hypochondriac

I think the other positive about him is he's an attacking midfielder according to Martin so even if he does play, it's not like a position where a mistake is likely to lead directly to a goal. The game is kinder on attacking players in that way.

I haven't disputed that he's decent for a 20 year old. We spent 15 million on him in the championship and he's essentially a bit part player. Given the choice, I'd have spent more on a top forward signing rather than the crock we went for to give Leicester a run for their money. It's not a really big deal as we are on an excellent run but if you were being really critical that's where we could improve and where I'd have spent the bulk of our budget. To put it another way, the likes of Downes and Fraser are imo a level above Charles at the moment for all his undoubted potential and are proven championship performers so an equivalent player of that sort was what I'd have liked to have seen in the summer - either loan or transfer - before we spent so much of our budget on a young promising player. I accept others may feel differently but nothing wrong with having high standards.

Not an unreasonable comment. I think Charles is a half decent signing, my problem was with having a restricted budget and buying potential with a lot of it. Seems like an inefficient use of relatively meagre resources to me.

TBF you'd expect Downes and THB to have cost significantly more if we'd actually bought them. The striker was an idiotic signing I said as much at the time.

Don't necessarily disagree, I just think if you're talking about spending 15 million in the championship it really needs to be your best and key player rather than a guy with potential who sits on the bench most weeks. Like I said, good player but for that money in our position I'd be expecting one of the top players in the championship.

Which makes it even weirder that we decided to sign Shea Charles for 15 million. Good player but bit of an odd one if money is tight.

Is anyone else not that fussed if we don't get someone? Some people going mad about it on Twitter but I really think another signing is nice to have rather than a necessity. That changes if we lose Adams or kwp of course

Yes I think I read that Fraser downing tools after covid led to a blazing row because Howe viewed it as going on strike and giving up on the team. Think he questioned his attitude.

He speaks very well and you can't fake sincerity like that. Great news that he will be staying even if we don't go up.

Let's not go overboard. It would be a blow but we'd no doubt replace him with someone who can perform on the championship. Obviously not as good but it's not promotion bid over.

Best in the league for field tilt - you'll never win that.

Can Chelsea even afford that with FFP?

Would suck and I'd be gutted if we lost him before the summer. Whatever replacement we got in we'd be significantly weaker after janusry than before.

I'd genuinely be surprised if we looked to sell in January. Surely we'd factored in the cost of his wages once he wasn't sold in the summer.

I can't imagine that's going to be an issue for the next six months. If we don't go up we can probably sell him for a similar amount in the summer. I'd be very surprised if we sell him late in the window but stranger things have happened.

Alternatively, the replacement scores less than 6 and we go up anyway with 6 million more in our pocket.

Miovski maybe?

I thought Dyche had already said he's staying.

Yes but we will then have to start leaving players out of the match day squad. I'm not sure that's going to go down well with loaness.

I don't think it's weird to think this seems a little odd. On the face of it we've used up our final loan spot to provide cover for the midfield which is great to have but I'm not sure either the club or fans would say it was our number one priority.

Worth the financial risk in keeping him imo.

I haven't made out that 7 is a small number. It is significantly smaller than 13 points though and all I was saying is that the chance of it occurring is small but much better than it was a few weeks ago. Like you said with such absolute certainty that we wouldn't be getting automatic at the time that was similarly thought to be highly unlikely - probably more so.

It's not gloating I'm just saying it's not completely outlandish at the moment to overhaul a potential 7 point deficit if leicester were to lose next Monday. I accept it's unlikely.

Sounds like he linked up well with Armstrong too.

Worth a read. Certainly changes opinions from the start of the thread to the end. https://www.brfcs.com/forums/topic/34579-joe-rothwell-a-myth-or-a-prospect/page/5/#comments