Pathetic performance. Don't think any of them fancied it today. Only Johnson played with the right attitude and looked as if he believed he should be on the same pitch as the the opposisition. The rest of our team were like frightened rabbits.

Second half, Fulham were in cruise control and 3rd gear and we still didn't make much impression.

Don't think we will finish in top 6.

3 hours ago, AAK said:

Only rovers under them dick heads could find themselves in such a situation, you have to laugh, otherwise you’d cry.

I do cry

Leicester 1992

46 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

It has been said in the fans forum that we have offered as much as we can according to the budget

I am a big fan of Nyambe but it's not as if Premiership teams are lining up to sign him and I doubt his demands are unrealistic so why can't we afford to keep him.

I wouldn't think Nyambe is demanding higher wages than Gallagher or Kaminski who just got new deals.

If we can't afford to pay the going rate for our own academy graduates then we are in trouble.

37 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We have different views on wat rotten means so 

Thesaurus

Rotten - Meaning1 - putrid,decomposed etc..

Rotten - meaning 2 

bad/poor/dreadful/awful/terrible/frightful/atrocious/hopeless/inadequate/inferior/unsatisfactory/Venky's

( OK, I added the last one myself )

15 hours ago, perthblue02 said:

Really important city for late 70's, early 80's electronic music spearheaded by Cabaret Voltaire and their Western works studio /rehersal space , played an important role in shaping the then flegling New Order who recorded their first demos at Western works aided by CV.

Just thinking the only times been to Sheffield were to watch Rovers or Cabs gigs  (R.I.P Richard H kirk) and a works outing? to Meadowhall which put me off mega shopping complexes for life 🙂

As for the game head says a miserable loss , heart says draw

Also Clock DVA and Comsat Angels.

My favourite ever band from Sheffield were The Mau Maus.

I notice nobody has mentioned Def Leppard!

Back to the footy - Hopeful but not really optimistic. I know this phrase has been described as slightly defeatist on recent threads, but in the is case it is true -  'I'll be happy with a point' 

I feel a bit miffed as I would normally save £40 by boycotting both games. 

 Now I'm only saving £25

1 hour ago, Aqualung said:

Brereton out of the Millwall game. Twisted ankle. 

Looked like he was rubbing and bending his knee when he came off on monday. Didn't look like a twisted ankle type of hobble

Despite having a fairly healthy average home attendance of nearly 17,000 in a 24,500 capacity stadium - therefore only 7,500 empty seats - Huddersfield are offering all tickets anywhere in the stadium for £5 against Cardiff

https://www.htafc.com/news/2022/february/half-term-football-for-just-5-against-cardiff-city/

Two teams lacking confidence on show last night. Momentum from earlier in the season has deserted us.

Promotion is often won behind the scenes and off the pitch in January and Bournemouth blew us out of the water in that respect. Lack of ambition, interest and action from Venky's. 

We need to hang on to a playoff place and hope we get our mojo back at the right time ( see 1992 )

14 hours ago, darrenrover said:

£25 for 2 forthcoming games, a great offer IMO......Negative is, there should have been the foresight for these 2 fixtures, 2 months ago in an 'Operation to fill Ewood' which was mentioned and discussed within the corridors but c'est la vie!

The trouble is the 'corridors' are almost empty - inhabited by Cheston and Waggott. Not exactly a dynamic duo. 

Venky's have continually failed the club in many ways and not putting a decent boardroom infrastructure in place has been a major hinderance. 

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

A three year deal kick in on his 17th birthday - which is in June this year.

So he will probably be snatched away in May before Venky's have even read their emails.

Terrible performance.

It was obvious in January we needed a striker  - even more obvious tonight.

I thought Giels and Lenihan ( despite the missed chances ) were the standout performers but neither will be here next season. The rest were generally poor.

Playoffs at best I'm afraid.

4 minutes ago, islander200 said:

And again if money was made available and wasn't spent then the blame for that isn't on the owners.

It is if they have they insist on having the final say on how it is spent. 

Like most people, I have been ecstatic with the progress we've made this season Credit to Mowbray and the players. I don't know any Rovers fans who expected to be in 2nd position in February. It's been a fantastic effort all round.

The results so far have provided an unexpected opportunity which we could have grabbed with both hands if the owners had shown a bit of ambition but I am afraid they haven't. Some of the players we have signed are fine but we needed more in order to push on. Clubs that are successful spend money when they are already at the top. 

We lack experience and that is what you need to get over in these situations. A proven striker and a Berkovic type signing would have made all the difference. We obviously had money for Dembele but I doubt the owners would have sanctioned the purchase of experienced older players - short sighted really.

I see it as a massive opportunity squandered. If we miss out on promotion and then lose the end-of-contract players shortly followed by Brereton, Travis and Kaminski then we are back on the never ending 'journey'. 

I hope we can stay the distance but we really haven't made much of an effort to ensure we do.

12 minutes ago, darrenrover said:

Bournemouth have shit themselves IMO, don't forget you can only play eleven!

If I was to have a punt on Rovers or Bournemouth for second, with 'our togetherness' and players returning from injury, I'd back us all day long over and above a bunch of maverick mercenaries managed by Scott Parker.

 

Wishful thinking.

I think we would all swap their signings for ours. They also have cover in case of injuries while our squad is still very thin.

53 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

The signings of Hedges, Markanday & Zeefuik seem to be being ignored…I know Markanday got injured but who could foresee that ?

Giles in, Rothwell retained…that would be decent surely ? 

'Decent' won't keep us in the automatic promotion places unfortunately. 

'Decent' would have been OK if we were still on our mid table journey. This opportunity won't come around again soon. We need to show some ambition.

1 hour ago, Paul Mani said:

I can’t believe there’s still folk questioning where the next big sale is coming from….has BBD not taught you anything?

With a fair wind - Buckley, Travis, Markanday, Butterworth, Dolan, Wharton and Pickering could go for big money. Hell, if BBD can do what he is then so can Gallagher!!

Regardless of whether we go up or not, we have some bloody brilliant young players in our first team squad….by the sounds of it we have some absolute crackers in our 18’s and 23’s too!

Foolish to think BBD is the end of the conveyor belt! 

That's great if you want to be a conveyor belt feeding other clubs. I'd rather we kept our best palyers and get promoted

35 minutes ago, J*B said:

From memory, it took selling both Arma and Brockhall to just scrape through FFP: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-brfcs-podcast/id1282664472?i=1000545177676

I don't think that's quite right. Cheston was quoted in fans forum minutes of Jan 2020 that we were close to the limit at that point. We have not overshot by £30 million since then. We are allowed to lose £13 million per year so we would have to have posted a loss of more than £56 million if we needed the whole proceeds from AA and the training ground to balance the FFP books.

@RoverCanadaposted some figures a week or so ago - he is usually quite accurate.

I'm convinced we have FFP wriggle room. If Venky's aren't prepared to take a gamble this year, while we are in this position, then they never will.  I don't think we will finish second without more strengthening in this window, Only way to fix FFP restrictions in the future is to get promoted.

19 hours ago, arbitro said:

Was it you who had a reservation for your family? I actually mentioned to Waggott that somebody posted on BRFCS that the  postponement was too late to cancel a hotel reservation for himself and his family.

We had 1 room booked but we met quite a few groups in the hotel who were in the same boat. Some went home but some stayed the night anyway. Some Hull fans travelling from down south were also affected.

2 hours ago, arbitro said:

I have an update on the postponed game for anybody that is interested.

After several emails to the EFL in which they refused to answer my questions they suggested I write to Rovers as they clearly weren't interested. I wrote to Lynsey Talbot who wrote back and said she had forwarded it to the Head of Communications. Within an hour I got a reply from the recently appointed Commercial Manager. To say I was disappointed with his response is an understatement so I wrote again telling him so. Several days later I hadn't had the courtesy of a reply so I wrote directly to Steve Waggott and included the communications I have had with the EFL and Rovers. I sent that email at 11.20 today and got a call from him at 13.45. The gist of the conversation was that there is an on going investigation with the EFL which has now got as far as their Legal Department who are now involved. He said he will keep us updated as and when there is some news. What he did say was that the game wasn't officially called off until 13.45 and his questions he wants answering are essentially the ones I have asked. These are:

What time were the Hull players tested?

What time the EFL were informed of the results?

What time the game was called off?

Called off too late to even cancel my hotel booking. A couple of hours earlier would have saved me the cost of the room at least.

17 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Anyhow C'mon Rovers, chop chop, only ten days to go and ideally three additional bodies in needed. Striker, central midfield, back up keeper?

Let's get the business done early and not be messing about in the last few hours of the window then miss out like in summer.

It's been obvious to me that the three positions you have identified are where we need reinforcing with experienced, proven players.

We should have acted as soon as the window opened if we were serious about automatic promotion. For a start, we would not have had to change tactics against Hull due to one player catching Covid. Sitting in 2nd/3rd place and with FFP buffer from Armstrong/Training ground sale, this opportunity won't come around again.  

It's a chance for Venky's to show real intent and rebuild some bridges but they need to act decisively. If not the chance will be lost.

What disappointed me was the apparent lack of confidence. We were unbeten in 10 matches playing a team struggling near the bottom of the league but we looked sheepish and vulnerable from the kick off. No leadership either.

Ref was bad but Rovers were awful. Eaves showed what you can you can do with determination and effort. We showed very little unfortunately.

I'd like to see us sign an experienced midfield bruiser for the run in. David Batty / Vinnie Jones type with presence, leadership and a lot of bite. 

I admire Travis for is endeavour but he's not great defensively and adds nothing going forward. I think a bit of experience in midfield will be a big help in games like yesterday when we were under the cosh a little.

Not sure who is available who could fill that role.

@RoverCanada Thanks for your very interesting input as always.

Couple of questions: You say we have £6m free spend over the next 3 seasons but, presumably we could spend that right now and still be within FFP at the end of 21/22 season ( and obviously, think about the consequences later ). 

The table shows an allowed FFP loss of £51.4M over the last 4 years and you have estimated we are at £37.1M - even with a relatively conservative estimate of £8m profit on the training ground sale - I would think it could be higher. 

So from those figures don't we have quite a buffer just at the moment - enough to take a gamble on promotion by spending now ?