Hasta

Newell was excellent in his first 2 seasons. The slump which saw us nearly miss out on the play offs coincided with him being injured, and he came back just at the end of the season which saw an upturn in fortunes to scrape into 6th. The first season in the Premier league he was also excellent. However he had an injury during 93/94 and he never looked as good. I remember him scoring a last minute winner at Sheffield Weds in early 1994, and he had been woeful all game. I was suprised to see he made over 30 appearance in 95/96 , as he hardly played the year before. By then he was in his thirties and on the wane. His record for numerous clubs after Rovers wasn't great. However he was a massively influential in those first two years. A proper player.

Yep. I paused it and then immediately starting watching the Gary Neville Soccerbox's that are on. The Alan Shearer one focuses on the 2-0 win at Ewood over Man Utd when he scored twice and at least half of the program is on his Rovers career.

What was interesting was watching Dack set the team up at the start. Evans in for Travis. Mulgrew on the bench. No Brereton in the squad. Based on FIFA's players ability or personal preference ?

Dack for Rovers and Thibaud Verlinden for Stoke. It would be good if it was only a professional player for each team. But I think some clubs have esports professionals representing them.

I did. I found one twitter loon saying it and nothing else.

For anyone that is not aware, Sky are allowing people to "pause" their sports packages with no penalties. It's difficult to get through on the phones but they are hopeful you will be able to pause it online by the weekend. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/03/sky-sports-to-let-customers--pause--their-accounts-amid-coronavi/

Link?

Stupidity.

Benno doing his best to put a dent in that goal difference.

I'm fairly sure there's a league two player in there somewhere with Brereton. #bekind

He's not even on the bench. We have no central defensive cover. He's been frozen out at the detriment of picking our strongest matchday squad.

Exactly. We might stumble on a balanced formation with a bit of luck.

I'd get Rothwell, Bennett, Brereton and Gallagher off at half time.

Yep. They basically passed it around Travis then for that goal with no-one else in the picture in midfield.

Brereton should have closed him down the minute he picked the ball up instead of pointing and letting him go.

Ball always looks stuck, or likely to get stuck, under his feet to me.

Get behind him FFS or else Danny will get upset.

Think Downing might struggle in the centre in this game with only him and Trav doing the dirty work. Would prefer Johnson in and Gally on the bench but that side should have a threat about it, especially on the break.

Probably be something like this:- https://www.pne-online.net/forum/index.php?threads/alex-neil-to-be-sacked.3430174/ ???

If we sold Travis, and the money was used to make us financial fair play compliant, and wanted to bring in somebody from abroad, which person or body then decides whether that player is above the skill level we can 'locally source'.

I think for us to get in the play offs, it would take 3 massively successful loan signings to cover the players we cannot sign, as well as adding 2 or 3 others to the squad in general. We are always going to need a goalkeeper, and we cannot keep playing full backs or midfielders to cover like we do out of the defence, so we have to bring a goalkeeper in permanently.

Only just got round to listening to this. Good stuff as ever. Interesting on the Lambert / Coyle / contract situation.

Yes, although Le Tissier scored a hat-trick in an England B game and still didn't get selected.

I presumed this was moved for Sky, but now realise it is on Sunday because of Derby's Thursday night involvement in the FA Cup. If Williams is fit I'd play him and move Nyambe back to right back.

I think Smithy may have been on the pop yesterday looking at that.