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Some Northern irish bloke called Michael Smith

The speed with which he is assembling a squad there confirms that surely he was team-building in his for Bristol Rovers while TUFC were paying his wages. I wonder how many of those players could have been appearing in yellow next season?

But the signing of Smith and the lad from QPR (Brown) must be players he did his homework on whilst our manager. He could not have done all this is in the short time he has been at Bristol Rovers.

Snake.

Really hope we beat them in that early game...if we can get a team together.

still a ****!!

Now really this should be on the banter board as buckle has nothing to do with TUFC!

...as you say it would of been interesting to see how many of these would of signed for us.

Yellow4life wrote:Now really this should be on the banter board as buckle has nothing to do with TUFC!

...as you say it would of been interesting to see how many of these would of signed for us.

Hypothetical now I know, but it would also have been interestesting to consider how much harder it would have been to sign the players he has signed had TQY been promoted.

This is all irrelevant now as Buckle isn't our manager however, when he joined us, he was signing players every other day in the early stages.

Burnhamgull wrote:This is all irrelevant now as Buckle isn't our manager however, when he joined us, he was signing players every other day in the early stages.

And it's a great strategy, one of the things that was good about Buckle. But I agree with others this has nothing to do with TUFC and should be moved to the Banter Board.

Agree with a lot of what's already been said. Of course we will take an extra interest in the fortunes of Bristol Rovers this season but we need to look forward ourselves now. I remember in one of PB's first interviews as Rovers manager he said he had a database of players. I'm sure this was put together during the course of the last few seasons not just when he knew he would be going to Bristol. As has been mentioned he's signing players left, right and centre which he did after he joined us. It seems he knew quite a long time in advance he was going to Rovers so has been able to hit the ground running. Unfortunately this hasn't been the case for Martin Ling who couldn't really start planning for us until he'd got the job. There must be a lot he has to sort out personally and first for us is a no.2. Once he's got that sorted he can look for players, hopefully he's already got some targets in mind and we will see some action soon. We're still the best part of a month away from the pre-season games so I won't be panicking yet.

I don't think we can assume that he was planning to sign these players for Rovers.

Surely he was planning on signing them for us, then when he went to Rovers he kept the same shortlist? Although aggrevating, it's not exactly a sin, and possibly shows he's made a sideways move in more ways than one. Though saying that, i'm not sure who out of them we could afford. Certainly these younger signings.

It's football unfortunately.

I believe he has had these players in mind for a while. These players look to be the type that would've come to Torquay and although 2 or 3 may not have been in our first team squad next year due to Geography, I think he's building the team he was looking to build with us. A bit more money is probably also helping.

Bucks, no doubt ably assisted by John Milton, has certainly been very busy - particularly when you consider he managed to fit in a short holiday after he was finally appointed on the 1st June!!!

As others have said, in all likelihood some of these players would more than likely have been heading our way if he had not of made the move to BRFC. Certainly I would think we would have had every chance of signing the likes of Stanley and Carayol (who I believe we tried to sign in January?) and perhaps the likes of Brown and Smith too. We now know that apparently he tried to sign Matt Harrald for us last year and he has certainly tried to get Matt Gill in the past. In reality we (TUFC) probably wouldn't have been able to get the likes of Gill, Harrold or Virgo as either wages and/or location would probably have scuppered any sort of deal. In the main, we know that most of the players that he has signed have been targets of his in the past and I don't accept that he has been "plotting" these signings for BRFC whilst still employed as Manager of TUFC - he is just doing his job!

CP Gull wrote:Bucks, no doubt ably assisted by John Milton, has certainly been very busy - particularly when you consider he managed to fit in a short holiday after he was finally appointed on the 1st June!!!

As others have said, in all likelihood some of these players would more than likely have been heading our way if he had not of made the move to BRFC. Certainly I would think we would have had every chance of signing the likes of Stanley and Carayol (who I believe we tried to sign in January?) and perhaps the likes of Brown and Smith too. We now know that apparently he tried to sign Matt Harrald for us last year and he has certainly tried to get Matt Gill in the past. In reality we (TUFC) probably wouldn't have been able to get the likes of Gill, Harrold or Virgo as either wages and/or location would probably have scuppered any sort of deal. In the main, we know that most of the players that he has signed have been targets of his in the past and I don't accept that he has been "plotting" these signings for BRFC whilst still employed as Manager of TUFC - he is just doing his job!

Maybe, but he would have been fully aware that had we been promoted his targets from us to the team he knew he was going too would have been considerably harder to sign had we have won the play off final.

Thats not suggesting he went out to lose, I don't believe that but I do believe he was more concerned about his future than our best interests.

Paul Buckle has only signed eight ?

In the not too distant past (2007), PB signed a shipload of hoofers in a short period of time. I wouldn't worry about any possible success he may have at his new club as the last load of hoofers got knocked out of the playoffs at the semi stage and also lost a Wembley final to a part-time non league team.

moved it here cos i dont want him on the main board.

so there. :P

Paul Buckle is now the manager of a direct league 2 rival,i am no longer concerned what he does,or does not do,and right now i am will be more than happy for Rovers to finish below is in league 2,should they finish above us,best of luck to them,you will not see me give them a round of applause ,could not careless about Rovers,more concerned with what TUFC do,to be honest.

Paul Buckle has gone out and signed decent league 2 players,his squad does look strong ,however there is no guarantee they will gel or achieve results.

Rovers board may well have set there stall out to give him time,however the gashead fans are a different kettle of fish,most are expecting nothing less than promotion to league 1 in Buckle's first season,if his team are not getting results 14 games or so into he new season the picture will change very quickly,and Buckle will come under pressure like he never did here.

Not bothered with PB any more. Whatever he does at BR is not any concern so he can sign as many as he wants. It's a new era at Plainmoor and although I think we are in for a tough season it wouldn't be TUFC if it wasn't either (a) play off chasing or (b) a relegation scrap as we don't do mid table. Lets look forward to ML's signings (if there are any quality ones left that is ^.^ ). We are still looking at rush goalies at this moment in time Like you said Forever, 10 to 15 games in and the Gas are languishing down in 14th spot is where it will get interesting for our former manager. We expect a struggle but they won't be so it will be a shock to them if it happens.