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It was our pal Souness who brought George Weah's cousin in temporarily at Southampton I think. 🤣 I've seen Moneyball - very interesting and fairly ingenious. Problem imo is it worked once with certain individuals in a specific set of circumstances and people think they can use the idea of it to reproduce something similarly miraculousin a completely different setting again and again. You can't imo or at least your chances of success are exceptionally limited. I've mentioned several times before that we seem to be using a Moneyball type of approach by targeting several players who've recently been relegated from some obscure European League. Which presumably means they're extremely cheap Doomed to failure imo but who knows, maybe Rudy knows better than I.

Always seems to be 5.5 or 5.7 classed as a sell out over there so i suppose it depends if they leave that little corner empty. I always thought 5700 was every seat in that end but a nobber collegue claims the full end is 5900 but we've never had that.

I've called him out for years there was always something off about someone hiding in the shadows pretending to do nothing. Then you have Mowbray calling him just the owners conduit and as you know to a lot of fans if TM said the earth was flat they wouldn't argue. Now he's out into the bright lights so HE is accountable for everything now, no one else and no more skulking in the shadows. I agree it needs to be constant gentle pressure not this pick it up every time we start losing then put it down again when we are winning. Also not all out war that can be spun back onto the fans as reasons the team is struggling just gentle sustained 'We know who you are, we are watching and holding you personally accountable for everything at Blackburn Rovers from now on' If you don't like it then there's the door and to be fair if you turn it round and start getting things right and pushing the club AND owners to progress the club then you'll get the credit. Sitting there being unaccountable taking your money, calling the shots with the sole aim of staying in position treading water, no the games up.

The raw form of statistics do not have context. It is the interpretation of those statistics which provide meaning. Interpretation will include providing context. Behind the data analysts of every club there will be someone who works on that - sets the data limitations, the methodology, the trends or real world factors. When Sky Sports present data on a midfielder, they don't include the amount of times that player caught the ball. That is because it is not relevant in the context of the discussion. Some of the data has inherent context anyway - "through balls" for example will be a player who will take risk. He is likely to pass into space more meaning he suits a team with pace. All context but requires human thought It is very easy to sit here in the modern world and blame data for the bad decisions the club made. What was at fault for the bad signings before? Did we sign Grabbi because the data got it wrong? Statistics in sport - not just football - are used to inform, not necessarily decide. It won't make the decision making perfect. Using them to provide an informed opinion is just clever thinking. There have been some examples where data-driven recruitment has proved fruitful. Watch Moneyball if you have some time Rev. It is not a recipe to guaranteed success but clearly professional people paid very highly have decided the inclusion of data analysts provide for a more informed and successful decision making process Do you remember some of the stories that happened "pre-data"? Was it Southampton who signed a player who had never kicked a ball before 😄 It has definitely helped productivity!!

There's around 400 seats in each of those end blocks. If we've been given 5,900 (on the basis both those end sections become available), that's over 5,000 sold as of today.

He certainly didn't have any bad luck with the squads he had at his disposal.

https://x.com/RoversXtra/status/1990761305591173572 Josh Morris now with the academy working with U15s

Reading the above, as an old timer I have to say I agree with RF 99. Most stats have no context and are virtually meaningless imo. So what if a player completes his passes more often than not? He probably will do if he isn't taking a risk and might not do if he is trying to be creative and make something happen. Also agree with RF about the amount of shite we've brought in in recent years presumably with the help of data. It's convenient because it's easier and massively reduces the amount of leg work initially in identifying potential targets but there's no way anyone is telling me that the end result is any better or more consistent than in years gone by pre the use of data. e.g. We want a winger with pace - computer spits out Kargbo.

I don't think it's a lack of funding, the problem is who's going to be the person to collect the money or fundraise?

I’ve long thought our best bet of ridding ourselves of this lot is to have a sustained campaign against Suhail. Whenever the spotlight has been on him he’s absolutely detested it. I’m guessing it’s come down to a lack of funding from the few Rovers’ brave enough to fight the cause, but unless it’s consistent and persistent, it’s not going to be enough.

The surname is wrong - it’s Samet Wecantafford.

It's an interesting discussion. Just following on from the above. I think Mowbray's departure was botched. I don't think it was properly planned for or entirely expected. I don't think Waggott ever really wanted him gone, and the owners are so disengaged that they probably expected him to sit tight and wait for them to get around to renewing. Perhaps even the curtain twitcher was stopping or advising the owners not to deal with the expiring contract until the last minute. Anyway, whatever the reason for it I think there was a late scramble to try and persuade Mowbray to stay but he'd had enough. By that point we were into the summer window and suddenly a manager, assistant and effectively a whole structure down, because Mowbray had been allowed to oversee and control all recruitment and coaching himself (remember Venus being the weird hybrid assistant manager/director of football). So yeah, I agree that once Waggott realised Mowbray was a goner and time was becoming an issue he resolved to address it by going modern with a Director of Football and Head Coach structure. I actually agree with that concept here because with this crazy setup we need to divide the power and responsibility away from one man. So in comes Broughton and he had half an idea what was needed and very quickly went and got JDT. I doubt Waggott or the curtain twitcher had anything at all to do with that appointment. Presumably authorisation had already come from HQ that we could spend a few million of the previous years' Armstrong cash so we sorted the Hyam, Brittain and Szmodics deals out. Realisation of what a shambles the club is only develops over time once you are in through the door, see Paul Lambert and John Eustace. It's easy to talk a good game at the appointment stage and get the contracts signed, but actually sustaining a proper effort is another. I personally don't think - aside from authorising budgets - that the top owners (the gruesome four) have had any input into anything at Rovers since pre-Covid. All the rest is run through the middle men and curtain twitcher, who was shoved to one side for a while during Mowbray's days and with Waggott being here acting on some form of authority from India, but now they are gone he is free and in control again

Lancs live will be getting a ban no doubt from Suhail.

Or was it simply a timely relegation? FA working with Kentaro don't forget, all potentially very embarrassing. "Oh and do yourselves a favour Blackburn Rovers, under your current board room structure, don't hurry back to the Premier League. Neither of us need it."

I think you are showing a fundamental misunderstanding to be honest. You started that post by saying you have an issue with stats proving anything. They only deal in facts. They prove what you would like them to - if you want to know if a player completes his passes more often than not, then the stats will prove that. What's the struggle with that? Stats are just fact. They aren't manipulated at all - they are collected by a computer and put in formats computers understand...factual. If you are a scout and your head coach comes to you saying: "I need a midfielder who occupies wide spaces and makes lots of underlapping runs" - you go to the data analyst and you ask him to find you that type of player. Which player is then the best, is based on the human element - thought. The crux of the post is that data is "hand picked". Well, isn't that the case without data? You would ‘hand pick’ parts of a players game you think justifies the argument you are making, ie - at Sheffield Wednesday away he won a header to set this goal up etc etc Your big issues seems to be people using data to justify their conclusion. I would say that is an informed opinion. The arrogance around data would suggest that you believe your conclusion to be 'more real' than others, even though you aren't prepared to use anything factual to back it up with I have highlighted points of your post that I think suggest you are not understanding the use of data, stats or whatever. Stats do prove things - it's their purpose; any metric is "pre-selected" as a human being decide what is measured and why; we have not signed shite because of data, we have signed shite because our budget affords shite; and there is a very easy way to objectify standards in leagues because part of the measurable is the league they perform in. I don't think you like data for whatever reason and are refusing to move on that position. This is a pointless back and fourth about it. Next time a poster uses some stat to justify his conclusion, they are not trying to prove you wrong, they are trying to demonstrate how they got to their conclusion. I think you'd do well to understand that point as it would save the many discussions you find yourself in on the subject

Seen some loose link to a Turkish centre back on twitter - Samet Akaydın Think it was that RoversXtra account that found it.

I think what he really meant was, that free transfers such as Liam Cooper, will want wages and we aren't prepared to pay them.

Of course luck plays a part though, moreso in international football. Southgate did benefit from some favourable draws that did not come as a direct result of anything he had done. Equally, I think Ismael is a poor manager. But he was unfortunate to see weather conditions call a game off because that was out of his control.

My issue is with the idea that it PROVES anything. Those stats do not PROVE that Anderson is the best midfielder in the league or that he should play next to Rice. They can be used as part of an opinion but they are often used conclusively as if a player is factually better. They are also often hand picked to suit a narrative. Stats are useful, Ive never denied that. But there are limitations to their use. There are grey areas in how they are measured. And they are often wrongly manipulated. I never said that there are MORE grey areas with stats. But someone saying x player is good/bad/better than y wouldnt be treated as if its objectively the case, it would be seen as what it is, an opinion, when you throw pre selected metrics in the mix people often seem to think that it objectively proves whatever conclusion they personally have come to. We have seen at Rovers that we seem to have gone down a more data driven route of selecting players and some right shite has come as a result. Obviously those metrics become even looser when you cant possibly objectify differences in standards of leagues.

Its not leaping to Waggott's defence. But historically you have regularly diverted blame away from the owners.

Don't know about anyone else but we've been struggling getting on to buy. Daughter rang up and sorted it over the phone this morning, don't know the problem yet but we did want 9 together.

Only the two small blocks at the end to go now.

With a full block and the two small blocks at either end i'd wager about 1500 still to go yet for a full 5.5k. Anyway it'll be a 4/4.5k following at least which is respectable enough and similar to what they've brought here a time or two despite their usual gobbing off. Fact still remains their entire home capacity is only around 15k and they rarely sell all that. And when they do, well guess who the visitors are !

Great effort considering how shit we are, the fact it's televised and the fact it's "only" Preston and not Burnley. It's not quite "just another game" to me but not that far off. It's 1974/75 and Bobby Charlton's comb over flapping in the wind since I got that excited about playing them. I couldnt care less whether we sell 500 or 5,000 tickets as long as we come away with the 3 points.

Luck is the football fans' get out of jail free card, when things don't go as they predicted. Ie, Southgate did better than I predicted, I'll just say he was lucky and that makes it all OK. Strange thing being, I don't actually remember him him having any bad luck, funny that.