Considering my location I have probably seen and heard more about him than anybody on here tbf.

Ipswich fans aren't bothered about losing him, which should tell you enough. He might have been a good keeper in the past (although still made plenty of mistakes) but he isn't now. If he was that good he'd have much more interest. Ipswich aren't asking much for him - they've already brought in a keeper to replace him. They just want him gone. For me he wouldn't be a capable no2 as I wouldn't be confident with him between the sticks. But you are right in that I doubt he'd want to come here as a backup keeper, and he wouldn't be asking for the type of wage a backup keeper would be making anyway. Probably why it's definitely a no go.

Not for us, Bialkowski is a very poor keeper - hence Milwall being the only team interested.

We've been hearing that for the last week tbf.

Because he's not very good, is injury prone and his wages could be put to better use elsewhere. Simple as that, no overthinking involved. You obviously rate him a lot higher than I do, so our perspectives will differ, but for me we would lose absolutely nothing if Evans was moved on.

Yeah that was pretty disappointing in retrospect. We didn't even play well in that match, from recollection Ipswich at least matched us. The next week we drew 0-0 at home to Millwall which was another poor result, before we beat Hull & Brentford 1-0 in the coming weeks, with a draw against Reading sandwiched in between. So in truth we actually didn't exactly start the season on fire, but we were gaining points, even if a lot of the matches were draws. Our first loss was against Bristol City on Sep 2nd when they thumped us 4-1. Last season's draw against Ipswich on the opening day is perhaps a reminder that you can never take a win for granted. We didn't know it at the time but they were the worst team in the division by some distance - even worse than Bolton, who at times couldn't even pay their squad.

The problem with Evans as back up, as others have mentioned, is that he isn't being paid a back up player's wage. Why hand him a new contract last season on what was probably the same level of wage just to sit on the bench? I doubt he would be happy with that and other players being paid less but starting ahead of him would be perfectly entitled to ask the manager to raise their salaries accordingly. It's best for all parties if Evans moves on imo, but I get the feeling Mowbray does not see him as a backup option and we'll be seeing more of Evans than people are assuming.

It would be typical of Rovers to lose against Charlton and then beat one of the bigger teams, so I know what you mean. Looking at it from a purely logical perspective though I think 3 points on the opening day would help boost our confidence going into what should be some tougher fixtures. Last season's poor runs of form do concern me - our good start to the season ensured we never really got involved in the relegation scrap at any point. It would be great if we could get a head of steam going early doors in case we fall into another rut.

I agree that you can't describe the first match as a must win, but looking at the fixtures we have coming up after Charlton we could really do with three points to get ourselves going.

https://lionofviennasuite.sbnation.com/2019/7/28/8934142/bolton-wanderers-what-have-we-become An interesting and fairly lengthily write-up here on Bolton's plight.

How long does this drag on before the EFL have no choice but to step in? They surely have to do something before the season starts?

Last Order is also worth a watch if you haven't seen it before:

I was incredibly hyped for Advent Children when it first came out. I actually pre-ordered the Japanese first-print edition so that I could watch it ASAP. It didn't come with English subtitles so I had to print off a fan translation from some forum I used to be on and literally read the translation off paper as I watched the movie. Hilarious to think about, considering nowadays fansubs of popular Japanese media are released days if not hours after it airs. I watched Steins;Gate 0 concurrent with its Japanese broadcast airing last year and subtitled episodes were up 2-3 hours after the episode had aired in Japan. 2005 was very different! If I hadn't ordered a Japanese version of the film then I would have had to wait seven months for the English one to drop, which is also ridiculous considering nowadays stuff like this pretty much comes out in multiple languages or with subtitles from day one. AC released in Japan in September 2005 but didn't come out officially in English until April 2006! Anyway, those memories aside I've always thought AC was a good film. I really enjoyed it when it came out and still like watching it now. Admittedly there are some things I'm not a huge fan of, and I don't think the plot is anything special, but as far as being largely non-offensive fan service it does a fine job.

As long as they get games, for sure. You just wonder who in the first team would be dropping below them in the pecking order. If Buckley is being seen as a CM option then he has Travis, Johnson, Evans, Smallwood and even potentially Bennett to contend with. If it's AMC then he's got Dack and Rothwell to get past. I'm not sure what position we're thinking about for JRC, he's just classed as a "midfielder" on the website so assumedly facing similar obstacles?

Yeah, that Shawcross injury was terrible. At his age that's potentially a career ender.

If Buckley is going to be in and around the first team then surely at least one of Evans or Smallwood needs to go? Some serious waste of resources going on if we have Travis, Johnson, Evans, Smallwood and Buckley all competing for, at most, two spots in the team.

I don't take much from pre-season games but it is good to see Brereton finding the net regularly. Hopefully he keeps that form going into the proper season.

Norwich hit the jackpot by signing Pukki on a free, it isn't common to get that lucky on a relatively unknown player. They also brought in a very reputable goalkeeper in Krul, and numerous players like Buendia, Leitner and Heise from Europe. I think we're way behind Norwich in terms of recruitment. Probably better off comparing to Sheff Utd, who also had a largely domensic transfer policy (although they still brought in players from France and Germany).

Fits in well with the rest of our players at least! Trying to think of a player we have that is a good crosser of the ball... Downing, hopefully?

Unfortunately clubs in the PL are so minted nowadays that they can afford to tell clubs lower down in the pyramid how they want their players to be used. If not, no loan and the ridiculous PL TV money means it's no sweat to keep a reserve player in the u23's.

It's pretty weird that it was supposed to be all but done at the start of the week, yet it's now Friday and still absolutely nothing. If we can't even get a loan for a youngster done then I give up. Better wrap Lenihan and Mulgrew in cotton wool.

I'll leave this post here for now on the basis it may receive some constructive replies, but if it turns into bickering I'll have to hide this post and the replies. Let's try and keep it civil lads. I'm not so much panicking as just resigned to the fact that we either can't or won't reinforce the defence properly again. If it isn't going to happen now after what went on at the end of last season, particularly with the manager's comments, then I'm not sure it's ever going to happen.

Probably has enough in his bank account to just retire tbh. Maybe he has.

I wouldn't necessarily have called Rhodes a problem as he did what he was there to do - score goals. The problem is we became very one-dimensional and ended up relying on him (and briefly Gestede) to score as nobody else in the team was contributing. King was completely wasted whilst he was here, although in GB's defence he did have a number of injury problems during his spell here and his attitude on the pitch was at times questionable. People point to him being used on the wing rather than as an out-and-out forward, but Bournemouth have played him there plenty of times as well and he looked far more up for it there then he ever did when he was here. I don't read too much into the cup games as they were much easier to be motivated for than the grind of the average Championship fixture. Bowyer just didn't know how to use pacy, flair players. He kept playing Cairney on the wing, brought in Mo Barrow for a cup of tea before he went back to Swansea due to lack of game time, gave us the slowest, most boring centre-midfield in existence and in general made us a very sludgy, attritional team with Jason Lowe at the heart of it. I try not to knock GB as I still think he did well considering his lack of experience as a first team manager (none), but under a better manager I genuinely think we would have made the playoffs in 13-14 and maybe 14-15 as well. Two big opportunities missed solely because Venky's always go cheap on the managerial position.

We had quite a few of them last season as well! Bristol City 4-1 Rovers Stoke 2-3 Rovers Preston 4-1 Rovers Wigan 3-1 Rovers Rovers 4-2 Sheff Weds Leeds 3-2 Rovers Brentford 5-2 Rovers Rotherham 3-2 Rovers Sheff Weds 4-2 Rovers Not to mention all the 2-2's - Ipswich, Reading, Forest, Birmingham (x2), Swansea...