If Pears is being extended as our backup keeper, no problem. He's proven himself capable. If he's being primed as our #1 with Kaminski departing then you can't help but think it doesn't bode well for the summer, and JDT's comments about us having no money were in fact the truth, rather than a ploy to supposedly trick other clubs into thinking we're rattling around with a begging bowl whilst having a wad of cash in reserve.

Sheff Weds 2-0 down to P'Boro near half time in the first leg of the L1 playoff semi. It really will be harsh if they finish 3rd on 96 points, then go out in the semis of the playoffs to a team who finished 6th and got 19 points less than them over the course of a season.

Sure, but if JRC is in midfield as a more attacking option (as I interpret 'goalscoring midfielder' to mean) who do you play alongside him to balance things out? Would you have a DM behind JRC and one other, or stick with the two in midfield? Do you think a player like Szmodics could play both AMC and DM as what would essentially be a box-to-box midfielder?

The discussion has been about all of those options and how they'd be utilised - what do you mean by this?

Considering how utterly cursed the second half of this season has been, probably.

Yeah, but I'm going off the description of him being a goal scoring midfielder, which suggests defending won't be his priority. If he's mostly in the middle and further back then it's less of an issue.

There are possibilities, but I feel like something in the approach will have to change if we have JRC and one of Wharton/Bucko playing beside him. Assuming Travis stays then he could play behind them in a DM role, potentially, but that's not the shape JDT has typically lined up with this season. I think asking Szmodics to cover AMC and DM would be a lot to ask, even with his excellent workrate.

If we are doing okay again at the midway point next season, it'll be interesting to see how half season ticket sales go. Considering we've had two consecutive seasons now of collapsing from January onwards, you have to think those that bought them may not have felt like they got their money's worth. Especially this season when the end of our 9 game winless streak came away from home. But then, it's relatively small numbers (< 1k?) so maybe it won't have a significant impact either way.

Yeah, exactly why I'm raising the point. Yes it's nice that JRC will be played in his best position, but if it's in a more offensive role and we stick with a two, as JDT seems to prefer, are Wharton or Buckley likely to partner him considering neither have any physical presence? Can't help but think if they do we'll be leaving ourselves open at the back, especially to teams like Rotherham and Preston who thrive on the physical aspect of the game. 4-0 and 4-1 L's this season respectively...

Assuming we stick with a midfield two, and JRC and Wharton are our main pairing, who's doing the defending in that scenario if JRC is being primed as a goal-scoring midfielder? Wharton is a class act passing the ball around at the back and indeed from the back, or anywhere on the pitch really but is he doing to be expected to fulfil the battling DM part of the role as well? If we change to a midfield three with someone behind those two then fair enough, but where does that leave Buckeroo as he's certainly not suited to that DM role either.

Take wages into account and you're well above £7m as well. Typically we'd have expected to get that back and then some with a decent sale, but now they just go into the same black hole as everything else, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

The problem with using predictions at the beginning of the season as a base point for comparison is that nobody knew what the standard of the division would be like. It became very clear when we were consistently in the playoffs and as high as 2nd at points, despite playing poorly, that the standard was not particularly good. A couple of decent January signings and we'd be sitting pretty. That's what makes this so hard to take. Going back to pre-season predictions brings me zero comfort as we didn't know at that point how big of an opportunity was there. Now we do, and we squandered it for the second season in a row.

That's a big part of it too. With BBD reverting to BB we had nobody to step up. All we really needed was three or four more goals from anyone across our range of attacking options and it would have been enough. Instead the best we could ever manage was a single goal in almost every match from January onwards. When you look as goals conceded in that time we were doing fine, so the defence can't really take the blame. It's all on our piss poor attackers collectively failing to put the ball in the net.

Looking at it objectively, it all comes down to BBD's form. If it hadn't completely nosedived in the second half of the season we would have gotten over the line easily. He didn't even need to score another 14 - another 8-10 would have been enough. From January until the final game of the season he managed three goals. Scoring two more in the final game was far too late.

Tbf they were 21st and 13 points behind 1st when Carrick joined. Considering Carrick had no pre-season and inherited a squad whose confidence must have been very low, I think that's a really harsh assessment. Fun fact, 1st and 2nd at the time? QPR and Rovers, both on 30 points :')

I suppose you could argue his goals helped us not get relegated, as without them we would have been in trouble. On the other hand, £7m could have been spent across multiple areas of the team and even if only £3m had gone to the striker position good recruitment could have brought the same if not better return than Diaz across the course of multiple seasons. Arma certainly didn't cost us 7m. But then it comes back to this idea of the money only being available for a marquee signing, so not allowed to be spent across the team. Hopefully nonsense, because if true it's a really stupid mindset.

I'll never feel optimistic about a new season for as long as Venky's own us. Best case scenario JDT stays, Wharton isn't sold, and the recruitment team have worked out how to target good strikers and submit basic paperwork on time. However, I fear that it's more likely JDT leaves, Wharton is sold and the money goes into a black hole, and we start next season with Gallagher leading the line. Prove me wrong, Venky's. Just once.

Didn't come through for us when it mattered, but then how many of Mowbray's lads have? They all have the same mentality problem. His goals from the first part of our seasons will have to be replaced, regardless. Ideally we sign a striker who can keep form for an entire season.

When DG's time here wound down, we had AA step up. When AA was sold, BBD stepped up. Main thing to note with both AA and BBD is that they were already here. At neither point did the club go out and buy a striker as a replacement for another one departing, we had a striker at the club already able to fill the void - although in both AA and BBD's cases it was a bit unexpected. Armstrong hadn't previously been a goal machine, and we all know BBD's history pre-Chile. There's nobody stepping up this time. Gallagher, Vale, Dolan, Leonard, Hedges... forget it, none of those are scoring more than 10 next season. Most won't even get to 5. Uncharted waters now for us in terms of needing a striker in the summer, and not having anybody in the squad capable of stepping up should we fail.

Bottom three now as I predicted - the most boring but most likely outcome as things stand. With that said, Leeds hiring Allardyce makes things interesting, and Leicester are poor enough that they could certainly drop if Allardyce or Cooper manage to get some points from their final few games.

Definitely, they've got the infrastructure, owners willing to back the manager and a manager who really knows what he's doing. If JDT left then McKenna would be an ideal replacement - although truthfully there wouldn't be much point in him trading Ipswich for us.

Genuinely never been this angry after a win. Think I'm going to disconnect from Rovers for a while, as it's not healthy to feel like this.

Give him a pre season to get himself back to proper fitness, he'll be fine. Literally the only player we have with any real footballing intelligence. Wouldn't keep him on his current deal, but if there's a more sensible deal to be made it's an easy decision.

We didn't though, because it's in a match where the result didn't matter, and I'm sure the players knew that. Showing bottle would have been doing it when it matters, something this team are incapable of.

Just need another 8 or 9 to fuck off with them. Although for the record Dacky is one I'd keep.