There’s another 10 minutes of my life I’ve wasted on the Chaddy show! Was hoping for some interesting transfer chat but not going to happen with the Chadster in the room. I’ll go back in a corner for a few months again.

After reading that guff how can he not offer Smallwood a new contract. When Mowbray says good in the dressing room I can only think he means Brockhall because both Smallwood and Hart haven't been in the match day squad for the months. Poor from Mowbray in my view.

In a parallel dimension in 1992:- "Sorry Alan. I know you're a good player and all, but the boys are really fond of David and, as we just got promoted, we want to keep the team morale intact"

Good post. I think folk just desperately want the lad to be a £7 million striker, I know I do, because that would be a huge benefit to BRFC.

The discussion wasn't really about Bauer's ability per se it was the comparison between Bauer and McLaughlin in that they both appeared to be long term targets and at the end of the day we didn't land either of them. McLaughlin always seemed a strange one to me. If he was first choice at Sunderland, why would he want to come here to be a number two, and if we wanted him as our next number one then it strikes me that we weren't setting our bar particularly high. For all that it did appear that he was a long term target and it does seem to me that since being promoted we've found it virtually impossible to get our preferred targets in or over the line. Maybe this is down to Waggott and Mowbray having an unrealistic view of players' worth in the current market, or Venus being not up to the job, or Mowbray being reluctant to bring players in because he feels loyal to the existing staff or being unable to communicate with and get the green light off the owners quickly enough or even a combination of all of the above. I do however think it's giving us far too much credit to say that we're deliberately waiting to see which division we're in before signing anyone. I suspect it's merely a continuation of what we've seen over the last few windows of us being unable to get our ducks in a row.

Proved me wrong how? I don’t flip flop and judge players on one performance be it good or bad. You obviously do as you wanted Samuel gone before lockdown as he was ‘nowhere near good enough’, and now he MUST be signed up for a new contract after a 25 minute cameo. He resembled a footballer on Saturday, so a marked improvement. He’s a long way to go to be the real deal. Perfectly fair comments.

Save a few quid ! End of the day he will have a nice nest built whilst Rovers struggle ... These people are in it for themselves and Venkys are to blame for giving them a free pass to do what they like ... 1.3 in agent fee for a lot of dross.. and now these extensions .. All these quids add up Mr Know it all ...

I could think of a few questions that could be asked, however we don’t have ‘journalists’, I.e reporters with a nose for a story covering Rovers. It’s all about maintaining access through promoting a cosy relationship between the club and local media. The likes of Bayes and Sharpe just tee up some soft questions that will create a few decent quotes for next day’s paper/radio report.

Example #34577 of how the football bubble exists in a total different world than most industries...

The club will always lack proactivity and common sense under Venkys, theres no getting away from that. They can hide behind the excuse that they are waiting to see what division they are in to avoid being proactive bringing in transfers but thats always been the case under them. And this supposed reason is shown up when they have activated a clause to extend Bell's contract when he is as far from a Premier League player as they come. If they were really putting everything on hold in case we made an unlikely promotion, which is flawed because even if you did that having a couple of Championship standard players pre-agreed is hardly the end of the world and the promotion chances are against us mathematically, you would be consistent with that and tell Bell to wait. If he goes elsewhere, you could say the same for the players we are holding off. The Smallwood and Hart situation is again a joke and spitting in the face of the fans who it has previously begged to refrain from asking for £60 back to save the club.

Exactly. Someone said on the match day thread he is starting to look 'value' at £7 million. To look even close to being worth that amount he needs to perform like he did last week (which was very good) more often than not. To be 'value' then he needs to be performing and scoring. At the moment you can't even say he needs to show more consistency, because hasn't shown enough good form to even suggest he is inconsistent. However, as JoeH points out, you have to also judge each performance on its own merits and he was very good on Saturday. Hopefully he takes that on to the next game.

Brereton is a weird one, as on the whole he has been below the required standard (let’s say, to be diplomatic), whenever he does anything above that, it seems to be amplified 10x. Don’t get me wrong, I think he played much better on Saturday, but, it’s a platform for him to build on. That’s the standard, match it on a regular basis and start adding goals. (I don’t necessarily blame him for the slip either, a few players seemed to come a cropper with our pitch on Saturday).

End of the day we are a professional club who exist to put a first team on a pitch to win football matches. If the situation around eligibility is true, surely giving a contract to an employee that legally/per regulations is not allowed to perform his duties for the duration of said contract is a rather odd turn of events?

That's what I originally thought too, and ordinarily I would have said fair enough, but when the club releases a statement a week or so prior guilt tripping fans into not asking for a refund because it would "threaten the existence" of the club, I can see why some are annoyed at the thought of paying Smallwood & Hart an extra months wages to do nothing, can you?

Sigh, that penalty! One thing these vids are doing is highlighting how much better a striker Simon Garner was than any of our current forwards.

Stone Roses - Sally Cinnamon

i don`t see any other clubs in the whole of england or anywhere behaving as we have,is there some malevalent spirit influencing madcap decisions,bloody hell,hart could`nt even hack it at rochdale and smallwood has`nt played for a season because he`s not good enough,i think im`e going to dust of my boots and start playing again,with a bit of luck one of mowbrays scouts might be driving by and give me a years contract,makes you wonder what will happen next in the stupid decision stakes

Fair to say Mowbray could at the very least have phrased this better, given that fans are being asked not to request refunds on their tickets. https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18541762.mowbray-not-willing-cast-players-aside-save-quid/

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile (Come Up & See Me)

The 1986-90 version of Garner would have held his own in the old first division. This might sound odd given he's our record goalscorer but I always felt as though his finishing wasn't quite top notch. It always amazed me that he rarely took penalties as well. He was okay when he didn't have time to think about it though and in his later years he was good at bringing others into play and a good crosser of the ball. I assume the main reason he didn't play at the top level was because of his reputation for off the field enjoyment, e.g. booze and fags. He scored often enough in cup games against first division teams to not be afraid of their defences anyway.

That didn't even cross my mind before asking that question to be fair. A very weird choice, given his position in the squad. I was trying to come up with some justification for it but there's no point trying to defend the indefensible.

We were without Bell and Williams on Saturday and JRC played left back. Hart wasn't even on the bench. My belief is that it's Uncle Tony looking after one of his players again. Notionally that's fine but we are on the bones of our arse according to the recent communication.

It's ironic that we eventually managed to sign Gallagher. He's one I would have been quite pleased to miss out on.

Is Hayden Carter ahead of Tyler Magloire, Scott Wharton and Matty Platt? All are over 20 years of age.

David Morales - Needin U

Exactly what iv'e been getting at and whilst i'm not saying he doesn't want a good budget i think it'd suit him and his crew if we could just carry on as we are with the minimum of fuss or change.

Oh Rovers. There's not that many fans to alienate. A fan can't have a £60 refund but we can help keep Hart in the manner he is accustomed to after contributing nothing. Smart move.

Nyambe, Holtby, Armstrong, Dack

Me x 4 OJF ? The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun

They got away with murder last season with a disgraceful challenge on one of our players in the first few minutes that the referee didn't deal with. Presumably it was too early. Then the season before Bennett got a very soft sending off. They are a nasty side in the image of their manager and will bully and outmuscle us if we allow it. I do worry about these sort of fixtures because I don't think we've enough nastiness to deal with it at times. We'll play some nice stuff but digging deep and countering the physical side of things against teams like this is a worry. Make or break time again though. We are at the glass ceiling with in theory two of the weaker teams to play whilst direct rivals play each other. In times gone by we'd fluff it in these two then probably beat Leeds. Let's see if we've progressed or can benefit from Covid 19.

Definitely Downing at LB for me if BEll, Williams and JRC cannot play. Get Holtby in midfield with Evans and Travis. Side note - never been Evans biggest fan but kudos for the way he played after such a serious injury.

Amy Winehouse - F*ck Me Pumps

The Kinks - You Really Got Me

Sam Hart was out on loan though and has been since he came. He can't have spent much time with the squad at all. I can understand Smallwood as I'd assume he's a pretty influential figure in the squad. Plus if the dreaded coronavirus does put a few of our players out Smallwood can easily step in and play.

Hope we get stuck into Wigan more this time we were constantly out battled and out thought at Xmas. We owe them a pasting, used to like Wigan but the disgraceful way there fans went on after Dacks injury changed that for me.

The Supremes - Whisper You Love Me Boy

Remarkable from the bloke who totally dismisses anything positive about Gallagher to the point of near tears. Your tune changes quickly.

I'd honestly be delighted if he eventually comes good. Stranger things have happened before. However the point is/was that for the sort of money we paid out we needed a player that would hit the ground running and make an immediate impact. We didn't get that.

The Whispers - And The Beat Goes On

I think there's been a policy of throwing around some decent names and registering an interest knowing it's highly unlikely we'll get them. Creates the scenario that we are actively chasing good targets whilst providing a bit of cloak and dagger to line up something else that might not be as interesting. Also keeps your name in the hat should one of the big targets suddenly become available cheaper or drop his wage demands - then we might become genuinely interested. I think the Bauer farce kind of showed this up - sniffing around him for ages, finally becomes available so try and land him as cheap back up. He says no so tell everyone his wage demands are ridiculous whilst in reality you've now decided to put your money elsewhere. Then he signs for modest paying direct competition and blows your illusion out the water. If there's a decent money deal to be done it'll always be done via one of the usual friends via friends route here imo.

Waltons had his blunders but thats a case of being a young goalie but also hes been on top form in some games saving us. Also a lot of clean sheets.

If this is true and we are offering Hart a short term extension to his contract when he's not available to play then that's a disgrace and on a par for stupidity with giving Gladwin another deal because we felt sorry for him. I wouldn't have given Smallwood an extension either but at least he is available for selection if required. If for some as yet unknown reason we particularly want to keep Hart for next season and beyond we should have let him go for now and signed him back up after the end of this season when he's available. If he wants to play for us he'll sign and if a bigger Club came in for him offering more money he'd be off to them anyway, the fact he had another month here won't have any bearing on his decision. But dont waste more money on yet another player who isn't available. If we're doing this type of thing as a deliberate loss leader to establish ourselves as a Club that really looks after its players that's one thing. But don't do it a week after pleading poverty and begging fans not to take a small refund to which they are technically entitled.

In about 6 posts lol

If that is the case its 3 questions more than someone would ask who has mo interest in transfers before the end of the season. Good swerve of the Bell hypocrisy question though!

I asked my Bell question to highlight the flaw in your logic. Why would we activate the clause on a player a million miles away from Premier League standard to extend his contract before knowing which division we are in? You obviously dont think that hence the repeated questions to Nixon.

I wouldn't call 1 win in 5 games against Rovers the hex sign.

We manoeuvred ourselves into this position many times under Bowyer and bottled it every single time... let’s hope this team is different.

We usually come back down to earth with a bump here so i expect this to be no different. Also expect the tombola to be spinning beforehand. Wigan 2 Rovers 1 Then again if they fly a banner over 'Pies lives matter' we might dick them 5 nowt !

Could be useful for snowball practice in the winter

Can go public now, Mrs E is pregnant was my inspiration for this thread, but ofc we couldn't tell anyone til the first scan.