joey_big_nose

If we really would accept anything around £2M i am sure there would be a lot of clubs interested. The question is if there is anyone willing to pay £3.5M+ as I am sure that is what we will want. Hes a proven performer in a division where a lot of clubs are spending money so id be very surprised if we dont get north of £3M. Just a matter of waiting for the bids to come out of the woodwork.

Yeah a distinct lack of realism has been a consistent feature of Venkys from trying to sign Ronaldinho, to not being aware of relegation, to promoting Steve Kean, to letting our players go for free. How they made any money in business is beyond me.

I think where we are right now with strategy is the owners would rather finish 14th but have a higher squad value due to young players who can be resold than finish 7th with older players coming to the end of their careers. Is a strange place to be as a competitive football club.

Much as it was a horror last ten minutes against Birmingham I think we should select the same side. It looked defensively solid until the subs. Not much going forward but I can't really see what changes in the XI we would make to address that. One small adjustment I would make is to swap Kargbo and Ohashi round from time to time. Let Kargbo sit on the last man and roam around. I guess the downside is the ball could not stick, even more so than with Ohashi, but I would like to see the speed demon free to run through the middle. Rotating Ohashi and Kargbo frequently in the game could be quite effective in unsettling the defenders and making them unsure whether to push up (to compress Ohashi) or drop deep (to prevent the ball over the top to Kargbo).

TBH I don't think there is much intelligence from the Pasha/Venkys side beyond trying to answer the simple question "how can the club cover its own costs". The only viable answer to that is : Pay wages way below the average in the Championship Minimise transfer fees paid Maximise transfer fees recouped That explains the whole way we are operating at the moment. What is missing is within those constraints a committed and engaged owner would make much better strategic and tactical choices, whereas Venkys are so disconnected we make bad decisions again and again that lose the club more money and goodwill.

We're playing, well at least defending, a lot better than his first few games with us. TBH feels like defensively we are in a pretty good place, but we need to figure out what we are doing offensively. Cantwell looks improved, and Ohashi is irrepressible as always, but beyond that we dont seem to have many ideas. I think id be looking to sign two proven attacking players in the next two weeks.

Hmm thought the defensive signings actually looked pretty decent. Its up top and out wide where we haven't signed anyone apart from De Neve (who is bad i agree) we look very weak.

Actually though we lost thought we were much better than i anticipated. Feeling more confident about out season tbh.

Wow Tavares managed both a terrible corner then so weak to allow the cross..

Thought Kargbo had amazing hang time for a small guy. Was a pretty good effort.

Have to say considering we lost both Baath and Brittain we look very well put together across the defence. Look a really good unit.

What did I say... Cantwell just needs to go one touch!

Yeah, I think he looks a good acquisition also. Can see him becoming more effective as he settles in. Looks good on the overlap but can also defend.

Think id take Hedges off, move Ohashi on the right, put Gueye up top, and put Kargbo on the left. But... probably would make us defensively weaker, and I can see the sense in prioritising defence.

Well from a "ensuring the wheels dont come off from a turbulent week" it's been a success. But from a "look like a side that came 7th last year playing a newly promoted side" its been a failure. Crowd looks really bad considering its first home league game.

I think they are getting "Honor Caps" from Rovers as part of the 150 year anniversary.

Cantwell is supposed to be the player to make those easy passes... All he needs to do to be significantly better is take leas touches.

Given how high Birmingham are playing and Ohashi keeps coming deep why not just swap Karbo with him. We could do them with a ball over the top.

Just to find something positive to say... watched the Bradford game back and Tavares has real world cup winner N'Zonzi vibes. Really like the look of him. Also Miller looks very good, will land well and fit right in. McCloughlin looks like he knows what he is doing. Not so convinced on Alebiousu, De Neve, Henricksson, . Plus Gueye is getting worse and worse. We need three of those four to come good.

It's too early really to say whether he is any good or not. He's had one really bad run and one really good one last season.... And as has been pointed out over the summer he's basically had 70% of the experienced players taken out of the squad and replaced by inexperienced players. So I think I'll be waiting to see how the dust settles over a few months before forming a view. What is clear is if he did manage the incredible and get us up around the playoffs like JDT and Eustace it will be an even more impressive effort! Which also would probably mean he would get a new job on or around the 9th of February.

Yeah, Ismael like loads of managers on the market just needed a job and he would have gone along with what was laid out as the plan. As time passes he'll either 1) do well, attract attention and find a new job and be off same as JDT and Eustace; 2) do badly and be stuck with us in a hate spiral as we cant afford to sack him

The irony is clearly the directive was to use the Carabou cup to blood youngsters/ new signings but we over egged it and lost an easy game so now dont have any more games to do it. Kind of shot ourselves in the foot....

Well... we've had lots of times where we look like we will get battered and then it hasn't happened. As supporters we tend to over interpret a good performance or a bad performance. So while I am also very concerned, I also know I have been here before and actually the opposite of what I expect has sometimes happened. So I cling onto that! I agree that goals are going to be a big issue. Gueye looks very poor at the moment (gutting as for a while in the new year he looked brilliant but that is a loong time ago now), and Ohashi is busy and can finish but will not create things on his own. Travis openly deciding to leave could be a bit of a wheels coming off moment. Will be very demoralising for the team, who currently mostly a group of bodies flung together who do not really know how to play together. With Travis out of the picture we only have Tronstad and Hyam who have more than 50 games in a rovers shirt and are definite starters. Cantwell, Riberio, Ohashi have had 20-30 games each. I guess Wharton, Hedges, Pickering and Pears have a lot of experience but they are not favoured as starting players. Then it's a bunch of totally new characters. We've lost hundreds of rovers games of experience with Dolan, Travis, Brittain and to a lesser extent Weiman and Baath gone. I think it's really under-estimated how important it is for the players in the team to know each others abilities and qualities, and have time to figure out how to play with each other for the best results. Ideally turnover in the team imo should be 20% to 30%ish, but we are looking at 70%/80%.... Anyway we are where we are... what we are doing out wide is very concerning as De Neve and Alebiousu are wing backs not forwards, Hedges struggles, and Kargbo looks very talented but raw and prone to fading out of games. I would switch to a 343 as we don't have the wide players for 4231. Toth Millar Wharton McCloughlin Alebiouso Tavares Tronstad Pickering Cantwell Ohashi Kargbo Will watch in hope as often, especially early season, you can be surprised.

Always great to read your reviews as you always provide a balanced view. In terms of throwing the kids in thats obviously a strategy agreed to in the boardroom in Pune in the hope that another Adam Wharton emerges as that is the only way the club can be financially viable under Venkys. TBH I am kind of the view we may as well chuck them in as Tyjon will certainly be off if he doesn't get first team football immediately, and for the others (Montgomery, Molichalski etc) experience shows that while loaning out maybe sympathetic to their development in the last ten years probably only Raya and Carter have really benefitted from loans. A lot of players we have loaned out and they come back as little use to the first team squad as when they left (Vale, Butterworth, Garrett, Batty, Markandy, etc etc) The players who have actually forged a career as Rovers first team players great or modest have done so without any significant loans (Adam Wharton, Travis, Nyambe, JRC)...

Not watching but at least encouraged that Tavares is getting some good reviews.