To the Hawthorns it is to start the new season. Here’s the recent results against the Baggies…

Does anything make sense at rovers?? It’s all illogical

Links, nothing since the Derby/Wrexham stuff at the start of the summer. But he's presumably the highest earner, last year of contract, never going to resign and we are trying to sign two centre-mids in Henriksson and Baradji, so just do the maths. Replace everyone with someone cheaper is the only policy being pursued by the club just now.

Jack Leach the england cricketer has Crohn's as well and plays regularly for his county Somerset. Only one spell I can think of that really took him out of cricket for a few months.

Who has Travis been linked with? I think his influence on the pitch is much greater than the NLPB* acknowledge, and without his leadership and shithousery we will be much diminished.

Regarding Henriksson and Crohn's - I have it as well, and yeah, it's pretty brutal and takes a toll on your body. The main issues for an athlete would be that your body struggles to absorb nutrients and also struggles to deal with inflammation - which obviously happens naturally when using the gym or being involved on physical sport. Crohn's also causes constant fatigue which is mentally taxing to say the least. With that said, Crohn's can be managed and put into a form of remission. It doesn't fix things but it does mean the person can live relatively normally. Unfortunately there's no cure and the medication does eventually stop working (if he's on biologics then it's typically around 5 years). You can switch to a different biologic or start infusions, but there's no guarantee these will work as well as the medication which has put you in remission. The fatigue is the one thing the medication doesn't really do much for, even when in remission, but I'd say it only became noticeable to me in my 30s. At Henriksson's age it wasn't such a problem for me, but then I wasn't a professional athlete either. There are professional athletes with Crohn's (as noted by others, Darren Fletcher is an example) so it's not a total roadblock, but even with careful management a severe flare up can still occur at any time which would mean indeterminate time off for the player, so there would be risk involved.

Theyve always done stuff like this. That doesnt come under communication improvements.

Trav next to go, guaranteed

Signing both midfielders would make no sense at all.

Plan+ venkys???! dont think it’s in the vocab

That I want? You are missing the point. You said we need 3 and then named your new squad showing our depth with 5 new signings in it.

A footballer is not 'Joe Average' and there is considerable 'stress' on the feet so if rest and immobolization haven't solved the original issue then surgery is the only alternative but can be problematical - didn't we have another player not too long ago who had at least two operations and he missed most of the season?

They also remain under the impression we are after these players to boost the squad and not prep the way for more sales.

Even by your poor standards this is completely unintelligible. What are you saying here?

Exactly the same with the domestic ones as well. There's a reason they never gave the job to Brian Clough.

Good luck to him. He obviously cares and I hope he does a good job, he will learn a hell of a lot from trying to form a competent side from the ashes.

To gather at Brockhall by 6AM means those same players were climbing out of their beds as early as 4.30AM dependent upon where they live!

Cheap. That's the only consideration that comes into play. Folk are still thinking that anything this club does is for the best of the playing side, it isn't. The side on the pitch is well down on priorities at this club, all about getting a side out on the pitch as cheap as possible.

Got a hell of a goalscoring record for a midfield player. 25 goals in 63 games ? Be delighted to get a striker with anything like those stats.

My thought from yesterdays game : Both teams started the game with a similar plan A, NEC were better at it than us and controlled most of the first half. Second half we try plan B and it works, we get ourselves back into the game, in fact we probably should have got level. Then for some inexplicable reason we reverted to plan A, but with plan B players. The inevitable outcome was that NEC took back control of the game. Anyway it was only a friendly, bring on the Baggies.

I'm not endorsing it, just offering a viable explanation judging by the tight fistedness of our ownership

You want your quality on the pitch as much as possible not just through the door in the building so to speak.

Maybe the rationale is better quality for bargain prices? Risky though

Why are they so intent on signing players with known existing problems ? Never ever underestimate the predictability of stupidity.

This wasn’t reassuring.