I am amused by the attempts to paint Mowbray's musings as some kind of highly intelligent ploy to sucker other clubs and managers into giving us their players on the cheap. Because other clubs would totally not see through that, only a small section of our fanbase. Makes sense. Or Mowbray is finding himself unable to bring in the players he wanted and is changing his position on an almost weekly basis to justify what has so far been a somewhat baffling transfer window. I mean, it isn't that dissimilar to what happened last summer - the only question is who will be our deadline day prize this year? Can't be much worse than last year's catch.

WBA gave themselves an automatic handicap last season by not appointing a proper manager. Fulham are doing the same this year and I expect similar if not worse results. Cardiff have got Warnock at the helm so they will almost certainly be there or thereabouts. Not sure how Huddersfield will do. Could be right up there, but conversely could just as easily end up in mid table purgatory. My gut says it'll be purgatory.

Yeah another striker, why not. If Graham, Gallagher, Armstrong, Brereton, Samuel and Nuttall all get injured we won't have anyone to play in that one position up top so better to be safe than sorry.

Jason Steele is at Brighton. Doesn't mean anything unless you're no1.

Assume the two signings tomorrow are that City lad, and possibly Foderingham? Or maybe the target Bbrovers has been hearing about. Edit: Just read the article and looks like it's the City lad and Walton.

The club's hierarchy not telling fans the whole truth? Well knock me down with a feather.

Jeez, high emotions on here tonight! All Mowbray's fault imo. Buy a bloody goalkeeper already!

You have to have pretty thick skin to post on here in general at the moment, let alone if you're claiming to post ITK info. Chin up @Bbrovers2288, it's just pixels on a screen at the end of the day. I fear if you stop posting we'll end up back at the Brereton Flex arguments, and I'm not sure I can handle that.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11672/11765942/bolton-doubtful-for-start-of-season-says-pfa-chief-executive-gordon-taylor Gordon Taylor suggesting Bolton may not be able to start the season. Hard to remember another club being in this much trouble two weeks before the season begins.

This happened more than once to Mulgrew in League 1 as well, the difference being we weren't punished for it as often due to the overall quality of the teams we were up against. The warning signs have been there for some time with Charlie as far as his defensive weaknesses are concerned, they just came to a head last season when we were getting punished repeatedly for mistakes across the entire back four, with Mulgrew being one of the more regular culprits. If we start the season with Mulgrew as first choice CB then this window has been a failure. Also think it's fair to say almost everybody expected a new GK to be here by now, so little wonder there's some concern brewing.

If we line up with Leutwiler, Mulgrew, Bennett and Evans in the starting 11 Mowbray should be sacked before the game even kicks off. That aside, I'll wait until I know who we've got in before predicting a scoreline.

What's funny is that a lot of people actually don't know what period Millennial applies to. They assume because of the name it's the post-2000 generation, even though that is generally classified as Gen Z. A lot of people I've seen use Millenial derogatorily are by definition Millenials themselves! I believe it encompasses anyone born between 1981-1996. In this instance it wouldn't surprise me if, for once, the owners are not the problem. Mowbray assumedly knows his budget and was able to get SG's £5m transfer over the line without any obvious problems. We don't know if he has restrictions on how he can use his budget (eg. more available for young attacking players) but you have to assume he knows what he has to work with. More than likely we've dawdled too long on targets, other clubs have registered an interest and the process has slowed down as a result - especially if other clubs can offer better wages than us. It's ideally why you have a replacement pretty much lined up before letting a first teamer with no obvious replacement in the squad go.

It's always been there, just more prominent than ever nowadays due to the vast outreach of social media. Back in the 2000s there was no Twitter or Instagram for everybody to vent their opinions. At best you had the early incarnation of Facebook and MySpace which were effectively closed communities, much like forums. Increased connectivity and visibility of the general public just shows how little people are interested in debate, they are mainly just concerned with proving themselves right. I think it's always been like that though. Anyway, that's going way off topic so... experienced GK and CB ASAP please Tony.

At this rate Bolton will do well to start the season, let alone avoid relegation. They'll start the season with Jason Lowe surrounded by the u18 squad and an empty stadium. Although if the stadium isn't cleared for health & safety reasons. as happened many times last season, they may not even be able to play at all.

Forums tend to be where the more hardcore fans end up, rather than casual fans. I don't think it's so much "glass half empty types" as fans who are by and large looking at the finer details and long-term outlook as opposed to taking things as they come and not getting overly invested in what is happening outside of match day, as the more casual fans tend to do. I imagine the people on here know far more about what happened with Jerome Anderson, SEM, Shebby Singh, our cash flow issues from 15/16, etc than the vast majority of those who attend Ewood and likely don't know or care about any of that. It's inevitable that as a result many of the opinions and perspectives on here will skewer significantly towards the more pessimistic/cautious side of the fence.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest our manager or coaches are improving our defence in any way, and it's been two and a half years under TM now. If you're hanging your hat on that I fear you are in for some serious disappointment.

Even in League 1 we conceded 11 more than Wigan and 1 more than Shrewsbury who finished 9 points behind us. Poor defending has unfortunately been a staple of Mowbray's tenure here so far. We can't assume he's suddenly worked out a game plan to stop us leaking goals as this has been a constant since he arrived. The only way it's going to get better with him as manager, imo, its to have better, smarter players at the back who can manage games without necessarily needing detailed input from the manager. If you go back even further - Mowbray's Boro team in 2010-11 conceded 68 goals, way more than any teams above them and more than a lot of the teams below them. In 2011-12 they only conceded 51 but only scored 52 which was way lower than all of the teams above them and most of the teams below them. He was sacked from Boro in Oct 2013 and they went on to concede 70 that season which was again a lot. I'll be nice and opt to leave out Coventry as it was a different and difficult situation, but the last time Mowbray managed in this division there was no evidence he was able to work out how to balance attack/defence, and from his stint so far here I don't think much has changed. It wasn't your "step up" comment I had an issue with to be fair, it was "a team not too far away last season!" that I felt was wildly inaccurate. We were quite far away. The stuff about Venky's and the last 9 years wasn't directed at you personally for what it's worth, more of a general comment on the state of play.

Appreciate the optimism Biz but come on, we were a significant way away from the playoffs last season in the end, largely owing to that horrific run of form after January. We conceded the most away goals in the division (and maybe the entire football league?) so we clearly had a very pronounced problem at the back. Mowbray is out of his mind if he thinks bringing in a new goalkeeper and a young loanee from City is going to suddenly turn that around. Mulgrew is a year older now and Williams is only a competent CB at best. Everybody expected a proper CB to be brought in this summer and if it doesn't happen there should be no excuses being created to try and defend the owners and/or manager, as it was a critical area of the team that once again appears to have been neglected in favour of buying attacking players as usual. It's been nine years and the owners still don't appear to have learned that you build from the back.

Yep... Rovers 1-2 Wolves Ipswich 1-1 Rovers Derby 1-1 Rovers Rovers 1-1 Cardiff Rovers 1-2 Wolves (again) Rovers 1-4 Norwich (thanks Owen) Southend 2-1 Rovers Ipswich 2-2 Rovers So in eight of the last nine years we've only managed one goal on the opening day of the season. On the plus side we've never failed to score on the opening day since the 11-12 season, on the negative side we haven't won any of those matches and we've conceded at least one in every match too.

I don't think you can blame anybody for being suspicious of the club considering our recent history. The fact remains a lot of dodgy shit has gone down under Venky's ownership and that stench will, imo at least, be on the club for as long as they are around. It's no reflection on the manager, the staff or any of the players, it's a reflection on the owners and the turmoil they put both the clubs and the fans through over the past nine largely disastrous years. Hiring Owen "SEM who?" Coyle in 2016 was one of those things which got everybody's backs up after a few years of relative normalcy, although that period also coincided with cash flow issues so everyone was quite rightly on edge during and since that time. With that said I don't think there's anything dodgy going on as far as our current business is concerned. Mowbray obviously has a fairly narrow assortment of contacts he trusts, mainly links to previous clubs and players, so we're seeing a lot of names that can be joined together in one way or another. Meanwhile the two sets of auditors coming in a couple of summers ago seems to have put the club on a more stable financial path, although ultimately it's still a loss-making enterprise propped up by wealthy owners. Not too dissimilar to most clubs though, so not necessarily anything to be concerned about at this point in time.

I assume Bolton have still not been punished for failing to fulfil their fixtures last season? Am I the only one who wouldn't be surprised if that got quietly swept under the rug and the standard -12 points for going into administration being deemed suitable enough? It would set a really dangerous precedent going forward as clubs could choose not to fulfil their fixtures and then use Bolton as an example of a club who did the same and got away with it.

Have to agree, I don't think we have any decent wing backs on the books at the moment. Nyambe might be a competent RB/CB, and Bennett a decent backup CM/RM, but I wouldn't want either of them trying to supply crosses. Playing with wing backs tends to leave a lot of space behind - obviously in theory the LCB and RCB as well as at least one of the DM's will be covering this area as well, but that can very quickly turn into players being pulled out of position and gaps available to be exploited in both central and wide positions. You need a few smart players back there to organise and ensure the shape remains tight. I'm not sure we have anybody like that in the team, let alone a few of them. If TM is planning to play a wing back formation with three at the back then I would say at least one experienced CB is a must, and two new full backs. I just don't see it succeeding otherwise.

Wouldn't surprise me if he says no thanks and sticks it out even if we do offer to release him without a fee. He's probably earning a decent enough amount here. It's just odd to me. It's not like it'd be that difficult to bring in a replacement for Leutwiler! Tony just seems to really struggle with letting players go - Conway, Gladwin, Rodwell all offered contracts even though with the possible exception of Rodwell all three should probably have been certs to leave. Obviously Conway left by choice but Mowbray seems really reluctant to just let a player go. I don't know if it's the loyalty thing or whether he was really unsure about his budget at that point.

Why did we not let Leutwiler go at the end of last season if we're essentially bringing in Foderingham to fill his position anyway?

In fairness I can't remember the last time we signed "a few quality players" towards the end of any recent window. We signed Danny Graham(loan) on Jan 20 in the 15/16 window. We got Mulgrew on the last day of the summer window in 16/17. At a stretch you could include Emnes although for me he isn't in the same bracket. Reed came in on August 27 last summer. That's about it as far as quality first teamers since the 15/16 season at least. Graham's permanent signing was July 1, same for Rothwell. Dack was June 27. Armstrong was Jan 9. Based on past history we can expect one potentially decent signing at the end of the window, but otherwise our serious business tends to be done before then. Could change this season, but it wouldn't be consistent with how the club normally operates in the transfer window.