Personally wouldn’t call less than an hour of football in the league “started poorly” but then that’s just me.

He's the epitome of the modern day manager who has only one way of setting up and playing and won't deviate from that one iota even when everyone else can clearly see it's all going horribly wrong. You could argue JDT was a little bit like that as well although he clearly lost interest here also Ruben Amorim at Man Ure. At least they both seem to have refreshing personalities though. Martin is useless and conceited in equal measure which is presumably why many neutrals dont like him.

If only we could charge going rates to do this.

Yeah his assist was spot on at weekend. It's quite simple with players like Kargbo, if their end product always matched their pace, they'd be playing at the very top level. I think he will continue to improve but there's always gonna be a degree of wastage thrown in....

Breaking News: Derby County are looking to bring in the Rovers scouting team!

Apart from the inch perfect through ball for Hedges opener on the weekend.

So you don’t prefer Ismael because of his managerial ability just his “honesty” in interviews

It's too early to say how Henriksson will do, Im not sure it's too early to say how Kargbo will do, I had him down as a rudderless speed boat with no end product within about 30 mins of watching him play and he's done nothing to convince me otherwise. Yet.

“Yes let’s look like a shit club that’s stuck in the champ” suits absolutely nobody, and any suggestion that this is deliberate and not the result of a lack of ambition, expertise and care, is an insult to people’s intelligence.

Rumours on Derby forum that Wrexham have gazumped Derby for Travis, not sure if that will be on the fee or the wages (I suspect wages if it's true, as will they already know what Rovers will have accepted via Travis/his agent)

I could do with some counselling for continuing to support Rovers since the Venkys trapped up 15 years ago.

I think you're 100% in your analysis of the situation, the only question that matters currently is "Will it work?" I think not but we'll have to wait and see. As far as "sabotage" is concerned I've always been of the view that it comes from within the walls of Ewood Park. Why wouldn't the owners want promotion and the riches that go with it?

Arghhh…I was so interested in this post. Smart thinking! And then you washed Kargbo and Henriksson out vs Dolan and Weimann! Ffs mate, how on EARTH have you decided they are a downgrade based on next to no evidence? Great post - In January, I’d be delighted to run through this comparison. 👍🏼

Nice idea, we'll get back to you on that...

It would be a massive surprise if Travis didn't go through though. The Club and VI in particular would have some massive bridges to rebuild. I think you can safely count it as a done deal even though it hasnt officially been confirmed yet. Id love it if it didn't though - there'd be some major arse covering to be done and a section of the fan base will have to take their plastic snakes back to the shop.

I don’t think you’ve worked Suhail out at all, if you don’t think he lives to be seen as ‘clever’. He is Mr Ego personified, so I believe. No one will convince me that he’s not flexing. It’s not JUST about reducing costs. If it were then why bother funding the academy? Why bother scouting the lower Belgian leagues? He’s selling his employers the dream…best case scenario he gets promoted in their ecosystem and gets moved on. I reckon he’s sold a dream that he can cut costs, buy cheap and sell high, whilst keeping us in the league.

Im not writing him off, just some early thoughts. De Neve and Henricksson have both been much worse than Tavares, but same as him i wont come till any conclusive judgements until christmas time. So many examples of players who started poorly but improved significantly as they settled into the league.

To me it's all been done purely with a view to reducing costs and there is no aspiration to achieve success on the pitch or promotion. Indeed every time we look like we have something that is working or might work we seem to chase the offending manager who is doing well out of the door and go in a completely different direction to make sure we never ever quite get over the line. I think the only ambition at the Club now is to just about stay in the division whilst spending the least money possible and developing a few players to sell along the way. I'll nail my colours to the mast now as I don't think it will work. At all. If it does however, then the much maligned Gestede, and to a lesser extent Ismael, will deserve credit for coming up with a fairly hare brained sounding scheme and getting it to work. It would be interesting to see how they'd react were we in play off contention once more come the turn of the year. Presumably they'd be all scratching their heads wondering how they could sabotage things again. It does seem that Vi is very much the (former) 3 stooges man and they're very much on the same page with this scheme so I doubt he'd walk out or they'd sack him. Probably sell a couple and just not sign anyone and let the whole thing fizzle out.

That doesn’t matter he was out of control

Kargbo has pace that frightens the life out of teams. Dolan couldn't outrun Pickering. That's clearly an upgrade, if he can stay healthy. Weimann was an impact sub last season - his legs have completely gone.

I hope so because Soumano's highlight tape is incredibly underwhelming.

As it stands, Rev. And I wasn't discounting the sale of JRC -Euros 870k

You'd soon notice the difference if your employers started paying you in Euros!

Why are you discounting the sale of JRC and the impending sale of Travis? Once those are taken into account it's likely to be roughly a nil net spend despite all chaddy's talk of "spending £7.5m." Not ideal, we still desperately need a couple of strikers imo, and I wouldn't rule out further outgoings. However I suppose it's better than having a budget of say £2m and then selling £7m worth of players and not reinvesting that money which we all feared was going to happen.

So the ref gave a yellow because he didn't think Gordon was that type of player?