Some folk have a class way of undermining others. Whatever the reason for his having been employed by the club, he lives a lifestyle most of us would trade places for in a heartbeat. Good luck to him, every other Rovers player, all the fans, admin & support staff, suppliers and any other stakeholder who knows me. It's going to be a long hard slog of a season.

Hmm, so it's all about the money then.. I thought our owners were slumdog billionaires.?

Do elaborate for us disconnected ones..

It's the lack of anything concrete to react to that is the hardest to stomach. Whoever comes in, assuming we get someone over and onto the line, at least when we know we will be able to express an opinion, rather than this endless three PhD volumes worth of hot air and speculative horsepoo trading.

From Wikipedia: James Alexander Arnold (born 6 August 1950) is an English former football goalkeeper, noted for his highly intelligent positional ability. He made 165 league appearances in a seventeen-year career in the Football League.[2] He arrived in the professional game in 1979, at the late age of 29, when he signed with Blackburn Rovers from Stafford Rangers. Two years, one promotion out of the Third Division, and 58 league appearances later, he moved on to Everton. He spent four years as Everton's back-up keeper, as the club won the First Division title and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

imagine the outrage amongst those who doubt our 'European Scouting Network'! It would be worth doing a Huddersfield kit sponsor story, just for the schitz and giggles..

Jim Arnold came in from non league, didn't he? He did alright between the sticks for us. Something along those lines would be left-field and a surprise

I like the cut of your Jib sir.

Deals may be dragging, but let's be clear about one thing - no-one in Blue and White really wants sloppy seconds, or someone else's cast-off's if we are really serious about building a team that we can get behind. I know we aren't the draw that we were 20 years ago, and that our resources are somewhat less than some feel they need to be, but that doesn't mean we can't build from the back, with quality and steel to address the obvious flaws in last season's machine. On the goalkeeping front, we can't afford a glass jaw, and you can imagine the speed at which the nay-sayers would ram any association with knuckle-dragging previous employers down the ears of any incumbent between the sticks, should there be less than an astounding return to the form that led to international prominence. We are a fickle lot, us football fans, Rovers fans just as much as any other, but the reality is we remember results, and if we are getting beaten regularly in games with five or more goals between the teams, heads will go down. We should aim always to score as many as possible, but we can't neglect the need to keep the opposition out of our goal too. For me, a season of hard won 1-0 triumphs would be preferable to a roller coaster ride thrill a minute goal fest with us providing shooting (& scoring) practice for all and sundry. Sort out the defence, Tony M, and this season might be interesting.

And he has that reputation for not taking prisoners on the pitch, which we could do with a bit of, to steel up what we have.

Great reading that, AAK and Dreams of 1995! Thanks for your insightful analysis and measured contribution to the debate around our recruitment strategy (if there is one!) for this transfer window and season ahead. You've clearly done your homework ;)

Nobody, no-one, not one person gets a sustained run as a top flight English international, if there isn't something very compelling about their ability and capacity to deliver the goods. Any of the keepers we are mooting as potentially realistic replacements for Raya are well qualified in the ability and capacity to deliver stakes. Goalkeepers tend to mature & get better with age (up to a point of course) - Brad Friedel, Jim Arnold, Terry Gennoe, Roger Jones being excellent examples of this particular point. Game changers, all of the above. Our new keeper, with any luck, will follow in that tradition, which is well established at the Arts at Labore fun factory.

Generally speaking, keepers tend to get better as they mature into their 30s, although some (Hart perhaps) seem to lose their bottle. I remember some on here saying Friedel was gash when his signing was mooted - Friedel man!! How many points a season was that man worth to us?? When you have a solid keeper, who organises his defence, playing behind defenders that know what they are doing, that is the basis for a confident side whose flair players can relax into their roles. Time for Mr Mowbray to show his hand - a team doesn't just form from hastily thrown together recruits, whatever their pedigree or calibre - there is inevitably a period of bedding in, learning each others' game and building rapport and trust (which is what pre-season SHOULD be about...). We are at the point now where we don't want to start the season with a team stitched together from latecomers and raw recruits. It can be hard to recover when heads drop early in a season - and we have a tough start coming up. C'mon You Blues!

There it is in a nutshell... 25 years ago maybe, but since the dark days of Pune those times are but a long distant memory.

If things continue in the way they appear to be shaping up, with little sign of incoming quality in the areas we all know we desperately need to improve (repeated ad nauseam in many other threads, so not going to spell out here) then I am concerned we are setting ourselves up in the words of the old adage; Failing to plan is planning to fail. I've said it before, but I'm not sure what the point of being an also ran in professional football actually is. If we believe we can compete and achieve some success, then we need to organise and set up accordingly. If we (and I am including all stakeholders at the club in this) don't believe there is any realistic prospect of success, then perhaps it is time to shut up shop and go do something more productive instead. I mean, what is the point in aiming for mediocrity? Time for some guile and guts from those holding the keys to the Blue and White citadel. Shit now, or forever get off the pot.

Can't get excited at the prospect of what is ahead, based on developments (or lack of them) to date. If there are significant incomings, and some clarity around what our ambition for the season actually is from the manager, then perhaps the situation will change for me. My question would be though, what is the point of a professional football club? I mean, are we there just to make up the numbers, or are we there because we want to achieve something - if it is the former, then it is time for a change all round. If it is the latter, where are the signs of intent and what is it, exactly, that we are trying to achieve? Cue existential crisis and brow furrowing for many of the more philosophical and erudite blue and whites...

Yup. For every Shearer, Douglas or Tugay there are a thousand Dahlins, Rigters and Koitas. Trouble is, the game is so fooked up that even a hint of talent is jumped on by a whole swathe of leeches who see an easy pay-day opportunity, rather than the chance to make a real difference in the sport. Money is the root of all evil. Football, by this definition, is akin to Hades itself.

Did Toogs have legs for the last 4 or 5 seasons..? No, of course he didn't, but he more than made up for that with his ability to make space and find a killer pass. I've often thought Mulgrew might be better placed higher up the field, using his defensive nous and ability to read a game to better effect than is possible from right at the back... Oh, for a Tugay mark 2!!

Hear hear! Excellent job done chaps and chapesses, a thankless task behind the scenes, but much appreciated by us mere mortals who use the forums alternately as a bog and a soapbox. Keep going!

Astounding and unfair treatment of Bolton by HMRC imo. Any other business in such obviously rotten state would have been put to the sword by the system long ago. Football clubs seem to operate under a totally different set of rules from normal business, even when their owners are clearly inept, dishonest and incapable of running their business. Someone should be looking at the management of HMRC and asking are they 'fit and proper' to run the country's tax affairs.

Yawns... w Yawns.. what's this - a cheeky game of add your own adjective? ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

It beggars belief that a person who has been made bankrupt several times since 2012 (most recently 2015) can be considered fit and proper to run the financial time-bomb that a modern day professional football club represents. How someone as dodgy as that can suddenly amass sufficient liquidity to not only re-establish themselves with society but also to have enough 'spare' to indulge in the financial money-pit realities of football club ownership suggests the previous dealings may not have been properly scrutinised during the process of bankruptcy & subsequent discharge. Fit and proper my arse. It only doesn't look dodgy if you put it in the context of their astonishingly sympathetic / lenient treatment by the FA and HMRC. Anyway, sounds / looks / feels like the cad has been outed as a cad, and that poor old Lilywhites emporium is in for further rocky times. My football heart bleeds for them. My Rovers head laughs and laughs.

Feck me! at 113 (stay) - 115 (go) it's just like BREXIT :-0 I must admit that during the daaark days of Feb and March I felt that the sword of Damocles was over old Tone's neck, but that the resurgence since then has made me feel that perhaps there is a stronger rationale for stability than to bring in (yet another) messiah at this stage. And, just like the BREXIT fiasco, the story is going to run on into the summer and autumn before anything is resolved either fecking way. A good result on Sunday might even tip the balance in his favour... we shall see.

That was brilliant Thanks for sharing the link. As for tomorrow's game, I hope we can continue our recent form, and look to end the season on an up-swing, but in reality am expecting a hammering - this is their promotion party after all, and we normally roll over and play dead when somebody else needs something from a game. Roll on next season's blue and white promotion party eh? (not going to hold my breath).