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Garrett will be nowhere near. Hedges Pratt (left out or loaned out) One of Pickering / Ribiero will be gone

Be interesting who misses out on the 25 man squad if we did get one more striker in. That would make for 29 players who could be registered. Toth, Pears Alebiosu, Miller, Carter, O'Riordan, McLoughlin, Wharton, Pratt, Cashin, Pickering, Riberio Morishita, Tronstad, Forshaw, Bardji, Tavares, Gardner-Hickman, Garrett, Kargbo, De Neve, Hedges, Afolayan Cantwell, Henriksson Gudjohnsen, Ohashi, Jorgensen, New Obviously Garrett would be one, then one of either Pickering/Riberio I imagine. Pratt loan maybe? Hedges to miss out because of injury? Sack Henrikson, De Neve & Tavares off because they will never be good enough?

The Ismael appointment has to be down to Gestede surely it took an inside connection for them to risk a guy like that and foist 3.5 year contract to him. Old boys network without doubt.

Under this regime we are going to become similar to Watford - just going through a never ending cycle of players and coaches through a revolving door. No coincidence that both Ismael and Bilic are two that have been through the doors at Watford in recent years and are now here/getting linked here. These foreign coaches are the way we will be operating, the only way that changes is if they remove Gestede which I think will only happen after relegation is confirmed and they need a sacrificial lamb to blame for the relegation. There's actually nothing wrong with the foreign coach route - see JDT, Jakirovic, Jokanovic, Farke, Wagner etc. but they also have to be working in a structure under people who know what they are doing, which is the part at which it will break down here.

It’s just journalism/agent activity by numbers. Club has won one game since November and has collapsed into the relegation zone = manager sacked. That’s football (everywhere else).

Very well summarised that. I can only think that someone within the corridors of Ewood, or one of our friendly agents form yesteryear, owed Ismael a favour, as it make zero sense, either appointing him in the fist place and even less sense, giving him, that length of contract. It has certainly backed people into a corner now, as no manager survives this horrendous run, both this season or last. Either the favour from the agents is still in play, or one of the stooges in situ at Ewood, cannot get the permission need to sack him and pay the remainder of the contract up. We have been here before with Berg, but yet again, no lesson is ever learned.

No such thing as a home banker under this head coach, non. Lots of huff and puff as usual, score just before half time, happy days. More huff and puff, usual subs, concede .. 1 - 1 11,289

I think someone should remind the high-ups at Ewood that the Transfer Windows are meant to strengthen the team not the reverse.

Fair to beat Wednesday or lose at Norwich and Ismael will be gone. I said all along it would be after the transfer window closes. The heat is rising and Pasha / Rudy will need to make another sacrifice soon.

The question on new managers is who would work with Gestede. Your likes of Warnock wouldn't. I had a look through out of work managers over the weekend and the three I came up with were Poyet, Bilic and Lee Bowyer. Not in as much as my choice but they are out of work and could apply.

Certainly a game were we had to fight for the right to play our football.

Bang on. Its agent talk to get their clients names out there.

Lots of out of work managers will be looking at us, expecting us to make an imminent change and will be fancying a crack at it. Mowbray and Bilic two of them, there will be others. What we have seen in the last 24 hours with these 'links' I would suggest is agents and journalists doing their clients/mates a favour by getting their names out there in the media as they look for a route back into Championship management. I don't believe Rovers are seriously contemplating making a change and much less that they are actively looking at options and having discussions with replacements. What these people in the media fail to recognise is that this is not a football club in the normal sense of the word. Yes anyone else in our position would have made a change, but that is because everyone else would have owners and a board that reacts to results and performances. That doesn't happen here, never has, never will. Not normal. So time to drop the belief that there is concern in the upper echelons of the regime. Ismael has gone a great job for them in overseeing their 'project' in the last 12 months without a word of complaint. That will do nicely.

On paper a home banker and a licence to print money. Owls lost their last 6 league games without scoring a goal. Their last point came against, you guessed it, Rovers on 29 December. The reality, any result possible here. Teams and strikers seem to enjoy ending barren runs against Rovers. Fail to win and it may well be over for us. Jerry Yates, and we could have done worse than to snare him, to deliver a knock out blow I fear.

Transfer Deadline - famous for the dildo appearing on screen. If the Sky cameras get to the ground soon, they might see quite a few arriving for work.

I tried to buy tickets on Saturday evening. The link on the website for the Sheffield Wednesday game took you to a page that said this event had happened in the past - and you couldn't buy tickets. Decided not to bother trying again. An absolute shambles of a club.

He did make up a "measly 3 points". He didn't overturn the -7 goal difference he inherited which he also needed to turn around.

Even if we met that price, there would be plenty of others in for him it would be pointless. Elliot saying it's very unlikely to be Cadamarteri that signs today.

Elliott Jackson also seems to think its less likely that we get Cadamarteri so seems like we could have the most predictable of January deadline day failures.

Cadamateri unlikely according to EJ

Motherwell want £2.5m for Maswanhise

One thing is certain, unlike Lambert, JDT and Eustace, Ismael isn't going to sack the club.

Amazed to see I am the first to use the term "must win" for this one. Not only for Rovers survival (a win lifts us out of the bottom three) but if there were any sanity at Rovers, Ismael's position as Chief Coach.

This has 0-0 written all over it. Couple that with a defeat at Norwich and even if we change the manager, it leaves even superman ager, with too much to do.