Ghost of Clough

Most of that is tax and national insurance

Bielik was closer to £3m with the other 4 players having a combined £300k. Bielik would have been amortised by £1.5m each year. It means in the current accounting period, we will make a book loss of £0.5-1m on him - more than offset by the profit on Knight.

Gate receipts and sponsorship each £1m down on my original estimates, with 'other' £0.5m down. TV £0.5m up, hospitality about £200k up. Overall income is c£1.8m lower than expected, altough it is over a 9 month period rather than 12. I can't accurately say what our wage bill was, but based on previous Clowes' Development wage bill, our club wages were about £10.25m, with £1.25m in pensions amd social security. This would match my original estimate. However, a 12 month period would mean I underestimated by quite a bit. It looks like our total other expenses were about £10.5m, and we made a transfer profit of just under £1.5m, which results in the £6.8m loss.

I was just about to post this. Nominal book values for Bird, Knight, Sibley and Duncan (due to agent, signing on fees, etc). I assume this doesn't include academy players as I think we kept around 8 from our U21s that summer.

Yes, but he played in more cricket fixtures for Derbyshire than he played football. I belive he also authored some Derby County related books (unless it was a different Ian Hall)

Discussions with Charlton, Blackett-Taylor and his agent had started months ago. The contrcat woth Blackett-Taylor was agreed prior to the fee being agreed with Charlton, hence why this has progressed so quickly after the bid was accepted yesterday.

The EFL can't do anything to help really. Reading will only be saved when the owner is no longer the owner. He's not going to sell up, the EFL can't legally take the club off him, so they need to 'encourage' him to put them into administration - essentially find a sanction or two which make them sell all players of value. Honestly, I can't see a scenario where they're in the EFL in 25/26.

He's played in a few positions. RCB or RWB in a back 3, RB or RWin a back 4. He may have even filled in at LB or CM at some point too

Blackett-Taylor, Mendez-Laing and Barkhuizen all rotating and chipping in with goals and assists will be a game changer for us in this 2nd half of the season. It allows us to keep them all fresh and shouldn't have big dips in form (which often comes from fatigue). We also have Wilson terrifying full backs. Good options to have.

Blackett-Taylor is a winger, Young I'd a centre forward

"I will not let him go to anybody who has not bothered to watch him." It amazes me that a football club would just ring up to ask for a player without knowing what type of player they actually are. I can understand at lower levels where we have built relationships with them and they ask for a short term loan in a certain position, but not a long term one. I was hoping a L2 club would come in for Brown, but I imagine a lack of first team minutes would mean it's a bit of a risk for them.

I'd be dissapointed if we hadn't even considered him as his end product is excellent, but I think this is just a made up rumour to get more money out of Carlisle or get more clubs to bid. Charlton surely can't be after another forward either?

We were linked with Ikpeazu under Rooney, but I don't recall anything since. Ladapo I would still be happy with signing, but I didn't comment on him.

What's wrong with the way he eats his half-time orange?

They'll play a front 2 of Ladapo and May, with Leaburn, Ikpeazu and Aneke as backup

"Not messing around" when about to sign a forward with 23 goals in the last 6 seasons, 7 goals in the last 3, and only 1 goal in his 17 games this season 😅

They would now need to average 2.5 points per game for the rest of the season (current average is only 1.15) to give them 80 points. It would also require Barnsley dropping from 1.88 ppg to 1.55, Stevenage from 1.77 to 1.7 and nonr of the other sides between themselves in 13th and the playoffs improving. If the target was lowered to 75 points beign enough for 6th place, Barnsley's ppg would hav eto drop to 1.3. To put it another way, those 45 points over their next 20 games would be a better tally than anyone has managed over the last 20 games - both us and Peterborough have picked up 43.

He's our 2nd choice LB/LWB whilst Forsyth is out. Elder is also building up his match fitness so that'll be Sibley's position for now (either starting or as a sub). I wuldn't be surprised if we try to mould him into a wing back for next season too. Midfield's an area Warne will want to strengthen, so I can't see Sibley improving on his already limited game time at AM, so LWB is the best chance of regular football he'll have here.

Technically, Lech could only file a complaint whilst we were in admin, so it could only be resolved after Clowes had bought us out of admin. As of March, Lech were still pursuing the full amount and Quantuma were refusing to talk to them.

To be honest, the only way I see them getting out of it is by their owner putting them in administration. He already owns the stadium and training ground. It means, once the players are sold they'll have absolutely nothing left... other than a massive pile of debt. I think it would take at least £25m for them to be bought out of admin. Would anyone be willing to pay that?

I think he's been dragged down to the poor standard of the other defenders and lost confidence. He's only been singled out because of where he was last season. Their squad is awful - they'd need 7 new starters to have any chance of staying up.

Charlton manager recently said "you have got to treat and respect people that they are giving you a honest answer" in relation to Blackett-Taylor's injury. Interpret that however you want.

There was still an estimated £2.6m due at that point. As they waived 1/3 of the total, that means we still ended up paying about £1.3m last summer (£2.6m total out of an originally agreed £4m)

I mentioned him back on page 36: