Blue blood

On 27/08/2025 at 01:54, bigbrandjohn said:

Playing devil's advocate here. Toth plays a double header in Hungary and gets injured.

We are shipping out our  first choice keeper who had a solid spell in between his calamities. 

We are left with a rookie in goal who did not cover himself in glory in his recent first team outing. Is Pears really a third choice?

Mowbray thought Raya was suspect. We all thought Walton was suspect and he had a decent career away from us. 

Pears is howler prone but he has also been a match saver. I think we are leaving ourselves dangerously thin on the ground if Toth gets injured. 

Agree we need him or someone else experienced as a number 2. He's had a few good games but wouldn't call him a match savers. 

Walton was auspect, he was awful. And if you look at his career since after a short stint upwards its been massively downhill. Not good enough. 

Like most of Rovers decisions we are playing with fire not utilising an experienced number 2. At least the number 1 isn't pears which is a small mercy. 

13 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

No. No it isn't.

It was sarcasm. I'm delighted. 

24 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

How long before Amorim comes under pressure?

Talks a great game, been allowed to sign some good players but............

This is what gets me. Most of the players they have are talented and have shown they can do it at other clubs. Granted theres a few plodders but even excluding the new £200 million strike force,  last season they had some good players. Everyone just seems to get worse there. Shows how rotten the club is. It's a shame... 

1 hour ago, DE. said:

Wonder what the philosophical post-match nugget of wisdom will be this time. 

We won't get beat 6-0  again. Inspiring stuff. 

An utter fraud as others have said. If his philosophy doesn't work with Rangers having a massive budget over all but one of the other teams,  then you can't see him having success or his plan working anywhere. 

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

Well we played two seasons without an actual goalkeeper so I don't see the harm in it.

Which two are those? Because Walton, Steele and Pears all fit that description.

16 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

the last meeting of the fan group coalition  and the rovers hierarchy ended in acrimony and the club attempted to disguise the minutes of the meeting and put out a censored version of it,couple of the fans group coalition wer`nt having any of it(fair play to them) and in a podcast it was explained what really went on,the podcast is actually on the this forum.makes an interesting listen,it  illustrates what the fans are up against,the club behind the scenes is a toxic mix of poison.apathy and incompetence

Thanks. Appalling behaviour. 

Where is the podcast?

23 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

having listened to the fans forum  minutes fiasco,i believe pasha is capable of such,he seems like a wounded animal and they are  quite dangerous 

Missed this. What was the minutes fiasco?

On 12/08/2025 at 12:42, paullarrygher said:

Mental it wasn't done years ago, but is the plan to honestly have Michalski at number 2 this season? The lad hasn't even played a minute of National League and we're one injury away from having him between the sticks for a few months.

 

That's Rovers for you. Fans think we can't do worse than X, Venkys say hold my beer. 

Seen it time after time. We definitely need a no 2 with some decent experience but bet we won't get one. 

My big worry is that we say the defence is fine and solid but so far we are averaging conceeding 2 a game. If that's the strongest part of our team...

5 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

What’s strange about it?

I think they tried to avoid "big" games between title contenders on the first week. Im sure I've read that somewhere. 

7 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

Karbgo had a great chance second half. Had he scored that we are talking about 2 nil win and the team playing with tactical plan and it clean sheet

I mean this logic is as stupid as our defending from that corner. Are we really using what doesn't happen - as in doesn't actually exist- as the argument for us being decent/good? The mind boggles? 

Where to start? It doesn't guarantee a 2-0 win for certain, and where do we end with the hypotheticals? If the corner hadn't been crap we'd have got our second? If Cantwell stayed on he'd got a hat-trick? I get I am over egging the pudding but to defend a team with something that didn't happen (and even if it did wasn't a certainty as to what would follow) is Venky-esque. Ludicrous. 

On 12/08/2025 at 23:32, StHelensRover said:

These two awful performances have given us chance to see the whole squad in action.

I just went back and looked at the squad we went down with in 2017.

If those two sides (2017 and 2025) were playing each other this weekend, I don't think there would be much between them. That side we went down with had 12 goals for Graham and 10 for Sam Gallagher in it, I can't see us having two players who hit double figures this season. Grim.

Interestingly the 2017 squad had a lot of attacking talent but little to no defensive ability especially after the sale of our two centre backs. 

This time it seems the reverse very limited attacking talent with a solid defense (including defensive mids.) That said once we've continues to ship off any assets even that ok defence might be in question as well. 

Both have hallmarks of a ton of players being shipped in and out and a manager of questionable aability.Both seem to have gaping holes in certain areas of the squad. 

Sheff Weds realistically means that there will only be two places left to avoid and I think there's enough other teams that will struggle. So its not nailed on but my word we will be in the mix. 

2 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Why,?

Came with a massive reputation but done the square root of jack shit since he's been here.

Tonight included.

One thing I will say in his defence (albeit also been underwhelmed) is that generally his vision in part relies on the intelligence of others to do good runs and show some smart movement. Since there's a fair few players low in the football IQ stakes it's no wonder we don't use him to his potential. 

28 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

The first 4 fixtures look pretty rough to me.

Don't fancy us against WBA/Birmingham/Norwich.

Hull, it depends how well they take to their new manager I suppose.

Edit: Dire fixtures over Christmas. Middlesbrough and Sheff Wed away. Have to wait until Jan 1st for a home game.

I'm not sure if I can ever remember that happening before.

I'm less worried by our start. Hull were poor last year and Norwich and West Brom have under achieved the last few years. Whilst bigger names in this division and historically they've challenged well thru haven't pulled up any trees the last couple of years. 

It's the finish that worries me. Can't see us getting much out of it and they're teams that likely will be around the top. 

23 minutes ago, ... said:

That final run does NOT look fun.

That was my initial reaction too. It looks a rough ending. 

What annoys me about Buckley is that what he can do and bring can't really be taught. Some of his vision stuff is fantadtoc.

But the stuff which is basic and can be taught he doesn't do. That three different managers haven't drummed it into him doesn't auger well but there's definitely a case of what could have been with the lad. 

6 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Funniest series I've ever seen and not in a good way

Interestingly I watched it with the wife who has no interest in football. She enjoyed it too and had no idea prior to watching that they got relegated again. I think seeing her incredulity of the situation helped reinforce how nuts the whole thing was. 

1 hour ago, Forever Blue said:

 

Having watched the documentaries- which really are excellent- I can't say I'm excited to have him here. 

Not sure Grayson was a bad shout, with 4 promotions for few failures at that point, but the contracts and the way the season went showed he was plenty culpable. 

The moment that stands out was Bain overseeing a machine that was brought to aid revoerely that none of the team used but that he did. 

Sunderland were a basket case club. So are we, so it's a good fit in that respect. The solution to some problems however - I'm far less confident of. 

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

More people are obsess about the fee actually is then the quality of the player. 

Ismael wants pace, ability to get box to box quickly and younger players can do this. Ismael spoke about profiling the right players and what they bring. 

Nzonzi was a great find by Rovers and his team got relegated from Ligue 2 or Samba from Hertha Berlin B team. We tried it with Telalovic but it didn't work out but pleased he is doing so well over there. 

Any thoughts on the difference between then and now, those doing the spotting? 

Maybe, just maybe, that might have a y'know influence on the liklihood of these signings being successful. 

On 02/06/2025 at 11:52, chaddyrovers said:

Surely that depends on which club he signs for? You assume it will be better club than us. 

You assume we haven't him a decent enough wage package. 

Depends what he wants and it's sound like he wants a PL move which I don't see happening for him

Well unless you ignore facts most if not all clubs in the championship are better than us if we are going off any useful metric like professionalism or ambition. 

I think the word educated guess rather than assumption is a good way of putting we haven't offered enough wages. Whilst no pme knows for sure - although that uncertainty can't be used as a defence of the club - all the evidence suggests that they won't have. 

You have to ignore a lot of facts and history to imply the club is not messing up on this one. 

Delighted hehas gone. Someone who has done untold damage to the club imo both deliberately and through incompetence. Glad he's had enough of the pressure of been scapegoated or whatever. Still feel he has escaped far too lightly for his abuse of Rovers as have many before. 

Problem is the bigger issue still own us. Until they go malice and negligence will reign at Ewood. 

Well it was better than I thought but once again the spotlight was on the off field activities as the owners and upper management screwed us once again.  

Going into the season I really didn't rate Eustace and thought his vastly underfunded team shorn of Sammi would struggle. Shows what I know!

Eustace impressed me getting this lot to perform and our position in January given the team.and investment was the most impressive during Venkys reign of terror. 

Of course the owners and upper management screwed it up all over again. Losing a manager to a near relegation certs is one of the most damning illustrations of the crapfest and unprofessional sickness that grips Rovers these days. The transfer window was laughable. The interviews cringe worthy and the selection process of a new manager - heaven forfend we actually plan in advance for this stuff - agonising. 

As an aside two managers having the hump in successive Januarys? When will peoples critical faculties kick in and think "you know there might be some issues with this club..."

How good is the new chap? Hard to tell from this season. I liked his previous work and felt he'd had a rough deal but I've am awful feeling things only got better when the pressure was off. He might not be that good. Which means on top of the usual circus of embarrassment mean it was another missed opportunity. 

I genuinely can't see there being many more opportunities too. How many good manages will our lot get in? Is there any family silver left to sell? Not every year will the youth team bail us out  (everyone in football knows not all kids make the grade - apart from Gestede who is determined to give 3,000,000,000 minutes to our youngsters next season.) 

All in all it makes it a pretty awful season again. As it will always be until this cancer - and I use this word in a considered manner but it feels the most apt in the situation - is removed from our club.  

4 hours ago, paullarrygher said:

Bonkers appointment. 10 months ago Karthik Hariharan was doing an internship at QPR (assisting a recruitment analyst) and studying for a Masters. A few months later he's Head of Data Science and Football Insights at Rovers.

In fairness there's not been a footballing insight in 15 years so I imagine little experience was needed. 

He'll fit right in with the rest of the incompetent no-marks running the joint. 

32 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

You said the same last summer and we spent from what Pasha said around 4.5m mark this season on transfers and increase the wage bill for the January signings. 

See this is the issue of selectively of stats. Basically what is posted here is an admission of neglect and an utter downgrade on what we have. 

It's like me saying that people have a 95% of being safe with me not mugging them or I did 2 years without committing a crime (whilst in prison) - it's damning by what it doesn't say! Neither of the above are true they are illustrative only. 

So 4.5 on millions and increased wage budget. Let's say 3 on fees 1.5 in wages. Now given the last 2 years the wage budget has been cut by 20% that means this year alone the wage budget has decreased by about 5 mill. So what he's saying is we are paying 3 million plus less wages. Hardly a sign of generosity! 

These might not be the exact figures but the point still stands. 

Same with transfer fees. We've brought in what? 24 mill from Wharton and Sammi alone. So at best we've paid out 12.5% of fees. How generous! But then when. Raya money, Gally fee etc are taken into account that drops below 10%. Do you think that's acceptable levels of investment. It is what it is isn't an answer. 

32 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I expect something similar this summer, where I think we spend some money on player transfer fees(around 3-5 million), a couple of loans and couple of frees. 

So either you are saying you expect us to invest about 10% of what we make in transfer fees on players - implausible as we don't have that much talent waiting to be sold- or you think somewhere from something they are going to give us an extra 3 million? There is zero evidence they will do this.