• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

Who stays, who goes?

Sparky

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Really bad news that Lowe has gone in my opinion, ok he is 36 but that didnt stop him scoring a whole load of goals for us in a poor team.

Another year would have more than been made up by his goals next season. It does not send out a good message that we didnt try hard enough to keep our player of the season and top scorer.

I am quite angry to be honest. Even if they gave us 100k where else are we going to get a proven goalscorer? We have lost Lowe, Cass, and JLAA. Ok the last 2 did nothing but i really feel we should have given lowe a 2 yr player coach deal. A bit tricky perhaps as we dont have a manager but they would have been better paying johnny mac off.

plus we have lost a potential captain. Feeling gutted about this and really cheesed off
 

Sparky

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And another thing (maybe i am being overdramatic) but what will the likes of wallace, jenno and koumas think seeing our best player leave?
 

Ian

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Terrible decision by the club. We'd have been even worse last season if it wasn't for Lowe's goals. You can't simply replace these type of players no matter what the 'excellent value' is. I think it will only be a matter of time before some of our other players are offered deals elsewhere.

Club and players talk about looking toward next season and making sure we shoot back up again. Not going to happen when you lose your best players and have a team of standard low league players.

Same old from the club I'm afraid and the management decision will be equally uninspiring.
 

Sparky

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I've calmed down a touch now I've had my dinner!

I suppose it's also probable that financially, we can't match the likes of bury. How depressing.
 
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I agree with all of the above. I am bewildered and gutted by this decision, which suggests we are going to be served more of the same in the months ahead and really does bring our long term future into question.

It is particularly depressing because of all our best players I thought Lowe was one of the most likely to stay: still under contract and a local lad who had settled back in his home area. As has been stated above, we have zero chance of finding a striker of the same quality and for a club looking to move forward (which we apparently are not) the sale does not make any kind of financial sense: how does a token fee replace the the money we would earn from a possible promotion ? All of which suggests that there is still zero ambition at the club and we might simply become in League Two what we have been in League One for the last five seasons. I wonder if Butler was really brought in by Johnson to man the customer complaints desk as the club shrinks still further, deflecting criticism from himself ?

After today's events I don't hold out much hope that any of the quality players will stay with us, which would leave us with a bunch of unproven kids and, in all probability, a clutch of League Two journeymen.

Despite my frustration with the club, Lowe's behaviour has not impressed me in recent days. We could have done without his outpourings in the local media and I don't think either party comes out of this episode well.
 

bigmart

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Sparky, the likes of Wallace Jennings Taylor and Fon Williams are almost certain to be leaving too.
 

andrewesq

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Like RLC
I am bewildered and gutted by this decision, which suggests we are going to be served more of the same in the months ahead and really does bring our long term future into question.
My computer got thrown when i heard the news, cant believe it, with seem to have less and less ambition.
Was hoping for a promotion push but feel a 17th place finish will be a target next season if we keep going on like this!
 

Boz

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Like everyone else, I'm more than a bit disappointed about Lowe's departure, although it had appeared on the radar a few weeks ago. Agree that if it's "good value" we should be given the figure so that we can judge for ourselves. Personally, I'd hope there's an add on fee for every game he plays against us. Bury have been splashing the cash and are likely to be near the top next season, which is more than can be said for Rovers.
 
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Bury have been splashing the cash and are likely to be near the top next season, which is more than can be said for Rovers.

I seem to remember Bury were in near financial ruin a couple of years ago, so spending a fortune on thirty-something players does not seem entirely responsible......

Having calmed down a bit, when you look at some of the players Bury have signed - Mayor, Nardiello, Adams, Lowe - they probably blew us out of the water financially. It probably would not have been possible to compete with them, but to lose a player like Lowe so early in the summer still sends all the wrong signals.
 
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Boz

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Bury have a newish owner and it seems they've spent around 300k on players since he took over. There does seem to be uncertainty about where exactly the money is coming from; it certainly looks like living beyond their means.
 

Ian

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Getting back to the Lowe situation, why was there any discussion as to his future when he signed a 2-year contract anyway? Was there something in his contract if we got relegated. Lowe talked about wanting to commit to the club as long as the club was willing to commit to him, surely that was already in place when the club gave him a 2-year contract?! Am I missing something..
 

Sparky

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I think Lowe would have been willing to stay had the Bury offer not came in. However they are a club close to his heart given he achieved promotion with them but what has obviously helped is that at his age and for a L2 player, they have given him one hell of a contract for that level and his age. They are splashing the cash as has been disgussed on players and wages

Therefore as it could be his last contract ever, I don't blame him for going and also, with their spending arguably they are a club on the up whereas we are not. If I were him I probably would have gone - even if we had stayed up - purely for financial reasons.

£60k we got for him apparently....
 

Ian

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He still had a year left on his contract and the club shouldn't have let him go. 60k is peanuts when you lose a 20-goal a season striker.
 

bigmart

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60k plus his wages will take it to around about £160 k which is not to be sniffed at
 
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Getting back to the Lowe situation, why was there any discussion as to his future when he signed a 2-year contract anyway? Was there something in his contract if we got relegated. Lowe talked about wanting to commit to the club as long as the club was willing to commit to him, surely that was already in place when the club gave him a 2-year contract?! Am I missing something..

I don't think you are missing anything Ian. He probably had to take a reduction in wages with the relegation, but I am of the old fashioned view that contracts should actually mean something when they are signed. Lowe could still have seen out his second year with us, as he was apparently happy to do when he signed a two year deal, and then got his extra year at Bury, or wherever, next summer. It is noticeable that he has got a habit of signing two year deals with clubs and then doing the dirty on them after twelve months; probably just typical of the modern footballer really.

His behaviour contrasts starkly with that of Ian Goodison, who for the best part of a decade was on yearly contracts, but was still happy to resign every season.

All of that said, I am still surprised and disappointed that we gave him away so easily. We could have just refused Bury permission to speak to him; by contrast it seems as though we were actually desperate to get him out of the door and off the wage bill, as the negotiations with Bury seem to have been going on from before the end of the season (no coincidence perhaps, that Lowe was so poor in the last six games of the season ?).
 
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https://twitter.com/rlowe15/status/91998478468775936

I have attached a Twitter link to comments made by Lowe in 2011 when he was half way through a two year contract at Bury. Sounds surprisingly familiar.....

Of course, he succeeded in engineering a move to Sheffield Wednesday.

It seems our Ryan might actually be a bit of a jerk.
 

Ian

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Looking at his twitter account it seems TRFC would not give him another 2-year deal, not sure why they should when he still had another year left on it, and we got relegated. Joke really..

But you're right RLC, this is the way football is now. No loyalty at all and you go where the money is. Don't know why players sign contracts anymore, not worth anything.
 
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Looking at it from Lowe's point of view, when he joined us a year ago he took a big drop in wages. He then scored more goals than most of the rest of the team put together and was clearly hoping for an extended deal to safeguard his future. If all he wanted was an extension, I have some sympathy. If he also wanted a pay rise, I understand the club's position. More money for Ryan from a reduced pot means even less money to rebuild the rest of the squad. Until we know exactly what was said, it's difficult to take sides. I hope the club did everything it could reasonably do to get him to stay. As I said earlier in this thread, I'd have liked to see him given a player-coach role. However, if Lowe wanted out, there was no point in keeping him. I am very disappointed that he won't be playing for us next season, but that's his choice. In the end, his 20 goals did not save us from the drop. However, without his wages to pay last season, we might have been able to afford to sign a couple of decent defenders last close season and avoided the shambolic start to 2013/14.
 
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Looking at it from Lowe's point of view, when he joined us a year ago he took a big drop in wages. He then scored more goals than most of the rest of the team put together and was clearly hoping for an extended deal to safeguard his future. If all he wanted was an extension, I have some sympathy.

Lowe knew perfectly well that given the club's financial state and our relegation we could not afford to give him a rise, or extend his deal, given that it is quite likely that he won't be fit to play regularly in the 2015-16 season when he will be 37. We were stung with the Robinson / Sodje situations last season, and in fairness to Butler and co. it would have been wholly irresponsible to have offered an extension to our highest paid player at this stage. His demands were wholly unrealistic.

As I have said previously, Lowe has a history of this kind of behaviour and has basically stitched the club up in my view. As others have commented elsewhere, we have lost better players than him before and life goes on.
 
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