. He’s done well for us. I doubt they’d sell him on the cheap.

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January transfer rumours
at 17:38 9 Jan 2026

Yep. Would bite your hand off for £5m (up front). Be mad not to sell.

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January transfer rumours
at 13:47 9 Jan 2026

Well, indeed. If the only rumour is about someone being interested in him for less than we paid, it’s a non-starter, isn’t it?

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January transfer rumours
at 13:42 9 Jan 2026

We paid more than 1.4m for him!

Fear there is going to be a big delta between what we want for him and what anyone else is willing to offer.

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Burrel out until March
at 13:41 9 Jan 2026

He’s Head of Sporting Operations. He might be telling people he’s the DOF equivalent. But he’s not.

Have had it made very clear to me he is absolutely not what you would consider a typical DOF. Stephan does not report to him. He is not making the signings or even having much say on them.

It’s Head of Performance (Fitness/Medical), with all the logistical sh*t that goes around that (training ground, pitch, hotels, travel, diet, etc) bolted on.

Now, I could have been misled and he’s running the whole show on the football side with Nourry doing the CEO and Financial stuff. But I think it’s more than likely Williams is bigging himself up. We all know Nourry is the one leading on the Player Trading strategy, which is undoubtedly a big part of a DOF role.

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Traitors UK thread **WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS**
at 22:42 8 Jan 2026

Yes, enjoyable how sure she was on who the traitors were (wrong on all 3 counts, and her best friend in the show was a traitor!), and how sure she was that she was helping everyone else (clearly not!). Pride before a fall and all that. She also got herself banished by talking too much about all her theories at the round table, which was a bit dumb.

I think the faithfuls should win this year. The explosion between Fiona and Rachel is sure to eventually result in both being voted out. And every time someone is recruited they tend to crumble. And Stephan’s crumbling already!

Reckon Faraaz wins.

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Ronnie Edwards
at 19:20 8 Jan 2026

Yeah, that’s it. Point is, if you sell someone for less than you bought before their contact is up you have to offset some amortised fee against the fee you bring in.

It’s all manageable. It’s something lots of clubs does. And we’re clearly not as reckless as Chelsea (bigger fees, 8 yr contracts, etc) but our revenue is a lot lots lower too.

It’s workable and can work well so long as you sell a decent amount every year. That relies on Nourry’s bets (our signings for transfer fees) coming off more often than not. And we keep signing well.

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Ronnie Edwards
at 18:11 8 Jan 2026

It doesn’t matter who, to an extent.

These numbers are all fag packet maths and I’m sure are a little out, but not materially.

It can be 6m of income from players sales from anyone. But fans need to remember when those sales happen, the money doesn’t allow 6m of spend on new players; it is just covering the historic amortised spend. If you want new players, you need to sell more.

However, there is one caveat, if we sell someone who bought for £Xm and amortised the transfer fee for, and we sell them for less than we paid, we will have to book as a cost the outstanding amount amortised. So, hypothetically, if Kone fails, and we sell him after 2 years for £2m (a £2m loss on the £4m paid) we’d have to bring forward the outstanding £2m amortised to that financial year. This means, in effect, we’d have sold him for nothing as far as that year’s P&L is concerned.

This brings into light another key point of the amortised approach. You absolutely must sell the players you pay transfer fees (and amortise said fees) for more than you paid. If you can’t, you basically end up holding onto them until the last few months of their contract when selling them
or paying them off won’t incur much outstanding amortisation brought forward. I’m pretty confident this is why Taylor Richards hung around for so long. We paid £2-3m for him, I believe, and I reckon we amortised that. And in those years we were tight to FFP, we simply couldn’t f*ck him off because on top of the salary owed, we’d have had to write off at that point whatever amount was left amortised over his contract term. It’s another downside of the approach.

But, look, the upside is nice things. It means for a couple of years you can spend beyond your means (to use family life parlance). But just like credit cards, at some point you need more money coming in to pay off what you owe. Here we don’t “owe” anything, but without sales we’ll have a big PSR problem and end up needing a firesale.

The whole thing relies on regular income from player sales, either not the ones amortised, or those ones for bigger amounts than you paid for them.

I think there is potential for big money sales in Kone, Edwards, Saito, perhaps Poku if he stays fit all of next season and tears it up. I’m just a little worried about this summer. And there is no guarantees the summer after who that big ticket sale is.

Again, I come back to it, it’s why having a tip top fitness/physio/medical/Performance teams is so critical. No one’s value goes up when they are injured…

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Ronnie Edwards
at 17:02 8 Jan 2026

It’s a hugely exciting signing because he looked class when he was with us last year.

I think at £4.5m there is definitely scope to sell him on for 3x that in 2-3 seasons.

All that said, with all the transfer fees were amortising over the coming 3-4 seasons now, we need a good player sale this year and every year.

Across the likes of Madsen, Celar, Dembele, Kone, Poku, Burrell, Saito, now Edwards, plus some of the smaller signings, I reckon we’ll have spent 23-25m. It was at least 18m before this signing. Let’s say 24m for ease of maths and we’re amortising all of those fees over 4 years, we have a 6m hit every season in the P&L against PSR for the next 3 seasons.

Without a sale to the tune of £6m we’ll be making a net loss on transfer fees in the coming years without signing anyone. If we want to reinvest, it needs to be more than £6m. This model doesn’t work if you wait several years in the hope of selling someone for £30m because by then you might have breached PSR, and everyone will know you need to sell so your leverage is gone.

So…Who are we selling in the summer for c. £6m?

This is where my issue with our Head of Performance comes in. We have to keep these assets fit and on the field so their value rises. If I was Nourry, I’d be bringing in a better person here to enable it because it’s critical to his model.

Burrell could have been that summer sale, but if he’s out for 2-3 months, he’s probably not fetching that money after one, injury hit season.

JCS? Can’t get him on the pitch and no one is paying money for him.

Chair? Age and injuries.

Madsen? Perhaps. Age might be a slight issue, and we spent 3-4m on him originally. Possible. But we then need to replace.

Poku? Looking like he could be a busted flush with 2 hamstring injuries already

Dembele? Looking like a busted flush currently. Might change.

Varane? Obviously the one we should sell, but I don’t see us getting £6m up front for him given his form.

Field? Age and salary an issue, and he’s not playing enough.

Kone? Needs more goals. Hasn’t scored enough to justify someone spending more than what we paid.

Saito? Is his form good enough to command more yet?

Kolli? Nourry has been presented with that gift by the previous regime, but we don’t seem to be treating him like a potentially big sale.

This is where my concern is. In isolation I think the Edwards deal makes sense and I’m happy about it. But I am worried about where the sales are coming from this summer and possible next season to cover the amortised costs of the all the transfer fees we’re making.

Our approach is a gamble. It relies on making decent sales every season. To be fair to Nourry, Kelman covered half, maybe more, of what was required in the summer, and the previous regime gave him another massive gift with the Eze money this season. So this season, I think we can more than afford Edwards. And to be fair again, Nourry got money for Armstrong and Dykes the summer before. So we’re probably okay to date. But if we want to be able to keep reinvesting in the squad and not be stuck with the same squad for 2-3seasons before a fire sale is required, we need to bring in +£6m this summer and next, and next, and so on.

Perhaps Frey and Morrison might bring in something this Jan to tide this season over? Here’s hoping.

As a fanbase we have to be aware, we can have nice things like this, but we must sell to enable it and prevent an eventual fire sale or PSR breach, both of which could bring about relegation.

So, Great signing. Concerned with who we’re selling this summer to enable the amortisation model.

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Burrel out until March
at 15:41 8 Jan 2026

Thanks, Oslo. A kick on the angle shouldn’t be 6 weeks out, should it? Something else going on, surely.

And why aren’t they saying what Chair’s injury is. He was due back over a week ago based on the last injury update.

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Burrel out until March
at 12:42 8 Jan 2026

It’s been obvious for a while. From late October be played every minute of every game through to Christmas, I believe. That is mad. It was coming.

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Burrel out until March
at 12:41 8 Jan 2026

Phased ramp up.

Fewer injuries in the second half of the season with this approach.

Calling Burrell’s injury a “contact injury” is a bit much, isn’t it? He stretched for a diving header. I contact at all. Was down holding his hammy, walked off holding his hammy, and the commentators called it as a hammy. But no, a contact injury. Some contact injury to be out for 2-3 months (without it being a fracture) too. Can’t recall many of those. And remarkable how a hamstring tear is c. 2-3 months. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Another hamstring injury for Poku. 2 this season already. 3 (or maybe even 4) in the last 12-18 months, I believe. Bit concerning.

Does anyone know what JCS and Chair are rehabilitating from?

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Our Pitch
at 19:07 6 Jan 2026

Haha! One of the driest periods of a winter I can remember. All the race tracks in the UK are racing on ground classified as “good”. You never see that at this time of year.

Why can’t they just be honest with fans? Bad contractor? Infestation? Whatever it is, explain it and say “We’re trying to rectify things as best we can as we acknowledge the pitch has fallen below an acceptable standard.” Wouldn’t that bring more trust and respect??

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Sam field
at 10:45 6 Jan 2026

Madsen has played very well this season, but does appear to be tiring/tapering off performance wise. That is very understandable. He’s been flogged.

There is a case to say you rest him in one of the next couple of games so as not to cause an injury that keeps him on the sidelines for a while.

I’d like to see Field alongside him. Field was a distinct improvement on Varane on Sunday. I’d like to see this partnership. If you then need to rest Madsen, given Morgan some minutes. We’re not going up or down.

Field is under contract for years because of that extension. And he’s on big money now supposedly so unlikely anyone else will be able to match it. He’s still a leader in this squad. He’s always available. Alienating him seems short sighted and petty, imo. After his service to the club, he deserves better. Without Varane out, he should start week in, week out. Hayden is not sellable and on a short term deal.

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Opposition players you always rated
at 01:48 6 Jan 2026

Graham Kavanagh at Stoke and Cardiff (I think?) a few decades back. At the level, the way he strolled around running the midfield and spraying it about. It was everything we lacked in a central midfielder at the time.

Ryan Woods, at Brentford, about a decade ago, was another who whenever we played Brentford used to just stand in the middle of the pitch spraying diags out to his wingers hugging the touchline, pulling us this way and that. We could never stop him . Career seems to have died a death since, mind.

Lewis Dunk and Aidan Flint were made for this league too.

I’d classify the above as all “underrated players I rated”, if that makes sense. Steered clear of the greats!

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Kolli rescues Rangers, but injuries mount – Report
at 22:20 5 Jan 2026

Be nice to see them both get a run. Field in the middle of the pitch and Kolli at 10. Let’s see. Makes us a bigger side too. Wednesday were a terribly small side, but Field came on and looked like a giant. Kolli also competed better for headers than he has in the past.

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How many injuries?!
at 19:46 4 Jan 2026

There is a certain irony in all these injuries meaning the club need to finally turn to Kolli, especially if he delivers, like today.

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Kolli
at 16:46 4 Jan 2026

You are right. But what’s more odd is how some of the club’s leadership seem to want him to fail and don’t think he has a future here…he’s arguably one of our most sellable assets!

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Kolli
at 16:01 4 Jan 2026

Whilst he hadn’t been great up until his goal, no one had been! It was his clinical finishing that killed the game and was the only bit of class on display today. Prior to his first goals which he hit perfectly, we were actually holding on for a 1-0 against a woeful Wednesday side.

Well done, lad.

He deserves game time in place of Burrell now, and it will allow Kone to play as a true 9.

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The Barry Bannan Master Class Match Thread
at 10:35 3 Jan 2026

The only thing I’d definitely do tomorrow, and I think it’s more important than any formation or other selection, is have Sam Field man mark Barry Bannan all game. Literally stand on his toes for 90 mins.

If Bannan is stopped, Wednesday will lose. Everything else tactically is of secondary importance. Field gets about the pitch, can tackle and is bigger than Bannan. Have him do that job, and make it a 10v10 game. We’ll win then.

I suggested this to someone at the club before the away game and was laughed at, as Bannan was some kind of geriatric footballer who holds no influence. Odd.

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