joey_big_nose

Clarkson makes sense. That he supports Rovers gives more chance of a an extended stay too. Maybe two seasons loan.q Even a transfer if it's not working out at Liverpool. With Rothwell, Travis, Buckley, Johnson, Garett, Davenport, Johnson that's midfield sorted. Key is another CB for me, and goals up top.

How did you watch the game back? I would like to do so!

I couldn't watch the match (French 4G on the TGV train down to Marseille couldn't deliver), so take what I say with a pinch of salt. But I watched pretty much every game last season and one thing we very rarely did was go to a back three. Even though we had real problems against teams with a back three themselves we just huffed and puffed and usually ended up getting well beat by them. That we do now have the option of changing our back line to matchup can only be a good thing. As an aside - it looks like the capability to watch the full game back does not feature on whatever it is that has replaced ifollow which is a real shame. I'm moving up to Manchester from London in October so will be able to make quite a few games. But basically with Ifollow you could watch every game you missed in its entirety which was great, but now it seems if you miss the game you get 3 mins of highlights. Very crap.

I'm in France for holidays and thought I would be able to watch the game on a over sees match ticket. Cant see that option though, only get the audio options listed. Any overseas rovers had any luck?

New website and media partnership seems really terrible.

Just watched the Swansea TV extended highlights. My god - our commentators are consummate professionals compared to theirs who sound like they're chatting in the pub after having a heavy day on the sauce and are feeling a bit sleepy.... Actually quite a funny.....

On IPlayer they did both an extended highlights (circa 10 mins) and a full match replay. I am sad enough to watch the entire match back if I miss a game! On the new service it seems there is only the 2min highlights only which is a massive shame. Could just be teething issues as they sort themselves out, or it could be a deliberate decision to minmise what you can see online with the idea it will encourage fans to buy more match tickets (local) or pay for the live feed (abroad). Can't see there be too many people though who don't buy a ticket / live feed because they watch the full game back 2 days later on the website? Got to be pretty niche...

To be fair to Tony he's done okay with young players when they've joined - Armstrong himself being an example, Brereton has started looking decent, Rothwell obviously has done well. Not too many young players have turned out to be turkeys. So I will watch with interest how Obafemi does. I won't be writing him off. Does anyone know if we can invest further? Assuming we get Obafemi my priority list would be 1) centre back (Ayala is going to get injured very soon I am sure), 2) right back (Im assuming JRC is going to struggle to be fit), 3) centre mid, 4) left back. The squads so thin we could arguably use another CB and CM on top of that. But say we have £5m to spend we will be lucky to get three players. (I know there's a strong argument that we need to replace Armstrong's goals, but if we bring in Obafemi that means we've spent £15m+ on three strikers - so we have to look to them to get the goals. Also McBride looks to me like he will score). In terms of types of players to bring in I would focus on young players with potential unless there is genuine quality with experience out there who can stay fit. I'd be very cautious - so many of the "experienced" buys do not bring enough consistency and struggle with injury.... eg. Dougas, Ayala, Johnson. All those players were probs on wages at least 3x young players like Travis or Rothwell who play more games and add more to the team over a season.

Yes agee with this. Basically I think a team with a new system gets around a dozen games until the opposition figure it out and setup to nullify the team. As a team you've really got two options 1) be so good that even when they've figured you out they can't stop you, 2) have a plan B. Our issue last year is we started really well but the 433 got found out in November but we didn't really switch the system till Feb. I hope we go into this season a bit more flexibly.

Another game to chalk up to "the kids rarely let us down". Today we had 4 academy graduates (Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis, Buckley), 2 more effectively academy grads (Brereton and Dolan) as we bought them so young. Only experienced players really Kaminski, Lenihan and Ayala. Gallagher is a weird one, 25 but never really established, Pickering an established player at League One level and still only 22. All the subs were academy grads (Butterworth, Carter) or effective grads (Davenport). The lack of experience in the team is on one hand worrying, but on another was anyone out there really lower quality than Douglas, Bell, Evans, Bennett, Smallwood even Holtby? Not really sure they were... I am struggling to think of many games where young players have let us down, compared to the many where journeymen have. On the whole I have always thought we just don't play the kids enough. This year we get to find out if that is true. I think I prefer that to us bringing in a new raft of Smallwood's, Lee Willamsons, Chris Brown's etc. I struggle to think of many of those who have truly worked out.

Can we bring in Marc Anthony, Napoleon and Sun Tsu while we are at it? Would help with our both our strategy and our tactics.

Definitely has that feel.

It's hard to be sure with a very transitional squad. Only players with a proven track record at this level are Armstrong (probably going) Travis (injury prone) Johnson (34) Lenihan, Rothwell (going?), Nyambe (going?) Kaminski. If you are being generous you could throw Brereton and Gallagher in there. Only 100% solid players to plan the season on are Lenihan & Kaminski really. Everyone else has question marks or unknowns. I think making predictions almost impossible. Could end up having a weirdly good season as the kids turn out to be the real deal. Could end up stick to the bottom of the table. Only wil be able to get an inkling around October.

That's a certainty really, Ayala will do well to play 30% of games.

Quite a few sides did well with a three last season? Notably Barnsley. It was a really obvious pattern for Rovers whenever we played a side with three at the back we really struggled. Given the players we have I can see the sense in us giving it a shot, at least as an option. We were way too predictable in the way we played last season, after a good start we were found out and teams picked us off. If we had a system we could move to that would be useful.

I'm in two minds about it - I can see the sense in experience, but also there's the fact that generally speaking the kids have been at least as good or better than the experienced players over recent seasons. Amongst our best players have been Lenihan, Travis, Nyambe. Wharton had a great stint before his injury. What young player who has come in has really let us down? Whereas we've had a lot of players bought in who have struggled... Suggests to me maybe taking a few risks is worth it. Anyway we don't really have a choice!

As has often been the case turns out the kids are actually pretty good.... Always found it a bit strange how we invest in journeymen but the kids seem just as good. Massive season for Dolan, Buckley, Davenport, Carter, McBride who all will be key players I think. Garrett totally left field (and a former left back) but sort of reminds me of Travis (who was a right back) just slotting in and looking the part. McBride particularly seeks like the sort of player who will always get a goal. If you think of the likes of Brown or Vardy who have worn the shirt up top but very rarely look like scoring that is invaluable. Taking a lot of gambles but will be interesting to see how they do if nothing else.

We are left hoping Garrett comes out of nowhere and is surprisingly very good. Happened a few times with the likes of Dolan, Travis, Wharton. Have to say the balance of probablity though is he gets minced by the Leeds midfield. I guess maybe Mowbray sending a message to the owners?

Had a look on here to see what's been going on transfer wise, haven't got the the foggiest... Main conclusion I have is we need to resurrect the transfer links thread to actually see what we have been linked to? Any chance mods?

Absolutely crackers. But I can see Southgate doing it. There is a sort of "so crazy it might actually work" about it.

I can't see Henderson or Maguire playing anything but a bit part role. You can only be truly fit with 6 or 7 full games under your belt. Maguire might have more of a chance as the alternatives are not great. But still can't see it, he just hasn't played enough.

Completely agree. Bellingham has looked the part, play him with Rice. It's madness to play an unfit player. We've got 5 subs so can bring on Henderson late on if needed. As an aside I was listening to the match of the day podcast and they made a very good point that the nation's with deep squads have got a big advantage with 5 subs, especially in extra time. We can bring on 3 or 4 really great attacking quick players late in games in the heat. If teams are sitting deep Calvert Lewin could be really potent in the air too. Only a few countries can do that.

Id say it's a better team than 2014- 2018, probs on a par with 2008-2012, worse that 1996-2006. It's very weird that probably the worst squad we've had in decades, 2018, made it to the semis! Id say par for this team would be quarter finals. There's two teams (Belgium and France) who are clearly a lot better than us, and four or so teams we are on a level with (Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal). With a fair wind we could make semis. Wouldn't be shocked if we went out earlier. That's what makes football so exciting. It's a shame that it all comes down really poor centre backs. Never been worse set of options for England in my memory. Absolutely shocking. Personally in centre mid I think Rice, Bellingham, Mount is a really strong group.

That's probably the team when we play 433, except Walker instead of James I'm sure. After Mings' stinkers I can see White being dropped in.