2 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Tavares could be a Buckley replacement, if he hasn't cost 2 mill, although he does seem to be a different sort of player. If he did cost a genuine 2 mill guaranteed I don't think that he'd only be a replacement for Buckley, who is just a squad player. I suppose it would be possible, just to strengthen our options there.

JRC is more of a utility player, the new right back is very likely seen as his replacement. With Forshaw to cover any emergency needs.

The new CM definitely means one of Trav or Tron going I'd expect. If we get him. We can't have two 2 mill plus mids, if they both cost that, as well as Trav and Tron, unless we are changing formation.

You're probably right. Although it could also be that VI likes playing very high tempo, pressing football and wants to make sure he has good depth in the engine room. I know at WBA he was well known for making big changes 60 mins into each game.

Unlikely though if they actually cost near £2million apiece, and that's not just with lots of speculative add ons. 

39 minutes ago, Theaxe15 said:

But how else should we judge Wharton. He’s at an age now where he should have played far far more than he has for us. That’s either due to not being physically robust enough so being regularly injured or just not being fancied by the managers. They’re the ones who judge him and deem him not suitable for said “normal set ups”.
He’s been in and around the senior squad for 9 years now and has been what would be classed as a regular for one spell and that was when we had 3 at the back, so was probably the “extra” defender in there. 89 appearances according to Wikipedia (I know).

Seems a good lad and fairly intelligent, especially for a footballer, but that unfortunately counts for little.

With difficulty! That's sort of my point. He's had three seasons where he's managed to play enough to be properly judged. One, with everything in his favour, he looked brilliant. Two, with everything going against him, he looked well short. 

What we can say is that he has obvious shortcomings with his game (mobility, accident prone on the ball. Although he can pick a pass when he gets it right). But as a Championship centre back, there are lots of players who you could put in that bracket who do perfectly well in the right set up. Because of injuries and him having a slightly weird career with the managers he's played under, we still don't know if Wharton would thrive in a more ordinary system, and we don't know how Ismael is going to get us playing next year. I wouldn't be quick to write him off, that's all I'm saying. 

Just now, Theaxe15 said:

Fair but his only decent spell being caveated says it all no? The amount of times he gave the ball away in that back 3 was ridiculous. He just gets more slack because he’s “Blackburn through and through”.

Hyam got player of the season in JDTs first season. So it was possible for defenders to do okay. Though I agree it was kamikaze-esque defensively under him.

He did, but it caught up with him eventually. Largely because I think he basically has the same strengths/weaknesses as Wharton.

I should say too that I'm not suggesting that Wharton's the better player, or that I don't rate Hyam. But I'm saying first that we shouldn't be too harsh in judging Wharton, because the vast majority of his appearances have either been i) in easy street in a back three where he looked great, or ii) where he looked very shaky in a system almost custom designed to leave him exposed. We've basically never seen him in a 'normal' set up for more than a few games here and there.

Let's wait and see what Ismael wants. If he wants mobile defenders then his lack of pace will be a serious issue. But then again it's only really Carter who would get away with us layer a high line at present. 

7 minutes ago, Theaxe15 said:

Player of the season in his first season. I’m not even that high on Hyam at all so would agree with some criticism. But when has Wharton been any good? Apart from a short spell in a back 3? Where the lesser of the 3 defenders can get away with being a bit shit

That short spell was the longest time he's spent in the side, isn't it? 

You're right than playing in a back three made his job easier, but then again there's probably not a manager in world football that would make his job harder than JDT. Zero protection from the midfield, playing on the half way line, being judged for your work with the ball as much as defending. 

If we're saying his good spell under Mowbray has caveats, then his struggles under JDT should have at least as much, if not bigger ones. 

3 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Best defender we have when he's fit and playing well. If someone had to go would be far better off shipping out the massively over-rated Hyam.

I'd put them both in a pretty similar bracket to be honest, in that they're both massively impacted by our style of play. They lack pace (this will likely be a huge issue for Wharton now) and can cause us problems if we're asking them to do too much with the ball. Both though, have looked really impressive at this level when they've not been asked to do what they don't have in their kit bag. 

I've always liked Wharton and I think the Eustace set up this year would have got a tune out of him had he been fit. I'd definitely like to keep him and see him stay fit and get back to his best, but if Ismael wants to play a high line then he's an accident waiting to happen. As are Hyam and Batth too, in fairness. 

Just now, chaddyrovers said:

Or JDT, Eustace and Ismael really rated him alot more than others do on this forum

Perhaps they did. But we'd only have evidence for this if they were picking him over other decent options. Which he wasn't, because we didn't. 

8 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Great post. Plus there are numerous players who have played a decent amount at this level, including for us (Lowe isnt the only one) who have done so whilst not necessarily warranting it.

There definitely are. In fairness to a lot of them (maybe not Lowe!) second division footballers are usually those who can look fine if you play to their strengths, and can look almost semi-pro if you don't. We've had heaps of them at Rovers - our current Head of Football Operations being one! And it's not even as though I think Hedges is without his good points. But he's played well over 100 games now and his numbers have been just as poor in a range of systems, from playing on the counter to more possession based.

9 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Your hatred for Hedges which I think is clear to see is baffling. 3 head coaches had mostly picked him as a regular which tell you alot and maybe they see what you can't or won't see

was the pass to Ohashi to score the winner at Luton an easy one or the pass to Woodrow at Sunderland for Dolan's winner? 

To be fair Chaddy, that would only tell us something if they were picking him over decent players. The reason why he has played so much has had far more to do with the him having no decent competition - not his fault admittedly - than him deserving the shirt through his own form.

Hedges has aspects to his game which are fine. His attitude is good. He's is reasonably athletic and a decent size which is more than you can say for most of our other attackers, and that helps in and out of possession. Him being left footed can balance the team etc.

But his attacking output is abysmal for an attacking player. Really poor. I don't hate the idea of keeping him as a squaddie, but there will have been players in his position with as many goal involvements in a single game last season as Hedges managed in 42. Not acceptable I'm afraid. 

16 hours ago, riverholmes said:

Another Holtby? 

Eustace appeared to have a soft spot for Sigurdsson purely based on his quotes. Was often talking him up.

Not fit to lace Holtby's boots in my view!

Lad is an excellent finisher. Didn't see any other aspect of his game which was up to scratch - be it through ability or attitude. 

Wish him the best, but he was the obvious casualty if we had to trim the squad by 1. 

2 minutes ago, arbitro said:

My friend said Steve Cooper who it seems would be a popular appointment here. Personally I don't think he will go to Middlesbrough. He wants to get back into management but it has to be right for him.

I think Boro would work nicely for him in fairness. It's unlikely that he'll get a prem job - fairly or not - and so he can join a club that if they can sort their form out have every chance of a top 6 finish this year. If they fall short, fans won't hold him responsible and he has a good chairman and decent squad to start again with next year. Other than a recently relegated club, it's as good as he's likely to get for me. 

10 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Of course he would be interested. It would be a monumental upgrade even allowing for the dreadful running of the club considering hes working in Ireland.

But he wouldnt even be mentioned if he wasnt a player here.

Absolutely. It would be a sentimental move, and you can't afford to make those for such an important role. 

If it we were using 'blind' CVs, Duff's wouldn't put him much beyond Boateng or Boa Morte in most fans' eyes. Great to see him doing well, but we have to be going for a manager who we think is capable of leading a Prem side in a few months. 

10 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Much as I like Buckley I can't see Forshaw being dropped after playing a good game and scoring

It would be harsh on Forshaw, but I think Buckley should play. Mainly because we're likely to have about half of the 74%(!) possession that we had vs Plymouth, so younger legs are what's required for this one. 

8 hours ago, aletheia said:

Curious to know what would happen IF we get into playoffs and IF we got promoted. That is, in relation to the Rao’s, the money, the players and performance in the top league.

You'd basically be looking at either i) go full Nottingham Forest and buy a new team to stay in the league, or 2) pick up a few of the best young players in the Championship and bank the rest of the money to be strong in the Championship. The way that we've operated over the last 10 years or so strongly suggests the latter.

I think if we were set up to be hard to beat, frustrate teams and be direct, then perhaps one or two of our players could compete with some better quality around them. I'd be interested to see how Travis & Tronstad go especially. But like most teams coming up from the play offs, as things stand there's a massive gulf in quality and we'd do well to even to lay a glove on most teams. 

4 minutes ago, M_B said:

He assisted the  first goal.

He did. Nice lay off, but until then he was struggling to impose himself like he often has done when he is denied space. Lots of effort on show as always. 

Second half was a totally different story. When he can isolate defenders Dolan looks really dangerous, just as he can do when he's playing with another forward with feet as quick as his, like Kargbo seems to have. To be clear, I'd be delighted if he were to sign an extension, as unlikely as it seems now. 

53 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Would it?

Far too early to judge, but I'd say we will get more out of Kargbo than we get out of Dolan.

Dolan basically averages 5 goals and 5 assists per season whenever he gets 30+ appearances. I think we can get that for under 2 million and without breaking the bank on the wage front.

He is a very average Championship player, but he does a few things right that make it look like he could be more than that. 

I think like most Championship attackers, Dolan isn't good enough to excel if you don't play to his strengths. When he has a bit of space to play with he's very handy at this level. Without it he can be totally anonymous. Yesterday was a perfect case in point - he struggled in the first half, then looked top drawer once we scored and they started leaving a bit more space.

I'm really hoping that Kargbo's pace alongside Gueye's form could be a catalyst to bring more from the rest of our attack. Dolan's an obvious one who would benefit from the extra space, but Cantwell hasn't really had anyone running in behind to aim for until now. We've seen that Ohashi has a quality finish on him but can be easy to defend against if all you're doing is hitting it long towards him. We've been lacking a decent blend for as long as I can remember, but all of a sudden it seems like we've got a nice mixture of pace, power, finishing and hold up play. A lot of that is relying on Kargbo kicking on from his promising cameos though. 

Just now, LeftWinger said:

We've all been supporting Rovers long enough to know what happens here 😂

Isn't that the truth!

Their form is as bad as it gets. Utterly dire. Their last 10 reads W1, D1, L8. In that time they've not scored more than one goal in a game, and have failed to score in three of their last four.

The Championship is mad and away points aren't to be sniffed at, but we have to be targeting three points from this one.

I think we need to bank on requiring 70 points at least. We might be lucky and need a couple fewer, but that's only happened twice since 2006 according to a quick Google. Maybe even longer. 

With that in mind, we need to be looking to get about at least another 20 points to be confident of the play offs. 6 wins with a couple of draws. Looking at the fixtures I really think we need to make a serious dent in that over the next 5 games. 

Swansea (A), Norwich (H), Derby (A), Stoke (A) & Cardiff (H). These are all on form that varies between average and utterly abysmal. Getting say 10 points from these would put us firmly in pole position before our remaining 8 games, which are undoubtedly tougher on paper. 

Absolutely delighted with Gueye's turnaround.

I'd like to think I was always in the 'let's wait and see' camp, but I didn't in my wildest dreams expect as good an all round performance as we saw last night. As recently as a month ago I was worried he could end up being a total disaster, so I'm not going to criticise anyone who wrote him off.

Funnily enough if we were going to be comparing him to Rovers' horror strikers of yester year, he's sort of the anti-Chris Brown. Brown's ability was extremely limited and we signed him at a time when his body was letting him down, *but* at least he knew the position and could bring others into play.

Gueye's ability to bring the ball under control was on show from that first friendly. The main issue is that he looked like he'd never played the game in terms of knowing where to run, how to spot the movement of others, general game awareness. 

The development of that side of his game has been massive and means that he's worth his place in the team even when he doesn't offer much of a goal threat. If he can do all that whilst scoring 10+ goals a year, then what a bargain he'll turn out to be.

48 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I'm not going to give him the Stoke win, so his record last season was (I think) Won 3, Drew 8, Lost 5. It was OK, but we were never in the drop zone and the continuation of some fairly mediocre form saw us get dragged further into a relegation fight and then 'saved'. He also benefited from Szmodics scoring 10 of the 15 goals under his watch. Without that purple patch we would have gone down. That wasn't due to his tactics, that was a single player hitting form.

The beginning of this season is where he really impressed, but he lost the plot over the last few weeks. We were in a slide and any hopes of the playoffs were fading fast. I still think we will miss out as our squad is thin and lacks quality in key areas, but a new manager will at least give us a chance.

Based on the way some speak about him on here you would imagine he was one of our best ever managers. He was OK. In many ways, his stint is eerily similar to JDT - although JDT delivered a quality of football that Eustace failed to match. The lows were not as low as under JDT, nor were the highs anywhere near as high.

Also, 'the odd hiccup' is a very generous way of describing the Bristol City debacle, but I understand where you are coming from. 

I'm 'meh' about him leaving. I think we can do better and I think a manager might give this squad the lift that they need to challenge fro the playoffs. But the reasons why he left depress me and make me feel worse about the club. 

Like the first post I quoted, it's a totally valid view. I think a lot of it comes down to how you view the first half of the season until JTD left. Early doors we played some great stuff (and had Adam Wharton). When it went wrong we looked absolutely abysmal, and so whilst Eustace's results *overall* were pretty similar, when you look at JDT's spell in two chunks then it felt like he pulled us out of a real nosedive. Tomasson may have also done that of course, but he wouldn't have done that by making us more solid. I think that was needed for us to stay up, and it's what we've carried on into this season. 

We've certainly had better managers and he's not been here long enough for me to feel particularly attached or let down. But I wish we still had him. 

1 hour ago, CaptainBeanfart said:

I think I'm in the minority here, but I'm not bothered about Eustace going. You can split his reign into three parts;

Feb-May 23/24 season: Poor. Didn't manage to improve the team at all, and the playing style was awful to watch. Without having the league top-scorer on the last day, he would have relegated us.

Aug-Dec 24/25 season: Excellent results but most games we were won with a low-block and keeping games tight and hoping to nick one. Fair enough with our squad, I guess, but these tight games usually average out over a season. As we started to see...

Dec-Feb 24/25 season: Average/poor. 11 points from 36, didn't see many signs of turning it around and dropping down the table seemed inevitable. We were still in the play-offs but only 2/3 games from being mid-table with how tight it was.

So one good period of four months out of a year in charge. Interesting that Derby thinks he can turn them around immediately when the evidence shows he probably needs time and possibly a full summer to do that. Even then, I think his style of football lends itself to a mid-table finish because it's incredibly difficult to win more tight games than you lose.

Good luck to him. He's got a 3 1/2 year deal at a club near where he wants to live. I don't think he's irreplaceable.
 

That's a valid and defendable point of view, but I think it sells his contribution well short. Especially the keeping us up part.

Agree the football was defensive (personally that doesn't bother me, but I appreciate others care more). But staying up last year was largely about the solidity he introduced. Szmodics' goals were essential too, but he was banging them in under JDT in the final months & that wasn't delivering us points. I think when JDT had got us so committed to a particular way of playing over a decent period of time, it's quite hard to 'unlearn' that overnight. So I think the fact that we were generally hard to beat is testament to the work he did, and bar the odd hiccup like Bristol City you could see a positive direction of travel. 

This season I think has been a story of us generally being good but we've buckled when the squad has been stretched. Had our form remained patchy from now til the end of the season once we managed to get some players back, then we could criticise the manager, but from the situation we're in now he gets a good grade on this season too.

I think success of managers at this level is often less about ability and more about fit. I think Eustace fitted really well with our group, and whilst you're right that he isn't irreplaceable, we were in a good place with him and even a manager with a good record won't necessarily be able to replicate what he was doing. 

Third game in six days for both teams. That'll definitely come into it, and I'm pleased we're at home.

Difficult team to pick, this one. You'd ideally like to go with as close to the same 11 as yesterday, but some fresh legs will be needed. I'd be looking at Sanderson in for Batth and this is probably a good game to be bringing Kargbo in. 

2 hours ago, KentExile said:

I would maybe add Benson to that list too, Johnson I think gets a pass because of his playing history with Rovers, but it seems that all 3 offer something to the coaching set up

I think Johnson mainly (and rightly, in my view) gets a pass mainly because of his involvement with the academy at a time that they were really exceptional - but I totally agree with you about Benson. The stick that occasionally comes his way when we have next to no evidence about how good he is at his job baffles me, to be honest.