DE.

Maybe he's been offered a huge managerial role in South America after dazzling them on TV with his tactical wisdom.

It was bad timing for us to become interested in him then regardless of the medical team's culpability. If we'd signed him straight after WC94 we probably would have gotten a few good years out of him before he broke down.

Dahlin's success mainly came in Germany and at international level. I don't think he can be counted as an after tournament buy anyway considering it was 3 years after USA 94 and Sweden didn't even qualify for Euro 96, but regardless he had a solid reputation before coming to Rovers. We never saw anything close to the best of him, unfortunately. Just bad timing all around.

Dahlin was a top player tbf, we just got him at the wrong end of his career.

We've had, what, one decent summer window in our League 1 season under Mowbray? I expect the same old story of failing to bring in anyone of note in July, then scrambling around in August for anyone available to plug the gaps. Wouldn't surprise me at all if we start the season with a lot of young, untested players in the first team squad. The eternal optimists will laud the club for bringing through the youth and being loyal to 'honest' Tony, even whilst we plummet down the table. Meanwhile Ayala and the other known crocks will soon pick up injuries again, making our situation even more dire. Maybe Downing will be brought back again. Relegation seems very likely to me. I'll be stunned if we aren't bobbing around the drop zone for most of the season. I would say 'in a relegation fight' but under Mowbray I can't foresee it being much of a fight.

As of now I'd agree, but once pre-season starts the later we sign somebody the less chance they have to bed in with their team mates and take part in pre-season with the club before the season starts.

Difficult one - if we had a new manager in place who would be given that money to spend on improving the team I'd take the money without hesitation, assuming it was at least £5m. With TM in charge, though... I don't think it'd make a blind bit of difference whether he was given the money or not. It'd be in a drop in the ocean as far as our debts are concerned and if TM was given any of it I wouldn't trust him to use it to improve the team. So, I guess as long as TM is here the question is met largely with a shrug from me. We're screwed either way with the current dimwit in the dugout and our absent owners continuing to not give a shit about the club beyond the absolute basics of keeping the lights on.

I managed it but wouldn't say I enjoyed it 😅 Half Life Alyx is about my limit as far as enjoying 'scary' VR games!

I actually ended up completing the game in flat mode first, just so that I knew what was coming 😂 couldn't hack doing it first time in VR!

Can't imagine Tony's collection of soft lads lasting very long under Keane. He'd need to be allowed to buy an entire new squad.

It's absolutely terrifying in VR.

Fortunately others have responded so thoroughly to this post that I don't need to say much more. The only thing I will add is that Mowbray himself said, more than once, that Brereton was his purchase and his decision. Unless I've missed something there has never been any evidence the owners had any input besides providing the cash. Do you have proof to back up that claim? If so I'd be genuinely interested to see it, as all I can remember reading is the manager telling us he was 100% responsible for the BB transfer.

Absolute nonsense. Championship clubs don't need to take £7m risks on youth players and it was a gross misuse of our funds to do so - regardless of whether those funds were 'earmarked' for such a thing or not. Have any of the many, many clubs that have been promoted whilst we've been in the Championship spent that kind of money on a kid, at the expense of their first team? I'd wager not, although I would love to be proven wrong to investigate that as a case study.

Right back at you!

Can you imagine playing for a team like Chile in the Copa America and then having to come back and play for turgid Tony Mowbray in the Championship?

Yeah, exactly. Not much point talking about his experience with Chile helping us out because the lad will be Mowbrayed as soon as he returns. Assuming he moves on soon I'm sure his international involvement will benefit any team with a half-decent manager, but it won't be us as our owners are idiots and our manager is a complete dope.

One of my enduring memories of J-Lowe is when I went to watch us play Ipswich at Portman Road. He received the ball in the centre circle - looked up, spotted an opposition player running towards him, and fell over before he'd even been tackled. The lynchpin.

Honestly I'm at a point where I just can't get excited about new signings as long as Mowbray is in charge. Even if the signee appears impressive I already know his impact will be neutered by Mowbray's coaching and style of play, and will be lucky simply to play in his natural position.

I think it was mentioned his mother is Chilean, so I assume he has enough of an understanding to get by.

As far as Rovers' stats are concerned, it pretty much just shows the alternative hypothesis ('more possession = more points') can't be proven, so the null hypothesis ('more possession = irrelevant') is true. Obviously possession is just one of a number of intertwined statistics that make up a match. Our style of play, coaching and team selection from match to match all play huge factors as well (amongst other things) and aren't factored into simply possession stats. All we can say from the data here is that if TM claims dominating the ball leads to better results he is wrong.

Did Shebby only load Portugal as a country?

I didn't really have any reasoning for my percentile segments, beyond 10% increments simply being easiest from 45-75. I'd agree that the sample size is relatively small in regards to our lower possession stats, and it should probably also be factored in that those two home matches where we had less than 46% possession were right at the end of the season, essentially in dead rubber matches. What the stats do show, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that possession-based football doesn't work for us. By pretty much any segment you'll rarely find much more than 1.3 PPG, combining home and away - but let's face it, you don't need data analysis to tell you that. You only have to look at where we are in the table. Anybody who's been watching us this season knows full well that our style of play is largely shit and the results are testament to that. The fact that our PPG really doesn't improve at all the more possession we have, though, suggests a focus on possession isn't the answer as far as our current players and manager are concerned. Whether less possession is the answer is up for debate. As you say, I don't think there's enough proportional data from this season to make a judgement on that.

I built a relational database containing this season's stats which as far as I can tell seems to be accurate (BBC stats for possession). Assuming my statistics are correct and I didn't screw up the indexing somehow, it ends up like below: 45% or Less Possession Games Points PPG Home 2 6 3 Away 4 8 2 Combined 6 14 2.3 46-55% Possession Games Points PPG Home 5 8 1.6 Away 6 6 1 Combined 11 14 1.3 56-65% Possession Games Points PPG Home 10 11 1.1 Away 7 3 0.4 Combined 17 14 0.8 66-75% Possession Games Points PPG Home 6 9 1.5 Away 6 6 1 Combined 12 15 1.3 So yeah, assuming my calculations are accurate, the more possession we have the worse we get across the board until we reach the 66% mark, which is still marginally below 46-55% possession and some way below < 46%.

Another thing that's changed from previous years is our ability to score late on. This season we scored more goals in the last 15 minutes of games than any other period. At the opposite end we scored our least amount of goals in the first 15 minutes of each half... raise your hand if that one shocks you.

Appreciate data is a bit of a touchy subject on here lately, but I've been messing around with Power BI and using Rovers season stats... and our season really was absolutely wrecked by dismal performances against the top six. We only managed 6 points against them all season - 4 at home (Barnsley (W), Swansea (D)) and 2 away (Brentford (D), Norwich (D)). With that said, even though there was a general feeling that we were 'flat track bullies' we actually took more points from the teams who finished between 7th-12th (19) than we did the bottom six (18) or the teams who finished 13th-18th (14). Our best months for collecting points were November (11) and January (10). Worst months were October (4), February (1). We technically picked up 4 points in May as well but only had two matches which we won and drew, so, proportionally a good month. Our best month for goalscoring was September (11) whilst our worst was was March (4), but January (5) and February (5) were somewhat dry months too. In terms of conceding goals our best month was January (1) and our worst was December (11) - although we also conceded 10 in October and February. Interestingly even though January was one of our lowest scoring months, because we only conceded one goal we picked up 10 points from a possible 12. What a difference a good defence makes, huh? In comparison February saw us leak 10 goals, and therefore only pick up 1 point from a possible 18. Hopefully our statisticians show that one to Mowbray. Team we scored the most goals against home and away this season - Birmingham (7) Team who scored the most goals against us home and away this season - Watford (6) Interestingly (?) we kept more clean sheets away from home than at home this season, and also conceded two less goals away from home overall. Although who knows how home and away form in general has been affected by empty stadiums. Also, the only team not to score against us home or away this season? Middlesbrough. Yeah, I know.