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Are we in the relegation zone? Have we been in the relegation zone much this season?If the answer is no why you so sure he will take us down? Have we or have we not had loads of injuries to key players this season? I think it's an extremely difficult job for any manager/head coach and I also believe 100% that we will get worse or similar to Ismael if its Gestede Pasha and Owen doing the choosing. A change of manager is not going to change our transfer policy and after what happened with JDT and John Eustace nobody of decent standing is going to come in here and work under the conditions Ismael is. Iv said plenty of times I don't think Ismael is a good manager, iv said I wouldn't cry if he does leave. But imo removing him will change nothing. The pressure needs to be on the owners ,Pasha and Gestede.

And no doubt they will.

A club whose league status is in serious jeopardy and has a squad in the state we have acts first to get quality in, and worries about nonsense like 25 man squads later when we know what we've got to work with. We can sit here until deadline day talking about who gets into the 25 - what matters is getting some quality in before another 4-5 games are wasted with us playing the reserves.

Just as a side note, what's Moreshita done? £2m and he's had a fraction of the effectiveness and output of Dolan who used to get stick on here every week. I really dont get you sticking up for Ismael. He record is abysmal, in certain respects "worst in 150 years" abysmal. There's nothing in his recent track record elsewhere to suggest he can turn things round and in my view if he stays we definitely go down. If someone else comes in they MIGHT be able to save us. It really is that simple a choice.

Gardner Hickman is not particularly good but we need him in the squad. Garrett is not of an equal standing. Although registering Garrett would surely defeat the purpose anyway.

Yes it's Ismaels fault we sold all our most experienced players. Ismaels fault the decent players in the squad weren't offered good enough contracts. Ismaels fault majority of our transfers were low cost and we shopped in weaker leagues. It's Gestede and Pasha dictating our transfer strategy ffs.

I miss Big Pape already! A ‘limited’ player but did a decent job last season. Wish him nothing but the best of luck.

Dionne Warwick - Reach Out For Me

Look at the budget ffs. What are you expecting from anyone paying around 1 million per player. Jdt and Eustace supposedly had final say on players aswell plenty of dross was signed in their times too. For me Gudjohnson, Morishita, Alebiousu have been good signings ,and Baradji looks like he will be a decent player mcloughlin and Miller passable as squad players but we need better for the starting 11 The rest shite agreed.

Garrett is shit. Sell Tavares too

Absolutely agree here - the point I was trying for was more that you absolutely know that there are people who have seen the success (purely from the marketing potential/tv deal/media coverage) of Wrexham and thought 'I want a piece of that' And I'd almost guarantee that anyone with ambitions to replicate Wrexham will have looked at Rovers as a possibility, for the reasons I outlined and more. Which suggests that there are reasons (presumably Venkys) that have prevented it. In many ways I think that new owners coming in to 'do a Wrexham' could be a massive red flag, knowing our luck we'd get someone who absolutely did not have the clubs best interests at heart first and foremost. Of course I could be completely wrong on all points.

Whose fault is that? He clearly didnt rate Gueye and signed 11 players in summer!

Now that Cashin takes Gueye's place in the 25 man squad, I think I would do the following: Pratt - send out on loan Ribeiro - sell Forshaw - release Hedges - not register Gardner-Hickman - send back, replace with Garratt That would free up 4 slots. You could then decide if it's worth loaning out Tavares or just unregistering but this depends on injuries / attitude. Edit: I'd keep Kargbo - didn't realise he was close to returning from injury.

It's Ismael that decimated the squad! I assume he gets input into and the final say on players coming in and in summer Id say he got 3 out of 11 right. And that's only IF Baradji comes good and signs permanently.

Reading these comments is strange... so much of it echoes my own feelings as I posted earlier - but within the reading of other people's stories I must say I am starting to feel more of that sense of community again... it's nice to know I'm not alone and that there are lots of people out there like me. Within that, maybe there is a glimmer of hope - not for now, but maybe as and when the club does come under new ownership, there are a group of people waiting to rekindle their passion for Rovers and return to Ewood Park... Rovers aren't dying - just lost at the moment I guess.

But equally, that opens up the possibility for example of no one leaving and then if we had that attitude, we will go down with no new signings. We can consider it at 24 because Hedges we will be paying but he wont be able to play either way.

Just because we can swap players in and out during this window doesn't mean the 25 man squad limit doesn't have to be considered at all. It means we don't have to wait for a player to physically leave before we bring their replacement in (the budget probably does though), but it does mean we can't just bring in 3 or 4 players and crack on. We will have to consider who is left out of the squad if we can't sell them before the deadline. Our resources are finite, we can't really afford to pay wages to players who won't be available to play for half the season.

But those other teams didn't completely rip their squads up and replace the majority of their experience with players playing for relegated teams abroad. I also don't think any team in the championship has had as severe problems with injuries as we have had. We have no striker without Gudjohnson. I rate ohashi but he is not a typical striker so Ismael choices were Gueye or Henriksson .

Yeah this 25 man squad thing is a bit of a red herring. We need 3 or 4 in urgently regardless. As long as we do it properly this time unlike the grossly unprofessional shambles when Sigurdsson was ditched after the window had closed. We have a number of non contributors, whether that be players that arent good enough (De Neve, Henriksson, Tavares, Kargbo) players who will miss the majority of the season (Hedges) or players who have been made redundant by the formation change (Pickering, Ribeiro). As long as we tell players there is a chance that they wont be registered in advance to try and nudge them out, if they choose to stay then thats on them and they take the risk.

Didn’t work out with Pape but he got some important goals for us under Eustace. The header in the drab affair at Sheff Wednesday to pinch a 1-0 win being a memorable moment, followed closely by his other headed goal being about 1 foot off the floor in front of the travelling Nobbers I always think back to that West Brom game for an understanding of what he is capable of Generally though, he didn’t show the ability to step up to the Championship. Eustace got a better tune out of him and knew how to use him but Ismael is inflexible and it never worked with Gueye. To be honest, people look at that YouTube video of him missing the open net, and I am seeing a player devoid of all confidence - not helped by his captain ridiculing him in national TV and his manager calling him out also. During his time here he won us some important points - 9 by my reckoning - and had the whole Eustace debacle not unfolded those points may have meant we made the play offs. We then sold him for a profit. It could have been a very successful affair but it probably leaves on a disappointment, for a player who had the potential to be a fan favourite but whose ability would not allow it Good luck to Pape in China. He gave Rovers fans some memories - good and bad

Especially when we can register and unregister players into that 25 man squad on a game by game basis during this month.

Its being painted as if we are the only team to have suffered injuries. Lots of teams have numerous players out. And some of our absentees havent been out for that long.

Yeah Eustace is a much better manager But we are not going to appoint a manager like Eustace Ismael leaves he will be replaced by similar. Yeah we do have some good platyers but injuries are killing us,most the players that have been injured have been key players aswell Toth,Cantwell, Gudjohnson, Hedges, S.Wharton, Alebiousu going away . Since Gudjohnson got injured we are playing with no striker When injuries hit us similarly under both JDT and Eustace we struggled to win matches and they did have far more experience in their squad even with the injuries

Pape was a character but quite frankly an awful striker. Embarrassed further when he was unable to get shots on target for bullshit Youtube videos when under no pressure or even have a goalkeeper to beat. Offside more than any other player I can remember.

As per usual no issues or problems in getting people out of the door / off the wage bill / money in, but never so fast in getting people in especially where it requires cash or a permanent contract. So with that in mind we are now almost at the half way stage of the January window and have actually reduced our options in this joke of a squad. That is not to say Gueye was any good, but he's another option gone and as yet not replaced. I really don't take kindly to the local media supporting our transfer activity on the grounds we 'need to make space' in the 25 man squad either.