I'll repeat what YOU said...nothing to do with the owners. apart from the odd game we will never fill Ewood again At face value, that comes across as a pretty small minded comment to make. I wonder when Jack designed the stadium whether he thought we'd never fill 30k home fans.

Gestede and Owen both there meeting him at the training ground

Regarding the Trav/Tron situation, could this be the Venky/Gestede logic (I type that word whilst smiling). They have 12 months of contract left: - We have a history of letting contracts run down - Gestede promised an exciting transfer window - Val seems to have self convinced that a promotion push is on this year Decision: - keep Trav/Tron - add speedy options (DDN) to the wings and extra strength to the midfield (Sid) [hopefully Vicious] - HOPE for promotion - decide to say to Trav/Tron at that time "here's a cheap contract, you either want to play in the Prem or you don't. Sign it." - in the Prem they'd likely be squad players anyway as presumably (yes I know it's the Venkys) we'll buy higher quality in. If that's their logic then they'll need a striker signing and another (or resigned) CB. I'm leaving Brittan out of the above as I think he'll stay because of Val, plus he likes it here. If we don't get promoted then Trav/Tron will be deemed the problem and they can go. We keep the 2 new lads and buy afresh and go again. We're in Venky World so who the heck knows but there is at least SOME logic in it. If renewed contracts aren't offered and we buy/loan a strong player for the other slots then plan completed. That's what I think will happen, no sale, no new improved contracts. Personally I think that's as sensible and likely as the Underpants Gnomes strategy presented on the chalkboard as: 1. Collect underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit I can see Gestede's office wall now.

If you now ‘support’ another EFL club you were never a proper Rovers fan in the first place.

I would agree with different owners its good possibility but until the current owners it won't. People have walk away for good, found other things to do, some gone supporting Stanley, etc Small minded mentality? 😂😂😂 We have talked about the current ownership to death and we all know the issues. Under new owners who are here, understand the local area and fan base, etc. Most likely very different but until the current owners sell We will never get a full Ewood Park again regular only in certain games.

Done a fair amount of research on him, not a tackler, not got too much strength on the ball, much more an attacking player. Assume he sat deeper in Portugal due to tempo of the game. He's 23 and played next to no minutes in his career

Its hard to know much about the quality player either way so I am not sure what you are expecting people to say. He has very little senior experience to go off and that came in Portugal. And if there is an interview with any journalists over there, you will dismiss it as you "arent interested." Have you seen the player before? Seems like Leicester had him in mind as a more attacking midfielder and in Portugal he seems to have played deeper.

Nzonzi is the opposite to this bloke? What's the reason for the comparison?

More people are obsess about the fee actually is then the quality of the player. Ismael wants pace, ability to get box to box quickly and younger players can do this. Ismael spoke about profiling the right players and what they bring. Nzonzi was a great find by Rovers and his team got relegated from Ligue 2 or Samba from Hertha Berlin B team. We tried it with Telalovic but it didn't work out but pleased he is doing so well over there.

Ismael towards end of the season, stop picking Buckley and JRC even for the bench in favour of Forshaw, so from that point onwards and from the style of play Ismael wants to play that both probably/most likely not part of his plans. He wants his centre midfielders to go box to box and quickly which doesn't suit of them. Also both need to play regular first team football now and I don't see that here sadly. Fan of both.

Is this our first Sid since Puddefoot?

And according to wiki one career goal and one assist. At 23, he's either becoming a late developer or he's just not that good...and he won't cost much more than £400k up front. Has to be heavily clause based/future profit to get anyway North of £800k This is clearly a data signing because nothing in his regular stats/game time/highlight reel suggest to me he's the dynamic box to box midfielder we want. On the plus side, he adds height, doesn't take up a special permit place, knows the league and speaks the lingo so that part ticks the boxes. As a bit if a dinosaur when it comes to the data approach (give me the Brian Clough approach any day), I'll watch the lad with interest. If he turns out to be a good find, I will stand corrected and hail the data!

You didn't read my post properly or you wouldn't have posted any of this.

He absolutely isn't a box to box midfielder. This is absolutely spot on

I watched a bit of it in the pub. I don’t recall one ball beating the bat in the time I was watching.

Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

You have to start somewhere and if were honest we are a lower end of the championship team who has over acheived because of recruitment being decent also the players you are stating fit the model of sorts Brittain cheap sell high, travis academy sell high, dolan free should have been sold last summer or this for a fee, baath free so maybe it has begun?. It's always going to be a risk this model but with ffp we have no choice. We can't be afraid to sell keep the lights on and then recruit hopefully if we are lucky with the players we get in they will be better than for example travis and next season we will be saying travis who?

Theres no way its close to £2m up front, the fee seems to have become a symptom of chinese whispers. He cost £400k a year ago and wasnt a regular for his team. He started 15 games and finished 2 of those.

One of either Oldham or Accy won't even be in it....they play each other in a preliminary round Bolton would be decent, wish they'd have come up last season tbh but they went tits up.

The problem with that is it needs highly competent people running the club and identifying players to pull this off. Whilst you are waiting these "few years" for your academy players and cheap prospects to be 'built up', you need to not be shit enough to go down. If we sold Brittain, Travis and let Dolan and Baath leave, and replaced them with people who needed a 'few years' then we would be worse as a team and probably go down.

If a loan player is not used, then in my opinion it is a poor loan. I am interested in what the Rovers get out of the loan, not what the player gets.

I don't think Ayari was poor, just wasn't really used for some reason. It's quite impressive he managed to breakthrough to the Brighton team the season after, certainly can't be based on his time here. Now valued at over 20M.....

Apparently, the last half dozen Tests at Headiingley have been won by the team fielding first. Statistics or common sense, which would you choose?

Stick a massive promotion add on in there then do everything you can to hamper promotion. A foreign team having a quick gander at our league finish last season could easily think a promotion bid is a possibility this season too I suppose....

Its about time the club start doing this right get travis out the door as soon as possible for the best price now. Buy cheap prospects build up if possible over a few years as well as academy players sell in prime or for a good price rinse and repeat this is the club we are now