Dreams of 1995

He should be a better prospect than Nuttall. We got Nuttall for free from the Scottish Leagues and Brereton cost us £7m from one of the most competitive leagues in Europe. His contribution so far is indefensible really, despite all the new buzzwords like "project signing" and so on. I look forward to the time he starts banging in the goals, until then his displays in a Rovers shirt average about 2 out of 10 - he's been shite.

Watford aside how many of them clubs are on a positive trajectory? Brentford and Derby have wallowed in their respective places for quite a few seasons, Southampton have gone hugely downhill, Swansea have been relegated and Chelsea are in their worst position since Mourinho. Chelsea's success lies more in the fact they can spend circa £60m on a striker any transfer window they please as opposed to regular changes in managers. Wolves, again, have benefited from lots of money (plus the advise of super agents...) as opposed to a policy of chopping and changing managers. Two clubs have had continued success throughout my entire lifetime (26 years) and they are Man Utd and Arsenal. Both clubs had one thing in common in that they were stable in the manager department. Since the sacking of Fergie Utd haven't won a thing despite having a great board - we are yet to see whether Arsenal's fortunes benefit from a change in manager. I think you'll find that any club (again save Watford) that have high manager turnover + high success are usually always clubs that can splash huge sums of money on replacing players as and when they please. Clubs like us, for example, couldn't fund a change in philosophy every 12 months and so would suffer - and did suffer - with a high turnover of managers/coaches

Leonard it is more than possible that finances weren't right on the deal. More than anyone I'd have loved Assombalonga here (or similar) but if it meant giving him 50k p/w then no thankyou. There's a clear wage structure in place to prevent a financial situation that we have seen before. We can't go breaking that structure on the possible chance of a play off place. The summer is the time to buy. In truth we failed to invest in a realistic push back then. By failing to land a central defender we all but limited our chances of promotion to out-scoring everyone. You can't do that in this league, clearly. You are right though - this approach, whilst cautious and "safe", also leaves us open to losing our better players and scrambling around to replace him. Dack may go in the summer and that would leave us needing defenders, midfielders and a talisman. It's a tricky balance - I don't want Mowbray's job that's for certain

Ouch. He tore League 1 up last time he was in it too. Would have been a saving grace for Ipswich in their season down there. To be truthful though I saw Paul Lambert's Villa week in week out when I was in the Midlands and they were tragic. An extremely poor side that played some mind numbing football. It's a fine line between whether he did a good job or whether he put them in that position. There is only so long you can blame owners for your poor performance as manager. He has brought players in everywhere he went, whether they cost or not is irrelevant, and most of the time they have been poor(er) players. As a rounding up excercise I guarantee you that Paul Lambert has left more clubs in a worse state than when he took over than he has improved them. To me that is the sign of a poor manager.

Perfectly summarised Tom Stinny. Clear, concise and correct. Just what we like around here.

Have I woke up in May? The amount of people saying our season is over must mean it is. There's 15 games left for Christ sake

Is project signing a thing now?

Who gives a flying monkeys about Ipswich

I have said this for years. Single tier dome stadium with a "kop end" of sorts with the away fans in a corner. It would be the first time I'd assume a club would rebuild a stadium smaller but it's definitely required.

See Crimpshine above. If I felt like the club had some connection with me again then I'd watch us down the leagues certainly. Right now I am happy because of the manager + playing staff however in one transfer window that could all change again. The only constant is the owners and my popular opinion on them is that they are shitehawks.

Not as such in that I do recognise their financial clout. In order to maintain our current status in football we obviously 'need' them(their money). However, and this may come under an unpopular opinion, if they did clear off and we did have to "do a Portsmouth" I wouldn't be overly concerned either. In fact, I'd be pretty damn content.

And so it begins...

The 3 clean sheets might have tricked people into thinking our defensive woes are lessening but Saturday showed that the problem is still there. It's no shameful thing to lose to Brentford but the manner of our second half performance was abysmal. As soon as that first goal went in against us I knew we'd lose; there isn't a man at the back I would say will take control of the line and whip both the defenders and midfielders into shape. We are the only team in the "play off contention" pack on a minus goal difference. Only Villa have conceded more and I'm pretty sure up until January they had 1 out & out centre half on the books in James Chester. Therein lies your problem. When you look at the other teams around us all have centre halves that would walk into our squad. Hell, Sheffield United have one of the best in the league and he's one of our own! This squad is a work in progress and this season I can forgive the occasional tanking. If the problem isn't addressed next year though you have to start questioning whether the manager sees it as a problem or not. We were tentatively linked with 3 strikers this month but not one defender...why when scoring goals doesn't seem to be our problem?

Jack Byrne springs to mind there. In an era of highlights and training drills you can flatter to deceive quite easily. So often you see a player dribble with speed past 6 cones and knock it into a cut out top corner on an artificial surface. Fast forward to Saturday: 6 players in front of you, keeper to beat and worn surface and the pressure shows.

These type of results come down to one thing at the end of the day: a weak back 4. This needed to be addressed in the summer but it's with blatantly obvious that it needs a radical overhaul. A left back, right back and centre back is required. Preferably the centre half will be experienced and cost £££. Mulgrew, Rodwell or Lenihan are not the answers; neither of them have been a centre half through and through. Bring back Samba. Some blood and guts man. Next time I see a ball bounce in the box I'll be tempted to run on and head it myself.

Load of maggots them lot, from top to bottom. Poisonous club. Couldn't think of anything worse than Netflix filming us during our dark days. Thankfully not even our owners were that desperate for personal exposure! I feel sorry for their fans.

I hope they paint the lines on properly this time. Poor old Jason Lowe couldn't make out where the pitch ended last time. Shambles of a club. 7-0.

Why didn't you just get your bloke in the bushes to forge the signature? Set of absolute wrong uns.

Yeah but with respect there's no need to be throwing away money unnecessarily. Is Assombalonga worth 50k p/w? Is Austin worth £10m? Is Gallagher even that good? Is Brereton worth £7m.......oh. I hope he's had his fingers burnt regarding Brereton and is now much more considerate about the money that is there to spend.

In fairness though the departure of Downing equals the emergence of Rodwell and the departure of Palmer is irrelevant because he didn't exactly play much of a part. With any luck it will mean more chances for one of our own in Rothwell! Plus Nuttall stinks of goals anyway so balls to Britt

All joking aside you have to assume our scouting was a complete shambles pre-Mowbray. Under Bowyer we only ever seemed to sign available players - in such they were often cast offs, clearly offered to us by an agent/agency. It's been a long time since we pursued a player and landed them a la Harry Chapman (although you could argue Boro didn't really want him). I'd love to have had Assombalonga here (don't rate Gallagher or Austin much in truth) but if the finances aren't right then sod him. Let him sit on the Boro bench and let them pay his wages. We have our valuation of a player and that's the bottom line. Besides we spent £7m on Brereton and I can feel it in my waters he's about to start banging them in. He's currently Rovers' top scorer in training.

Funny init. Whilst the country is embroiled in a bitter battle to get out of Europe, we are investing a transfer windows budget trying to get in!

This is going to be the best damn scouting department ever seen in football. 18 months it's been in the making. Let's hope we can land a man in Europe soon.

Go on Tony lad

We will be mid table and it's exactly where we deserve to be. I still think this squad can make a play off push but I firmly expect us to land about 10th. We haven't got the ability to bury teams which is what turns a team from contenders to promotion.