Lancaster Rover

I watched the Atletico v Espanyol game and was struck by how different Dolan was in his willingness to cross early. His first involvement in the game he did his trademark slow down to try and speed up routine and got clamped fairly easily. From there on it was a case of touch out of his feet and whip it in, he looked effective to be fair to the lad.

I text my lad (who is at the game) at half time that Cantwell needed to do more, so fair play on the second half impact

Thanks, I missed the first couple of minutes so didn’t catch who it was. I’ve been wracking my brains thinking of an injured/squad player whose scouse that it could have been

Who is the co-comms on ifollow, scouser

Cheers, my point was more in reference to quality rather than character, etc. I was trying to highlight the points he was making about the data being a factor in decision making and in most cases it being the one that holds the least weight. I personally don’t think Gueye is a championship player and I’m on the fence re Ohashi. I wouldn’t class miller in the same bracket as with the SPL being so accessible it’s like signing a player from the champ/league 1.

Journalist - "so Rudy any news on the right winger addition"? Rudy - "ooh isn't Lewis Travis a naughty boy" everyone look in the opposite direction

I can understand the standpoint of contracts for players over 30 however there needs to be some consideration to games played at the level of(or comparable). We have an average age of 26.5, which is right in the middle of the champ average squad age. 25 years olds who've played a lot of games are great, however I'd prefer a 32 year old with 400 games over a 21 year old with 20 when considering the nature of the championship. I'm sure Gestede, etc will point to data, ceilings, etc but the one thing with football data is good analysts also use context and most importantly their eyes. I listened to an excellent podcast last week with the Head of Recruitment at Coventry, Dean Austin. He was highlighting the importance of context and using what you see in front of you with data playing a supporting role. He gave an anecdote of a player from overseas Coventry were all in on, so much so he went over to do a physical scouting exercise. The data on the player was all there, ticked every box. Going over was seen as merely due diligence and confirmation on what was going to be a big outlay. He watched 2 games and 2 training sessions and went from being all in to all out. Because no matter what the data was telling him, his eyes saw something different. And herein lies the problem with Gestede, Suhail et al they seem to be working purely on data and looking for a certain profile of player (i.e. age, height, running stats, recoveries, etc) and not taking into account contextual factors.

I totally agree, I think it’s stark juxtaposition of the two periods in history so obviously laid out in front of us that make me uncomfortable/so aware of it. As a 40 year old I’ve been very lucky in the heights I’d seen, fans older than me suffered many more dark days than I, the first 25 years of my life were mainly seeing rovers on the up or at the very pinnacle of success. It’s the almost wilful neglect of the Venky’s era against the image of Jack that drives our situation home most.

As for the game, a front 4 of Kyogo, Stansfield, Gray and Anderson terrifies me

I find the cashing in/using Jack as a deflection tactic being employed more and more the last 6 months. Anytime there is unrest it seems a reference to a time (these lot have no place talking about) when Rovers were something to be proud of is rolled out. It really sticks in my craw

I was having this discussion with my son, in the 30 years prior to his birth I’d never seen us lose to them. In the first 10 years of his life he’s not seen us win.

Getting relegated in your 150th anniversary season is so Venky’s. Might as well give derby the points now for the official anniversary game.

The disrespect to name Cantwell in the same sentence as Taraabt is quite something

Stinks of Owen Coyle does this

So we've not added any strikers, no RW and no 8 from what I can see, as neither Tavares or Henrikksen are 8's. Outside of the outgoing that needed replacing immediately i.e. McLoughlin and Miller we've added players in non priority positions in another LB/LWB and another CDM and another CAM. Good strategy that completely going against your initial strategy you've worked on over a number of months in relation to issues in the previous season.

I can categorically say he’s 100% lying on this occasion, he’s wholeheartedly talking out of Hoop

Not sure where this nonsense about academy staff not rating him has come from. He was widely regarded as a generational talent, the only concern was his physical stature, as he was a late developer in that respect.

Yep, that’s what I mean by nuisance factor. Part of our problem is we don’t get enough players around him to take advantage of his hold up play or ability to roll defenders. Re Giles, if you mean direct assists from Gueye scoring I’m not sure, if it’s knockdowns, etc maybe. Saying that though I had a look last week and Brittain created over 40 goal scoring chances yet ended up 4 direct assists/goal contributions. Which says a hell of a lot about our goal scoring ability across the team

My concern is that outside of centre-half and left back and current CM’s we look wafer thin. A team of unknowns, not yets and never beens. The primary issue being where are goals coming from, Ohashi is an 8 - 10 a season man, we all love Gueye’s personality and smile but let’s face it outside of nuisance factor he’s crap. With good service there is max 16-20 goals between them, where are the others coming from? Off the top of my head I reckon the rest of our team have no more than 25 champ goals between them

I still can’t believe we’re swapping Travis; promotion winner, club captain and nearly 250 champ games under his belt for someone who has played 100 games in serie C and D and 30 in a league with similar coefficient to Scotland, who most decry as being tinpot

Wasn’t aware of the shared agent, mafoumbi goes down as another strange signing. The last few seasons I’ve been quietly optimistic as although the ownership and cabal’s a shambles we’ve retained a lot of solid players and had good (not without faults) managers. I personally don’t see VI in the same bracket as JDT and Eustace in terms of quality, throw in to that the loss of quality and experience and the accumulation of relatively unknown players from leagues with a lower standing than the championship and this season is starting to have the feel of the Coyle disaster. This accumulation of unknown players at the behest of the ex player/special advisor makes me very uncomfortable in termS of relationships, etc

Who we can’t sign until we offload/pay up Mafoumbi

He might as well have been

The nationality of our players doesn’t bother me too much, quality does. The biggest issue for me is we look like we’re back in the Kean days of accumulating no marks from across Europe who aren’t good enough to play in the championship. De Neve and Tavares have literally won the lottery

True, I'd omitted him on the basis I've not seen that much of him other than against our forwards which you don't have to be particularly quick to marshall