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You’ve read my article in this week’s upcoming 4000 Holes 😉

Me too 😁

It is but it isn't being used often enough. I've seen enough from him now to know there's a player in there. He can hold it up, he can turn a man and he has an eye for a pass. He is also decent enough in the air. All of this is a work in progress but he will get there with the right coaching.

He’d go to Stanley at the moment you sense…

We are dreadful and we will finish this season relegated if performances like that continue, which they've been pretty consistent so far. All well and good saying we played well for 20 minutes but that doesn't win you games, at a new low with Rovers now and haven't felt this bad about us since the SK days. Dying club, dying fanbase.

According to the table, only Norwich City in worse form than us across the entire division.. and they beat us! Sheffield Wednesday have picked up more points in last six than us, and they're fielding 50 year old Barry Bannan and a load of schoolboys. But according to some sources, we're playing great and just unlucky.

I just had a call off a club employee saying that the COO has asked Ishmael to play our 1st Team against Old Etonians so we have the chance of boasting about a decent home victory. I would not bank on it.

Big Sams time as a manager is up now but he'd surely make a handy Sporting Director.

I agree - the time has been & gone to protest. Due to lack of action from any of the fan groups (other than the clever manipulation of the media last season by Glen) we will now get what we deserve in my opinion. Venkys Out is the only solution, it always has been. Pasha, Rudy, Ismael, Talbot etc are just employees and are irrelevant given the wider context of 15 years of incompetent ownership by Venky’s.

Without a change that's the position I expect us to be in for the rest of the season. That will only be due to Sheff Wed likely getting a massive points deduction at some point for all their breaches of financial commitments. Otherwise could see us rock bottom for a period til that happens.

You make alot of good points but is Gudjohnsen's hold up fantastic? He regularly loses the ball when its played up to him and both Stoke and Swansea scored from his inability to keep the ball.

Nothing improves until the owners sod off, its just rinse and repeat. A manager isn't even fully responsibe for the playing side these days, selling players and replacing this with dross is a boardroom decision. VENKYS OUT - NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Terrible results are the only thing that get dissent in the ground, even with the rump left. So it will happen organically… not that it matters one jot. The regime’s only card to get the heat off is sack VI. New guy comes in and it will be straight back to ‘just get behind ‘em’ Rinse and repeat until in non-league.

Shifting the blame onto others is a low punch. If anyone did that on my shift they would have been called out (privately of course) and read the riot act.

Hopeless is as good a word as any to use. When we make changes, it seems to completely derail any sort of tactical plan or momentum we have. For around 10 minutes yesterday we had long balls being sent over to Agustus Kargbo and Morishta. I mean, how careless can you get? If you are going to pump it long, at least put the bloke on who is 6 foot 5. At this point int he game he only needs to get his head onto it to make a chance. This isn't the first time it has happened We have no Plan B. Starting to think we don't really have a Plan A. I actually look at Gudjohnson and see a real striker there. He is being used criminally. His hold up play and his switching is fantastic but we see it too few and far between; instead, the aim of the game is to hit it long over the centre half and try and run onto the ball. It suited De Neve yesterday, but then he was ran into the ground and not taken off. Overall I think Val is just a poor manager. He doesn't come across as charismatic, he doesn't come across as though he's a mate of players and this is so far removed from our previous two coaches. It's been a total 180 on the progress made - we are now back to pre-Mowbray in terms of the board, the squad and the connection with the fan base.

I agree. I'd say our most significant issue is the owner, followed closely by the bastard symbiosis called Pasha Gestede. However, as Eustace demonstrated, fostering a sense of unity and involving good people in daily training sessions (with some sent on scouting missions🫢) can enable a fairly average team to overperform. When I did due diligence on Ismael on his arrival, the most worrying parts for me were his player management, reports about arrogance and poor/inflexible game management, etc. For me, playing style is irrelevant (though I understand it matters to others), what matters is Rovers winning. I guess it would - unfortunately - only be speculation as to whether Ismael will be a success if Gestede and Pasha are removed. Bring in a proper CEO and 5-6 proven championship-experienced players in January, and we might have a chance. For me: pay up and bring Big Sam back. First, survival, and then two years of backing, with below-average championship spending, and we would be back in the PL. And yes, I know it's never going to happen.

Good luck to you guys too, I hope that you have a much better season than the one that it appears that Rovers look to be about to encounter

This is the problem. He seemed to back the decisions made. JDT and Eustace expressed frustration at the dealings. Valerian is a nodding dog.

He probably has the comfiest job in football basically recording individual players stats then sitting down with them during the week saying 'you're doing a lot of this, that's good but not enough of that, so do a bit more, ok'.

I still found it bizarre when he said Tronstad wouldn't sign a new deal as he had some issues and wanted to go back to Scandinavia. It just didn't need saying publicly. Watching Tronstad lately, he really wants to go back to Scandinavia.

Surprised he hasn't broken the company lines yet given the results. We have just conceded 3 goals at home to the lowest scoring team in the division, yet at five to midnight on deadline day they sold our best centre half without replacement. As a manager you must be furious about it and if you aren't then you can only have been given cast iron guarantees that results don't matter.

And Ismael looks and sounds hopeless after seeing his post match interview and reading his post match comments! IMO, the looks and sounds of a desperate manager seeking excuses, passing the blame on to the players and numerous times referring to how it's becoming "complicated". Think he's lost and doesn't know what to do - his time is done here, he just needs to resign.

A worse record than Steve Kean. That takes some beating.

There is hardly anyone left at Ewood to protest. We were lucky if we managed 5k home fans in last night; all we had were a few shouts of “you don’t know what you’re doing” and a banner for the last few minutes saying ‘Pasha Out’ - I doubt if anyone outside of the Rovers fan base (and even some of our fans) knows who Pasha is. The Sheffield Wednesday home game should be the target for a joint protest with the Owls supporters.

Exactly. He is responsible for results despite the hand he has been dealt although I do believe he was complicit in the exodus of experience in the summer.