Even if he didn't have legs, he'd be an upgrade on Bell.

Raya is an amazing shot stopper who was prone to the odd gaff. Walton wasn't even an amazing shot stopper. If Raya had been in our goals this season we'd have got more points.

Absolute sacrilege to even mention Fettis and Filan in the same breath. Fettis was a terrible keeper. Filan was a very good one. He replaced Flowers in 97/98 and was very good and was player of the season the year after (albeit in a relegated side).

It's quite clear he wanted to go after being hung out in the press time and again by our manager. I see Nyambe going a similar way. It just isn't the way to deal with things. Raya's horrific facial injury seems to be forgotten but I am sure any keeper would suffer a loss of confidence after something like that - wearing that mask you would be in two minds half the time whether to go for a ball. I am not saying the lad was faultless as we all know he wasn't by a long stretch but there is huge potential there. His errors this season for Brentford have reduced, his distribution is now one of his strengths and he has worldie saves in his locker. At the end of the day, if we had replaced him with a keeper of similar or better quality, it wouldn't be talked about half as much as it is. It is the fact we downgraded and used the money to buy another dud striker to play on the wing.

I didn't rate Raya when he was here and thought that £3 Million for him was good money and I still do. However some of the vitriol aimed at Raya aimed by certain posters on here is pathetic especially when you consider that was a good professional for the club, has never said a bad word about it and only left after the manager had made it clear he wasn't wanted. Raya is what he is, he's a keeper capable of the spectacular but also capable of such basic mistakes as he showed last night. Unlike some though I didn't take any pleasure in seeing a player who had come through our academy make such a crucial mistake last night just so I could score some I told you so points, I felt gutted for the lad.

If anyone out there is still listening to what Nixon says then please message me. I have a bridge for sale.

Not gonna lie, I'd take a 12 point penalty and Rovers being bought by a local consortium right now.

Just catching up. Its incredible the sheer delight from some people that Raya didn’t get promoted to the PL presumably because that somehow “proves” Mowbray was right to sell him and buy Gallagher, while loaning an inferior keeper. Rather than admit Mowbray was wrong and be disappointed that we didn’t get a cash windfall. Talk about cutting your nose to spite your face! Raya is a huge prospect and will eventually get to the top division. 24yo, huge amount of experience in a position whose peak age is around 30, and finished third in the Championship in the final game. Lets hope any sell on isn’t time bound.

Don’t diss the bloke bluebruce. I signed him on footy manager in 2017, originally on loan from Bournemouth. He got plenty of assists and was 2nd in player of the year behind Mulgrew. Signed him for 1.1m the year after and he was my signing of the year, as voted for by the fans, in back to back promotions. He’s a good en, trust me ?

With the amount their squad cost, they should have gone up automatically. Cavaleiro - £15m Mitrovic - £22m Hector - £8m Mawson - £20m Bryan - £6m

Come on now, you’re better than that. You’re muddying the waters by inferring that I believe the posters in questions are lying. That’s nothing like what I was saying and you know it. I was saying that people shouldn’t hang on the word of someone they’ve ever met that posts on an online forum.

Name a better keeper we had than Raya in the last 10 years. Yes, he is prone to the odd gaff but it is clear he has come on leaps and bounds at Brentford and what did we get out of it? 3 million and a contender for our worst keeper in the last 10 years - who luckily, was not ours permanently. Brentford would not even have been in the final had it not been for Raya, so to lump it solely on him is far-fetched, to say the least. As for Brentford, they are inching closer each year, so I expect them to be among the frontrunners for automatics next season. Benrahma will probably be off as their major sale and they will no doubt unearth another gem to replace him.

Its totally disingenous to say "theyre still ploughing £7-8m a season in" without reference to what happened before that. And once that is considered, such a "good deed" loses any credence. For a Rovers supporter to dismiss anyone who doesnt attend as not a supporter whilst being thankful to owners that have allowed our club to go through the gutter, be rinsed by agents, keep Kean for so long, then appoint Coyle a few years ago who steered us to an inevitable relegation, all the while being totally absent and disinterested far, far away, but one who havent totally pulled the plug, as if thats something to be grateful for. Its the old metaphor of being thankful that the guy who shot you took you to the hospital! To be content that they are still here simply out of necessity I can somewhat stomach. To be vocally supportive and thankful to them and slagging off hurt supporters as collateral damage is unfathomable.

I'll spell it out. £5m isnt that much these days for a forward, it far from guarantees 10 goals, let alone 15. If the Prem examples dont suit, try these for perspective: Glatzel at Cardiff - 7 league goals £5.4m, Wells at Bristol 3 goals £4m, Zohore at West Brom 3 league goals, £8m. Gallagher spent half the season out of position, but is in line with these. The expectations of some on here are far too high.

The fact that other teams have also wasted money doesnt mean that ours isnt any less worthy of criticism.

They haven't climbed back up the leagues. Haven't been in the championship yet, let alone the premier League. It's pie in the sky dream team stuff to think we could go into admin, be deducted 12 , be relegated, lose our best players, get new local owners in and end up in a better position. Particularly at this time. Not saying I like that, but being realistic.

Nah, nah. I said important stats. Why do I need to see his season before last stats? Is that because this seasons stats doesn't back you up? He won the golden glove because he kept the most clean sheets this season. That is the only stat that counts for a goalkeeper. Joe, you don't help yourself at all. You go on tirades about why we shouldn't sign players using an assemblage of graphs, stats and so on - which is fine, by the way - but then in another argument, when it suits, you use out of date stats and don't provide the actual meaningful ones. The fact remains that last season David Raya was an exceptional Championship standard goalkeeper. In fact, a post on the Brentford forum perfectly sums my thoughts up and to paraphrase: this is the glass ceiling for Championship keepers, and until we get promoted we won't get better.

All angles covered here by Mowbray - think it's clear we will be running a surplus of transfer fees this pre season: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18628620.rovers-summer-plans-wont-revolve-around-losing-key-men/ Sharpe writes: Tony Mowbray admits his side are in something of a transition phase as they require strengthening in several areas ahead of next season. A new No.1 and central defender are top of the priority list with just 38 days until the 2020/21 season. Evolution, slow build, transition - IMO, it's all feckin bullsh1t. Think we have an unbalanced squad, in the main low on quality, with gaping holes in key areas. IMO, we are way behind where we should be and it's as a result of Mowbray's gross mismanagement in player trading. IMO, we need a bright, hungry, innovative young manager who has a plan and stamps their identity on their team in the way Arteta, Lampard and Parker have. All these guys have been in post 12 months or less but their teams clearly have an identity and know what they are doing. Contrast with Mowbray's three and a half year of evolution, slow build and transition - I think it's a p!ss taker!

10 from 41 for Raya in 2018/19, 12 from 46 for Walton, so. So a near percentage dead heat. And of course, Walton had a more settled/generally better quality centre half partnership in front of him - Raya has just won the golden glove award for Championship clean sheets - so perhaps the poor defence he was behind here might have something to do with it? See we can all spin stats! End of the day was selling our promising but error prone keeper for a couple of million (the proof will be in what Brentford sell him for) just to loan in players as poor and even more error prone as Walton a good move? And now just weeks away from a new season we’ve 0 first team keepers on the books, seems poor planning to me.

Hilarious. SG and BB have proven (thus far) to be awful signings. I dont care if other clubs might have made bad signings too. We signed two expensive flops in a row. So, we are to expect that 7 million buys you 1 or 2 goals a season from a striker? You are acting like this is the going rate. We could of course flip it around and mention all the bargains/good signings that clubs have made in the Championship in recent years. Mbuena at brentofrd, 5 mil and 20 + goals, Watkins at the same club cost a mil or two and is now on the cusp of a 20 mil transfer. Pukki and Dack off the top of my head. Sure there are plenty more but cant be assed to look.

Wells actually scored 5 goals at Bristol City, he only signed for them in January and ended as the season as the Championship's 5th highest scorer. So I'd say £4 Million for him was a decent bit of business. As for West Brom they got promoted so their recruitment can't have been to bad.

Grateful for them not putting us out of business after a decade of negligent ownership.

Like thats not exactly what he wants to feed his ego ? Ive got my fingers crossed for that 50m warchest.

To be fair to BDS’ mates, it’s not just them that don’t follow the Championship, what’s far worse are the football journalists that are like 19th century explorers when they visit a newly promoted sides’ ground...

Brentford have shown that it is not a foregone conclusion that we would be relegated to League 1. What will we be saying next year if Ainsworth gets Wycombe into the playoffs and Tony improves us to let's say 9th. Would we all be happy with that? Bring in a new manager who can wheel, deal and motivate and we stand half a chance. If we look at our history, no manager we have employed has ever needed 3 years and a slow build to get us no where. The last 2 season have been missed opportunities to get into the playoffs, with a slightly better manager we would have been in the playoffs both seasons. If we look at all the issues following relegation that Bowyer had to deal with, it took him 1 season to create a promotion chasing squad with less funds than Tony has received. I just don't get this slow build mentality at all as it never works. Cardiff and Swansea were both below us at Christmas, how did they both finish in the playoffs this season?

It was only worse in the context of the game. Walton's definitely made worse mistakes than that. It's the volume of mistakes that is a problem with Walton for me. There was a period when it was like we were starting -1 on the coupon with him in goal.

We only use them when it suits. And even then we massage the way the graphs are displayed to further a point.

‘We sold our goalie to buy Sam Gallagher’... that kind of thing?

@chaddyroversThanks for confirming that everyone involved at the club with transfers has gone on holiday.My apologies for not qualifying my 'everyone'. You've said that you don't know, if Mowbray knows his budget. You hope the club will issue a statement clarifying this. Do you think we'll sign anyone before pre-season starts? Do we have to sell before we can sign anyone? @Paul Mani tells us that Venkys always put money in. @arbitro posted a response he'd had from the Ticket Office describing the club as 'cash-strapped'. Another poster wrote that Venkys had stopped topping up the wages of furloughed staff as from the beginning of August. How much are our trade creditors now owed? How much is the State Bank of India owed? Why then has no attempt been made to raise funds from the sale of season tickets?@J H Rover has been attempting to get the community to question the non-sale of season tickets only to be poo-poohed. There is an attempt to make things look normal. Talking to a player. Enquiring about others. Allegedly making bids for players. A facade of normalcy. Yet, were things normal, there'd be staggered holidays so that business can occur. I'm wondering, if the proverbial fat lady is about to sing.

So while they are here we are just prolonging the agony. May as well get it over with and start again.

Primary job - heard it all now.

Imagine a club that can decide on a transfer policy whilst still playing the season out and not knowing what league they are going to be in, and immediately put that into action rather than waste weeks

He is a bloody crook, nicking information from everywhere

Have you watched every Brentford match this season? How do you know if his decision making is still the same? Why dont you go to the Brentford forums to see what their fans think of his decision making. As for not good enough, its good enough to be recognised as one of the best keepers in the Championship - while we had Peter Crouch's brother in goal.

Lets not get too excited just yet. Doesn't mean Tony will play them there

Agree wholeheartedly. with that. Sheff United have been the best example of that in the last few years and as much as I hate to say it, Burnley also. Different approaches but both effective and you know what to expect. We've been at our most dynamic and effective when we've played with a high intensity press. Developing an approach around that would be more effective than this possession lark.

He's still in a muddle over it i can see him waffling next mid season that we need to transition from a possession based team to a young vibrant front foot team. He's already come out with that inbetween claiming we are trying to become a possession team. Spinning it out is the realty.

He’s asked for it now! 21 questions in 30 days incoming!

Nicko saying that we now have a budget. It's not a crazy one but it's an okay one. Backs up what @Sparks Rover is saying. Hopefully we hear about signings in the next week.

I wouldn't be against selling say a key player to reinvest in the side. Norwich and Sheffield United did it and both got promoted and Brentford did it and got to the play off final. But I would have absolutely zero faith in Tony Mowbray to reinvest that money to improve the team, he'd most likely come back with a handful of magic beans.

So why throw cash at something like Rovers now when we know the economic damage will increase and we re going to be struggling for cash ? Better keeping hold of our money now and seeing if what they offer is acceptable and affordable ..and workable !

You are an angry bugger aren’t ya when challenged, not sure you’ve got to grips with this place yet. Ok does Raya have poor stats? (That’s golden glove winner David Raya). Stats that make him ‘shit’?

There's still external debt in the form of overdraft that will be heading towards its limit no doubt. I'm pretty sure that's be pinned on the club and its assets so that's the thing to watch. Probably around 15 million and it'll have interest and charges so that for me is what those in Ewood will want to keep under control. The owners pay enough in to cover wages etc but not sure they'd want to wipe that off or a large lump of it. Doesn't seem to work like that with them. As for Pr Mani well like a few others he conveniently chooses to omit the last time something like this happened. For whatever reason Vs turned the taps off at the wrong time, or down to a trickle at least. The club had to borrow left right and center to keep going then the sales began. Of course by then we ended up under embargo so it couldn't be reinvested so for a spell we signing utter dross off the usual client lists. Still wracked up a million or more in agents fees though, they didn't go hungry. No cash buys for several years until Williams for a few hundred grand. As we know all that led to relegation. These circumstances are odd now though we've gone from looking in a reasonably healthy position compared to any other time under their ownership. To possibly a very precarious one but the club has plenty assets now, just a question of when not if the auction starts.

So we are pretty much in the same position as we were last summer needing players for the same areas we were short in then. That's some slow build.

Hi all I'm more of a read it not comment kind of guy BUT......... the rewriting of the raya history has me very perplexed, the guy could not kick out a ball from goal without it going out of play, catch a simple cross or even see a simple pass when with us. I for one was over the moon when we sold him ( yes yes it left us with nothing ) his change in play is a clear indication we really need a better goalkeeper coach FACT. ( or he wanted to go that much he made mistakes)

Unfortunately this is why I don't feel sorry we don't have him anymore, these kind of stunning mistakes seem a permanent feature of his game.

What they doing on holiday then?

He's the best keeper we've had since Robinson, he's one of the best keepers in the championship, and he's 24. Find me that for 3 million.

Gender scan was today. It's a boy! ?⚪?⚪