Lancaster Rover

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

I, like many loved periods of JDT ball, however a back 3 of Wharton, Hyam and one of Pickering/Carter/Ribeiro could be up there with the slowest defensive units we've put out, they'd make Nelsen and Ooijer look quick.

It's very JDT, starting 4-2-3-1 and going 3-4-3. De Neve and/or Miller are going to have to be very, very fit with bulletproof hamstrings

So like I said 3-4-3 is the base formation when in possession, what you've listed is basically Tuchels' version of 3-4-3

Agreed, I think it looks nailed on we will play a version of 3-4-3, what that looks like in terms of which CM drops in to help in build up or where the full backs play is anyones guess at this stage. What's for sure is we don't have any natural touchline hugging wingers barring Kargbo and even then he needs to be able to cut in narrowing the pitch.

I think we are terrifyingly short on the right hand side, I think Miller will be a good addition though may take some time to adjust and Alebiosu is an unknown at this stage. Our only wide option is currently Hedges unless we try Kargbo off the right on his 'natural' side.

We desperately need a full back or winger who can cross, for all the talk of a pacy or goalscoring winger we're neglecting how many chances Gueye got as a result of Brittain whipping the ball in (first or second phase). An ability to regularly get quality deliveries in to the box is what worries me most if we're going with Ohashi and Gueye as our forward options. I'm sure getting Kargbo in behind will initially catch teams unawares but they'll quickly work that out and starve us off space in behind, at which point we need a plan B to make the most of our other attacking assets. Brittain created 45 chances last season, that is going to take some replacing

Mafoumbi who is seemingly a dud is sure to be offloaded/paid off to free up a spot