"They have to get used to the way we play" Yes I quite agree Tony, you can't expect someone to come and immediately be a spineless shitmuncher who can't pass forwards. It also takes time to learn to play in a completely different position than you have played for your whole career. Just shut up Tony you dinosaur you're embarrassing yourself.

Not sure if this has been mentioned ,but his quote about "not being able to find a cheap Bradley Dack" is absurd. Does he not remember how much Dack cost? Dack himself was a cheap Bradley Dack! Then the comments about Brentford like they are doing something magical. The recruitment is on him!!!

I think the Championship is as weak now as it has been for a while. Any team with an ounce of organisation and a solid game plan could challenge top 6. Including Warnock's style.

Wow - harsh question 2. Can you blame any player for their performances under Kean? Any player who left was a mercenary, and any player who stayed was... an unwanted mercenary. Was he ever really a “superstar”? He was great for us for a while but we he have been great elsewhere once he broke the Ewood spell. In any case, he was a top flight player for 9 years at Rovers, who contributed fantastically including some of our most memorable goals/moments, so deserves a bit more respect. Such a shame he will be most remembered for ‘that header’.

Hubris then punishment! My kids still laugh at me for over- celebrating Friedel's equaliser at Chartlton . I'm not sure how to say this, but this bloke grabbed me and we danced all the way down the aisle with a few others. It was only after we gathered ourselves together that I realised he had some form of learning difficulty and that he had a carer, who seemed a bit..well worried!

I wish Mowbray would piss off with the new players need to bide their time and get used to the way we play. What way is that....fucking shit? Hes used that excuse over and over to justify playing his dressing room favourites over better players.

Absolutely. After 3 years at the club, he can have no excuses. Other than Dack, I think Mowbay's player trading has generally been appalling.

A classic Mowbray gem. Anyone have any clue as to how we play?

He literally got Cardiff to the PL two seasons ago....

To be fair, I’ve come a cropper myself at the self-scan area numerous times....

We've reached the point where I can't tell fake quotes from real ones.

They need time to forget structure and all positional sense.

Plus he hasn't played for Middlesbrough, West Brom or Coventry and I'm sure he was pictured in ripped jeans. ☺️

Ridiculous. Pedersen always give his all for this club, he's well down the list of "milkers". He gave Rovers fans some great memories in his time and deserves the affection he gets.

Presuming he couldn’t bag his shopping?

To be fair though, they’re just reacting to what he said, why is that an over reaction all of a sudden? You wanted him out yourself, not even that long ago, to be fair....

For me, this only gives evidence to the lie. If it was really the case that new players have to get up to speed with our system etc and this takes time, he wouldn't throw some players straight into the team. It tells me it is face-saving bollocks, for when he doesn't want to play someone for one of various other reasons (like one of his besties playing there, or because he has over-stocked the position, or was only buying the player as a squad filler, etc).

So not exactly straight into the team as you said.

This is what winds me up about the Rovers backroom set up. Nyambe is a good wing back, he just needs to work on his final delivery and this is something that can be improved with repetition training. I noticed this about 3 seasons ago, so I'm unsure what the feck our coaches are doing on a day to day basis....most players are going backwards or just flat-lining. Bennett should be nowhere near the right back position and Ryan should have 200 appearances by now.

MGP is the only player I’ve seen take a corner to himself and get away with it and set up a goal

We laugh, but the amount of truth in these jokes is sobering.

Not even a sniff of any rumours today. Mind you they must be running out of players to link that Chaddy hasn't already recommended in 2015 ?

Didn’t take Cunningham any time to work out how to play left back. I mean has Gallagher really got up to speed with our system, yet he plays every week?

Dack does the same thing, much like Graham he's got the intelligence to compensate for his lack of speed and bulk. I think it's part of the reason they were able to link up so well, and it isn't the same with Gallagher or Brereton.

So he’s captain on Saturday then....

I think it's even more of an 'oven ready' excuse for this window as I suspect our transfer kitty is empty. After 31 Jan., I think we will hear again the likes of 'we did have resources' for the right player(s)' ! Sadly, I think a good many Rovers' fans take in what, IMO, is just bullsh1t.

What the hell is all this get used to the way we play guff again. If you have a style of play you find players to fit that surely ? If you change weekly in fact daily quite often then it doesn't really matter there's just no point signing square pegs for square holes. Sick to the back teeth of reading his backside covering jibberish now all designed to keep the idiots who fund us off his back. I absolutely pray for a new approach come summer.

For sake of argument, thought I'd check out a couple recent estimates of the aging curves for forwards and wingers. Plenty more estimates out there, but to quote a couple: https://statsbomb.com/2016/07/player-aging-attacking-players/ - Main conclusion (obviously generalised from the median number, so you can't blindly apply to everyone...): wingers peak at 26, forwards at 27-28 - Shot, key pass, and 'scoring contribution' rates remain fairly steady from the early 20s through to the late 20s, but they start to drop a bit from 28+ for forwards, while they drop fairly steadily for wingers from 26+ - However, the curves for dribbles, fouls suffered, and crosses all drop pretty steadily from the early 20s onward for both positions, suggesting aging players learn to still generate chances from know how over raw athleticism. So it may depend on the 'type' of striker/forward. - Key caveat is from what I can tell this is filtered on players who played a minimum amount, so there will be some 'survivor' bias as the worse older players drop out, but you can maybe assume that the rate of aging-related decline for top players is similar to that of the mediocre, and this may only be more of a problem when looking at players in their 30s+, where the true athletic freaks start to stand out. https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/tactics-and-analysis/67/post/3056495/soccer-age-curves-show-goalkeepers-and-central-defenders-peak-latest - The charts annoyingly seem to be missing, but going by the text of the article, the analysis gets around the 'missing old players' problem by first looking at minutes played (wingers peak at 23, the text doesn't mention strikers on this measure...) - Looking at a time series of individual players over time (seems like the obvious way to measure this to me given the data's freely available, so I'd say this finding trumps the rest!): strikers' shot rates decline steadily over time, but they make up for that by taking higher quality shots, peaking around 26-27, and then declining from about 29 onwards. - The study ranks positions from most to least 'age-sensitive': wide attacking midfielder, central attacking midfielder, full-back, central midfielder, striker, center-back, goalkeeper (generally fairly intuitive, I would think) Interestingly, this recent study, as part of showing the average age of Champions League teams has gradually been rising, shows that the average age of forwards has shown the steadiest/strongest increase: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6360147/, but that may just be a comment on how truly elite strikers have been developing rather than strikers in general (the above studies are looking at PL strikers, so perhaps the numbers do not generalise to lower leagues)

“Nyambe coming back could give us the option of moving Bennett further forward and moving the midfield around a bit." Or just dont play him at all because he isnt good enough!

Maybe the real Player of the Year is the friends we made along the way?

Downing, by a mile. Nyambe is the only other player with a chance of being in the conversation if he plays regularly for the remainder of the season. If he’d have got any sort of look in for the first quarter of games instead of inexplicably playing second fiddle to Bennett it would be between him and Downing.

Weren't there some absolute horror shows at the start of our league one campaign when we tried to play three at the back?

This is a guy who scored a fabulous last minute winner against the Dingles, and - arguably even better - scored twice at Old Trafford to beat a top, top Man United team. MGP is a very long way down the list of players who have 'milked' BRFC, not to mention 'going through the motions'. I'd love to think that this post is a joke. If it isn't you've just showed yourself up mate, big time.

Sorry Chaddy but you're one of the last people who can lecture others on needing a balanced approach. Your stance is almost always in favour of whatever the club or manager are doing. I'm not saying you don't sometimes criticise them, but it's very rare except in periods where you're on the verge of wanting them out. There absolutely are people who are unbalanced in terms of criticising everything the club or manager do. But there are also people unbalanced in terms of desperately defending everything the club or manager do. I'm sorry to inform you, and don't mean any offence by this (sometimes your blind optimism is a little lifting amidst the gloom), but you're not sat neatly in the balanced middle of those two sides.

Off the top of my head, think he scored a good header v Sheff Utd at home. Same game he scored a last minute free kick winner. Struggling apart from that - will have a look on YouTube later. You're right about getting his head on long balls from the back. He went through a spell where it felt like he was flicking on loads of goal kicks, free kicks etc. Then all of a sudden he didn’t seem to be winning anywhere near as many! Good memories of MGP though - anyone who scores a last minute winner v Burnley, two to win at Old Trafford and was a part of Rovers teams finishing 6th, 7th etc in the Premier League has to be remembered fondly.

You just haven’t got used to how we play yet. You need to “get real” and “give it a right good go” to “see what he is trying to do here”. Or if all else fails take a lead out of this fella’s book... https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/14997890.owen-coyle-smart-turn-draws-wins/

Different players can adapted quickly than others can. Just like any other people on normal jobs. Everyone need to calm down and over reacting to every little comment from Mowbray

I would be lining up like this.

Had enough of this nonsense. A bad defeat Saturday and I want him gone. It’s becoming untenable.

It'll all be about stopping Preston and it'll take about ten mins for them to fathom us out

I know they are quotes out of context, but nearly every one of those Mowbray quotes in that article wound me up.

He should. Bet he plays Gallagher and if at all possible Bennett. Bell probably too if Downing is in midfield.

Regarding MGP and set pieces. When we played Wigan in the game that ultimately relegated us we got a free kick in the last minutes of the game. It was a fair way out and towards the right hand side so everybody packed into the goal mouth. It was the last throw of the dice to get an equaliser. The ball had to go into the " mixer " as they say. MGP put the ball into row Z. I couldn't believe what I had just seen ! A school boy could have chipped it into the area between the penalty spot and the 6 yard box.

Very optimistic. I am not even convinced that we could shift them if we didnt ask for a free, as Gallagher will be right up there with our highest earners, not befitting for the striker with the worst strike rate in the League. And Brereton might not be on as much but he wont be on peanuts and the sides who would want him wouldnt be able to match it. They were bought as profitable assets but are actually liabilities.

Sell gally and bb and buy hugill....I think you might get 4m(this might be optimistic) for them combined and probably buy hugill for just a bit more and there is a good young goalscorer who would fit in here, and he's from the north east i think so tony will be like " why aye, man" with him...

Player of the year: Downing Players player of the Year: Downing Supporters Player of the Year: Downing Disabled Supporters player of the Year: Downing Newcomer of the Year: Downing Fittest player of the year: Downing Most Intelligent player of the year: Downing Stonesrick player of the year: ? Not quite made my mind up yet ?

You don't have to. Just accept that you opinions will not go unchallenged.

Doesn’t stop Stanley putting some effort in for 2k...