Not certain what has happened to JRC - for me the most worrying is his apparent lack of intensity. When at his best he would bust a gut to get back or forward. At the moment he seems to have lost that intensity to his game (even without his poor pass completion rate).

I totally agree - you could see in the first half we were the superior team - but the lack of effort (until we went 2-1 down) was inexcusable.

If nothing else it will hopefully show our owners that we need more players. Another Cup win would have just continued to paper over the cracks.

I agree - but not certain on connection to JRC

Given his injury history - why the hell is JRC playing with an injury at the start of a long season ?

And we should have no financial fair play issues. We all know how it will end though.😤

Dreams of driving down the canal in the speed boat they seemed to strangely have as the star prize 🤣

Don't think unleaded was saying that Waggott would decide - but the recruitment team should (though I would argue that should be a collaborative approach with the manager). Having said that Waggott always has an influence due to the financial implications of any transfer.

I think offering SS an improved contract, not selling Rothwell, allowing Breretons contract to run down somewhat contradicts this. Having said that - we are a club of contradictions 😉

Though it comes under the "not a normal club heading" - they may be waiting to see the outcome of today's trial. At the end of the day some, if not all of the SS money may be swallowed up by running costs.

A player is only worth what someone is willing to pay - I personally wouldn't have wanted to deny Szmodics his shot at the Premiership. Last season was either a flash in the pan - or a late blooming in his career - either way a gamble for any buying club - which probably explains why we didn't have a deluge of offers despite last seasons goal tally. No fan of Waggott - but he has been left with a weak hand - some of it his fault (and the owners), but also it is important that we aren't seen as blocking a player from his dream move.

Don't dispute we need a new keeper - but not certain what he did wrong tonight

Or that we have made numerous enquires - prudent to have a back up plan.

Boom or bust for me this season. New guys are an unknown quantity - are they the next Szmodics or the next Telalovic ? Only time will tell.

Do you not think they are sticking plasters until Wharton is fit again ?

A bit like all our transfers - up in the air

Shocked if we are part exchanging a Pepperami - far too valuable for the canteen and odd snack.

But I think it puts them in context. Even the so called weaker nations can defend well enough to keep out the so called favourites. England beware - Switzerland are the one that can, not only defend well, but have some talent and pace up front (that the likes of Slovenia don't have)

IMO Wharton is the missing piece of the jigsaw - somebody that will encourage better ball retention and passing accuracy. Kane is I believe for England, what Rhodes was for Rovers. Lacks outright pace so teams can play a high line against us. Kane"s goal scoring record is unbelievable - but over the last few years I struggle to think of goals that weren't penalties or relative tap ins. To make Kane effective the two wide players have to push up far more than they have been doing to give us that pace up top.

Wharton chances of playing in Euros have been improved by not playing tonight.

100% pass success ? I didn't see him misplace a single pass.

The biggest difference unfortunately has been our goalkeepers, especially Leo. I hate to single out a player - but his errors combined with the uncertainty it caused in the defence started a demise that led to us only just avoiding relegation.

It's a balancing act - but was it 3 at the back or 5 ? There are possibly things I would personally have done differently - but though not enough, that point could be priceless come next Saturday. We had enough chances to win the match - having 3,4 or 5 at the back doesn't change the fact that we have limited goal scorers across the team.

Strange thing - though Kaminski was better than what we have now - he wouldn't be in my top 10 keepers from my time watching Rovers (goes back to Howard Kendall era) - just shows how far we have dropped in the quality of our keepers.

If we are trying to position ourselves as a development club for promising youngsters - we can't put too many blockers on players leaving providing our price is met. Where it all fell down is recruitment - we spent what was big money for us on Kaminski's replacement - showing a reasonable profit overall - how the deficiencies in Leo's game wasn't picked up is down to the scouting (unless he is struggling to settle in this country and ends up a world beater - we can but hope)