www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... bombshell/ On indefinite leave and will no longer train with the club.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... bombshell/ On indefinite leave and will no longer train with the club.

Maybe he wants to be more hated than kopout !

He might make himself look silly saying he wants to play at a top 4 club! I can't see any of the top 4 paying a large fee for him, and I can't see the club letting him go without one!
Salford might suit him anyway. The Manchester lifestyle is not to be sniffed at!

First big test of how new management handle adversity IMO. Losing whitehead is no doubt a big loss long term. Short term it's how we can turn it to our advantage that matters. His form hasn't been brilliant for a while with several posters wanting him dropping. If the level of clubs that he wants to go to are all at full cap could we engineer a deal that sees a player + cash coming the other way to facilitate a deal?. Could be a big help with our lack of size in forwards in the short term. Catalans have plenty of big forwards who could maybe feature in such a deal.

This is a very black day for the club.

He's upset at the lack of progress but what are the club to do under the circumstances on the back of last season's squad decimation and the 50% Sky money (although that should have no effect apparently)?

Feel genuinely sorry for Francis and Omar and I think a Bradford lad could be expected to behave a bit better than this.

I wonder whether any really top clubs would want him, even despite the lack of cap space.

For me he hasn't really developed over the last couple of years - in fact he's gone backwards IMO. Misses far too many tackles, in fact his tackling technique is poor, plus he tries impossible offloads that hardly ever come off. He's a good player, no doubt about that, but I wonder whether the Top 4 sides would look at him and think that he would actually improve them?

This stinks the same as the kopout transfer !
Wonder if Davey is waiting in the wings ?

Must have a club already lined up,why else do this mid season

Think it's very poor

Agreed clearly tapped up.

Stinks when you're on the receiving end of it but that's what you can do when you're a big and/or wealthy club.

Wonder if all this talk of wanting a top four team is being used to wangle a better deal at a bottom two club backed by a wealthy race horse owner?

Slightly OTT there.

Player wants to play for another side - hardly unheard of now is it?

Anyway, Salford promise big spending, we won't. Plus, Whitehead is a "billy big-time" who is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. Defensively useless and gives away too many penalties.

I assume that we will be adequately compensated.

Time to step up to the plate Mr Khan.

Must say, as he is in contract and we should get a good fee I am not too upset by this. His comments are interesting in that we aren't progressing. This is a club who c12m ago were days away from closure, have half the sky money of anyone else, currently sit in a play off place (just!) and haven't featured in the play offs for a number of years.

In fairness I think the club has made more progress in the last 9m than Whitehead has in the last 2 yrs. Would be an interesting question to ask Whitehead, bearing in mind situation last year, what he would class as progress early June

Losing a young, british, homegrown player who has previously had international call ups is nothing but an absolute disaster. Forget all this talk of his poor defence - something like that can be ironed out in training in a matter of weeks by a decent coach.
Now more than ever it is vital for clubs to produce and RETAIN their own junior talents. There is no point receiving a fee for Whitehead when the outside player pool is so devoid of quality.

I can see why FC and the club have taken the stance they have, but I honestly think we would have been better going down the Cas/Clark route and telling him to forget about leaving the club. He was contracted to the end of 2016 - who's to say what sort of position we as a club would be in at that time? He could well have had a change of heart by then. Now we will never know.
Instead we have folded at the first hint of unrest, our reputation for being a selling club goes on and on.

Second row is the one position we are blessed with plenty of cover in. And not just cover, but decent cover. The likes of Bateman, Olbison, Donaldson, Walker, Langley, Addy and Murphy ("on loan"icon_wink.gif can easily cover, especially considering Whitehead's loss of form in recent times.

If we get £100k for him, it'll be us laughing, not the club that buy him. If that money is used to strengthen an area of the team that needs it more than the back row, then we win again.

What is the point of keeping an unhappy player against his will?

And "absolute disaster?". Awful choice of words and totally OTT in any case.

TBH I don't see this as anything like the same scale as when we lost the likes of Fielden, Pryce, Peacock etc. Whitehead isn't in their league (and never will be IMO). We should be careful not to blow it out of proportion.

He's not progressed in recent seasons and has issues with his defence and ball security. I was only saying last night before I knew of the transfer request that he would probably benefit from a change of club, provided he went to a better side that could "carry" him a bit. However, that's not going to happen until the end of the season at least.

The bull about the club not progressing as he'd hoped is a bit much. He signed a big long term deal during the final months of the Hood regime and we've come through a lot since then. It sounds like his head has been turned. I'm disappointed he didn't stick it out for his mates until the end of the season as the squad need every hand on deck at the moment. Poor attitude.

Now at least Donaldson will get a game and the defence on Whitehead's side will improve!