He was on another planet that night. He had the ball on a string all night, I know it was a testimonial but never seen such talent with a football in person. Ripley looking like he'd have done a better job than Emerton the season before and Shearer dip of the right shoulder before firing home in front of the Blackburn End. The night he healed the wounds from leaving.

This just isn't going to happen. We won't pay the wages that the likes of Trav, Tronstad, Hyam and Brittain deserve. My guess is that one might be sold this summer while the others walk out for nothing next summer.

It says to me that the recruitment and coaching at that level is perhaps focused elsewhere.

Shouldn't that job title be Loan Arranger? That would be a better fit given all the other cowboys at the club. 😂

If true then that situation is totally unacceptable We're being subjugated and silenced.

Barrett deal is a strange one, I think people are right to guess that he will be the 3rd keeper for the first team. It does point to selling Pears and bringing in an older back-up to Toth I think, but it is us so who knows. Michalski I have high hopes for and I would think a starting role in a L2 side would be more use for his development than hanging around the u21s with us. Many fans place blame at Benson's feet for ruining/miscoaching our keepers, so arguably more time he spends away from us the better.

You beat me to it Wils'.

We shall have to hope that whoever our new loan manager turns out to be, knows what he is doing then. The hiring of someone in that position would imply to me that the plan is to get more players out on loan than this season, and/or at clubs that are a better fit for their development

The dilemma when sending players (particularly keepers) out on loan is where they go to actually improve. I saw both Honor and Michalski as loanees last season and the standard of football was poor. I see a lot of NWC and NPL and I don't think the overall standard is very good. I would set as a minimum the NLN for our loan players. Hopefully the under 21's get involved in plenty of competitions again as it seems we will have an abundance of players.

Surely they can utilise the AI apps they are obviously now using for comms to do a ‘Message from the Owners’, they must still have a template of their egg letter headed paper to drop it on to…

And still the silence from our Owners is deafening: No communication,no expectations or targets set,zero to little financial backing.The sell to survive model now of full effect,that's our future for this once proud Club Folks. We all know what's coming..just rinse and repeat.

I'm interested in how he does but it's no more than that. Wish the lad well but ultimately he chose to move. I get that the owners wanted to sell and therefore the pressure was on Wharton but he had a contract and could have stayed. The lad is clearly ambitious and believes in his own talent and (I'm guessing here!) probably realised the move was an opportunity to fast track his development by being exposed to regular first team Prem football. Judging by what has happened since his move hard to say he was wrong. A lot of the arguments at the time from Rovers fans was that he'd have been better to stay and develop with Rovers and then move to one of the big clubs. Might have been better for Rovers but I suspect to that might not have better for Wharton.

Ah yes, forgot that the League publish the lists later on But in my defence, the club normally do so at some point before that

See below (and more specifically 70.4):

If the plan is that Barrett is going to be an overage keeper for the U21s allowing Michalski to go out and gets a full season or 2 out on loan at a good level, then signing him up makes some sense. Although if this is the case, then it is a damning indictment on what the coaches think of the other goalkeepers Rovers have at that level. Personally I would have loaned out Michalski, have Solomon Honor as the U21 keeper next season, and Barrett would not have been given a contract (If injuries are picked up, recall rules for keepers are different as Bournemouth showed with Travers a while back) Makes much less sense however, if the plan is to have Michalski be first choice for the U21s,

I don't believe it.

In my entire life in Blackburn I've never been given anything with currants in it when asking for a tea cake. Not denying that there are such a thing as currant tea cakes but ask for a tea cake round Blackburn and you'll get the plain variety that you have chips on. That is a tea cake.

Not sure why this causes so much confusion, but to simplify it: Teacake- doesn't contain currants. Currant teacake- you're never gonna believe this, but it contains currants!

I have seen Barrett make some terrific saves but other elements of his game aren't so good particularly his kicking and passing. He is a diluted version of Pears in my view. I suspect he has signed primarily to travel with the first team as third keeper leaving Michalski to play regularly for the reserves or even to go out on loan. However that logic is flawed to me as I believe Michalski is a better keeper right now. I'm sure Gestede will be boasting soon about the new deals he has done in Powell, Pratt, Litherland and Barrett but those kind of deals are a doddle to do as those players are desperate to sign and wouldn't have many other options. We need the experienced first team players whose contracts are up soon tying down.

Agreed. In Rossendale if you asked for a teacake you'd get a plain one and if you wanted a fruíty version then you had to ask for a currant teacake. My wife never believed me about this (she's originally from the potteries so only knows about oatcakes!) until we visited an old family friend. The friend was originally from Rossendale but had moved away 60 years before. When it came to lunch she asked if we wanted our sandwiches on a teacake and when they arrived the teacake was plain!

Anyone finding this thread a bit cringe, any chance of you crying about it somewhere else? Maybe a support group of your own? There's a choice to be made about entering this thread, you don't have to make it, you can always do the unthinkable and just keep scrolling and go onto the next thread.

Well done to Palace for winning their first ever piece of Domestic Silverware. You have owners who give a feck.

There’s nothing more cringe than a battle of the superfans😉

Yeah, my lad would be sleeping outside if he tried to get in our gaff with any other club shirt on.

Double tournament winners in Poland for some of our 2011 born and 2013 born players🏆🥇Well done to all the players staff and travelling supporters who represented the Academy and the club so well on and off the pitch U14s & U12s (I think) have both won tournaments in Poland I do wonder if with the first team not using the bus at the moment, they did a road trip through Europe with them, or got a last minute deal on EasyJet 😉