Sir Ralph

Waste of time will cause more division- link arms don’t kneel

Sounds like a cracking deal from what people are saying about him. This is why we didnt sign Williams.......maybe using similar money to sign this guy full time instead.

If anything if they lose grealish the pressure will be on the villa board to now complete the JWP deal

Fair point

Completely agree it was £38m in total (with £5m add ons). If we get dont get around the £50m mark we will have been caught with our pants down.

Another thought - Villa paid £33m plus £5m add ons for Buendia (£38m in total). If thats his value, they must at least pay £50m for JWP or our Board will have negotiated badly compared to Delia.

If you could get £40 - £50 for JWP, this is a substantial amount. For example (and I know this is a bit Football Manager) but based on press reports you could buy Armstrong £15m, Delaney £10m and Edouard £20m. So if we got that type of money would it be that bad, if we could but quality to replace and expand the squad? I appreciate there are wage considerations in that comparison too.

Imagine losing Vestegaard, Ings and JWP this summer................

I agree - tella does deserve one. I can’t imagine he is on much a week so increasing his wages to keep him would surely be worthwhile in risk terms bearing in mind potential shown. Djenepo is only 23 and one year older than tella - I think he is worth keeping as he has shown flashes. Losing him next summer at a reduced rate I think would be bad business.

I also didn’t realise that obafemi contract is expiring at the end of this year. Surely we want to get some money for him this window. Also tella and djenepo only have 2 years left. If either has a good season we are going to have to sell next summer. Surprised the club haven’t signed them up to new deals yet bearing in mind the Vestegaard and Ings situation. Stephens also expiring next summer.

If vestegaard goes and we get a cheaper replacement centre back I could see it. As the window gets closer to closing I think Blackburn will drop their price.

OUT Long Free vestegaard £18m obafemi £5m IN Armstrong £15m Delaney £10m Williams Loan £2m Our net spend (including transfers to date) would be plus £10m

Seems though Blackburn are expecting Armstrong to go this summer. Surely you wouldn’t say this about your star player if they weren’t certain he was going (we haven’t struck this tone about Ings yet). It looks like us or Watford at the moment. If you were Armstrong I think you would want to come here https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/blackburn-rovers-boss-tony-mowbray-outlines-transfer-stance-over-southampton-and-watford-target/

Yes I’m aware the £8m isn’t up front but still if we have the chance of “recouping” £8m I still think that’s pretty decent business considering the flop he has been for us. I think his season at Fulham has helped us get a much better overall deal. Alternatively lemina could have dug his heals in and said he would run his contract down. We might have got £1.5 million (plus wage cover) for one year loan before the end of his contract. considering we think Williams is too expensive at £2m the £1.5m may even have been optimistic. hence the conclusion that the overall deal doesn’t sound bad on the face of it also a massive ego and pleased to say goodbye to him and his Instagram account

Not bad at all considering he only has a year left on his contract. Pleasantly surprised.....

Watching the video you realise how lucky we were to have him. I can’t recall such a high profile player since who has ignored the advances of other bigger clubs and potentially bigger earnings because of a love for a club.

A good window initially is starting to head towards a more mediocre one. Hopefully if we can get rid of a few more on larger salaries (Forster and lemina) we can reinvest. Even to have a mediocre window surely we would need to take on another striker and full back.

I agree you can but the focus should be on these much bigger issues where people are having their livelihoods destroyed surely? When was the last time these major issues were mentioned and profiled by players?

If certain groups of people in this country are so concerned about racism can I ask why they are focused on the arrest of 5 people in this country for tweeting footballers (not diminishing that the abuse is unacceptable) rather than calling out the deaths and enslavement of people across the world (eg Uighur, prostitution of eastern European girls, etc)? Also why are England’s footballers taking the knee against racism when they are going to play in Qatar’s football stadiums effectively built by quasi immigrant slavery? If said parties were so outspoken in relation to these more fundamental matters of discrimination I would have much more respect. These are the areas where a difference can more fundamentally be made

His contract ends next summer so why would we loan him and not just sell him to Celtic ? I assume he wants to be a free agent to get more ££ rather than being sold possibly, which a loan deal would achieve

I understand the point. It was just a bit of light hearted banter.

Does this mean the players are kneeling for the tories? Mings will be furious when he finds out

A genuine question - if, as the players say, they want all fans to join them in the campaign against racism, why don’t they take on board the views of many fans who object to knee bending and link arms instead? This would likely get on board 90% of those objecting to the current kneeling.

Exactly this. The biggest issue is the reporting in the media. My personal view is that there is a significant portion of the population that are aware that racism is not as rife as the media would make out (from experience other countries have a much bigger issue than the UK). When people are told that they / the country is racist, it turns them off to the issue, when they arent. In some cases, some people that can’t articulate their views on the matter then make stupid racist comments (I’m not justifying them but stating a possible outcome). The point about the rashford mural is a good example. It was quoted as being racist when it clearly wasn’t, cue an outpouring of collective media grief. It’s now been confirmed that it wasn’t racist but nobody in the media seems too interested about that.

It’s strange how people can’t divorce someone saying that they disagree with racism but at the same time saying that the media response is disproportionate to the issue (which it has, in my opinion, been during lockdown generally). This doesn’t make you a racist or a racist sympathiser. The scarier thing to me, in terms of being able to voice an opinion, is some people can’t tell the difference. Without being able to verbalise rationale points people tend to get frustrated by the issue generally, cue more racism. This is the biggest danger. Sensible and Factual discussion should always win through.