ClaphamFox

Points deduction sent us down

Rowett was appointed before McCarron started. And given that we were heading for relegation and Rowett has a track record of saving teams in that position, it was a logical appointment anyway. The Ferguson story is utter nonsense. Absolutely nothing in it. As far as I’m aware, McCarron’s role does not make him Emperor of the Internet so I don’t see how he’s supposed to be responsible for every bullshit rumour out there. The new structure hasn’t even had the chance to appoint a new manager yet. Your comment was a bit silly.

How on earth are James McCarron and Kevin Davies supposed to be responsible for the ridiculous Darren Ferguson story?

We may as well fold the club if people believe crap like this.

Not going to happen, unfortunately. But it might just be possible that his influence on the choice of manager will be less than it has been in the past.

What's the full allocation of season ticket holders—23-24k? If that renewal figure is correct we could end up close to all season tickets sold, which would be extraordinary in the circumstances. I'm pretty sure in our last season in League One we had around 14k season ticket holders and averaged just over 20k per game.

If you were feeling mischievous and wanted to send this board into meltdown, you could go on BetVictor, stick a tenner on Ryan Mason, light a cigar and sit back…

I don’t want him either. Our academy graduates are going to play a major part next season. It should therefore be a prerequisite for the job to have a proven track record of developing young players. Rowett does not have that, so he’s not a good fit.

His recent comments in media interviews strongly suggest he does.

Darren Ferguson is not in any barrel that we will scrape.

Rowett clearly wants the job and is currently in the building. That provides a baseline from which we can judge all the daft rumours that will grace this thread over the next month or two. If a name mentioned is obviously a much worse option than Rowett, we can assume the rumour is false. Darren Ferguson sits firmly within this category. He is not going to be our next manager.

This is from the April financial statement: "The Directors have also considered the Club’s cashflow requirements in a severe but plausible scenario. Sensitivities considered in the forecasts included variances in finishing position, net player transfer spend and the non availability of future banking facilities. To cover the working capital needs of the Club in that scenario the Club has access to £10m remaining undrawn elements of a five year loan facility with King Power International in addition to an undrawn future share subscription agreement for 116m shares at £1 per share entered into on 21 April 2024 and amended on 4th April 2025 which can be further called on if necessary to support the Club’s cash flow in the unlikely event that all these negative events come to pass. Based on the above the Directors therefore have a reasonable expectation that the necessary funding will be available when required and the consolidated financial statements have therefore been prepared on a going concern basis." Taken at face value, this would suggest we won't go into admin next season. How we fare after that if we remain in League One for a while is another matter....

Somebody has dropped a tenner on him as a joke. Prepare for much more of this kind of thing over the next month or so

I actually think it will be a very different line-up to last week's anyway. Page, Aluko, Monga to start, etc.

It was.

He's clearly not going to play in League One. But there seems to be some debate over whether the terms of our option to buy would enable us to buy him and immediately sell him to another club at a profit. I have no idea whether this is possible or not, but if it is we should be all over it.

They all knew that last Friday and very nearly beat a team going for automatic promotion. It wouldn't surprise me if they turn up again on Saturday—just to show us that they can when they want to.

There were strong rumours that he'd been appointed. I was one of the ones reacting negatively to it. I was thrilled when it emerged we'd gone for Enzo instead.

@Chelmofox gets the credit

RVN was keen to stay on and Rowett clearly wants the job. I'm not sure they all hate it as much as you imply.

Not for those on professional contracts, it isn't. And all of those I mentioned are on professional contracts.

Blind cynicism is just blind optimism's bitter twin—and neither are the sharpest tools in the box. So many posts at the moment are basically variations of: "I'm angry and depressed and I hate the club. Everything is shit and it's only going to get worse. Did I tell you how angry and depressed I am?" I mean I understand the sentiment, but it doesn't half make for tedious reading sometimes.

I don't think any of them would yet attract big enough bids to make it worthwhile. Far better to build the team around them, allow them to improve and sell them for much higher fees in the future. There will be a major turnover of the playing squad this summer, but selling the crop of our academy at well below their potential future value would not make any sense. Monga will probably go as soon as his contract becomes a professional one as we'll likely get a bid large enough to justify it, but not the others.

It's a frightening thought, made only slightly more palatable by the prospect of him walking into a press conference, pretending he's from Blaby and saying: “The lads are still a bit mardeh after the weekend, but I’ve been proper impressed wi’ how they’ve got stuck in at trainin’, and we’re all graftin’ hard to get it right for Satday’s game.”

I'm not so sure. Outside of our fanbase the general view seems to be that we have talented players that have horribly underperformed as a group this season, not that we have terrible players. I suspect a number of clubs will be looking at our relegation and thinking they can pick up Championship or even lower-PL players at bargain prices. Nelson, for example, has had a poor season in an underperforming team, but he is a ball-playing English centre half with a lot of potential. He was getting rave reviews at Oxford and was attracting interest from Chelsea at one point. I expect there will be some interest in him. We can afford to let Winks and BDCR go for nominal fees, and I expect that's what will happen. Mavididi had a good season in 2023/24 and is still relatively young, so I'd expect some interest from the Championship. I agree Stolarczyk, Thomas, Hamza and Skipp will probably stay. Monga will surely go as soon as his contract becomes a professional one and we can get a half-decent fee. I think Page will stay and play a big part for us next season. Hopefully Hutchinson too.