Admiral Nelsen

I'm happy enough to say that I'm pleasantly surprised by some of the early performances. First impressions can obviously be misleading (in both directions, as anyone seeing Andre Ooijer's debut would testify!). But Alebiosu has impressed me more than a lad with his pedigree had any right too. Gudjohnsen and Morishita appear to have something about them. McLoughlin looks better than you'd expect for Hull City's fourth choice centre back, and even Tavares has had his moments which suggests he could have a pretty high ceiling. 

But stronger than last year? I seriously doubt it, and we can only really say one way or another when we see the sorts of performances they're capable of in February after they've had some exposure to a Championship winter and regular three game weeks. 

4 minutes ago, G Somerset Rover said:

From Jackson:

"Right, bit of an update on what we might expect today.

Not expecting it to be overly busy but there's still the possibility of an incoming. That would most likely be a forward of some description.

Outgoings, Harry Leonard deal is done as previous reported, will be confirmed at some stage today. Could see a couple of younger loans too. Nothing on the table for Aynsley Pears at the time of writing which means he could stay."-

---------

An injury to Tronstad and we are a shoe in for relegation, IMO.

It would be a disaster, but a shoe in for relegation is a bit much. There's some absolute dross in this league. You don't need much talent to finish above the three worst teams. 

Having said that, I'd obviously be much happier if we had another proven midfielder coming in before the deadline. 

36 minutes ago, mark Hayhurst said:

For me it’s quite simple-you don’t overhaul a whole squad with the roll of the dice without tested Championship players being part of core changes. To say we are going into the unknown is an understatement l-exiting maybe.

Theres excitement and there’s completely unknown! For me there’s too much sweeping changes and not just players but club staff and that sets alarm bells. Those that had any affiliation Rovers and could questions behind the scenes issues aren’t there. Who would now question the hierarchy. Too many factors that aren’t being questioned for my liking but maybe im in the minority!

I don't think you are. I think there's a *lot* of nervousness about letting Travis, Brittain and Batth go, in particular. 

I think there's some excitement over the last day or two now we're at the 'getting new players through the door' stage, but if you were to ask most of us if we could send some of our new signings back, and get back the core of the squad that finished 7th on longer contracts, I suspect most wouldn't think twice. 

16 minutes ago, aletheia said:

I never get the ire directed at him. Flopped here, true but did good elsewhere. It happens a lot - both ways. Ie we get someone who we think is uselesss, they go on somewhere and do well. And vice versa. All about timing, luck, surrounding players and all sorts of other factors.  One that sticks in my mind is Franny Jeffers -not necessarily his time here but he looked cracking at Everton and then went to Arsenal? and flopped. Stars wax and wane. And also, your shelf life can be short. A striker can be the dogs for a bit and then there is another one of the rank.

I don't think he does get that much ire though. He probably got more in the early 2000s in fairness, but I think most fans always recognised he was doing his best.  Doesn't alter the fact that it was a catastrophe of a transfer. Huge money and a big contributing factor to getting relegated. 

Agree that there are lots of examples where we've had players where the shoe has been on the other foot. Danny Graham at Sunderland is one that comes to mind.

1 minute ago, booth said:

£4.25m for Blake and then Brian Kidd came along and spent £4.25 on Ward 🫣

In the same season as £7.5 mil (including future international, Rovers fan James Beattie) for Kevin Davies!

3 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Nathan Blake was another really poor signing.

When you think about the fees that were paid too. Absolute megabucks by the standards of the time. 

2 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I thought Kiddo signed Matt Jansen ?

He did indeed, forgot that he was a January signing. 

So Woy just takes credit for Davies, Dailly, Peacock and Perez. Ugly stuff. 

1 hour ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Equally, it could be the worst transfer window we've ever had. 

Far too early to say either way.

It would have to go some to be as bad as the Murphy/Etuhu window! Or Hodgson's spending spree in 98/99 for that matter (at least we got Matty Jansen alongside the rest of the dross).

But yes, whilst I get there's an optimistic way of looking at this summer's dealings, I'd say there's only McLoughlin that you can hang your hat on as a reliable Championship level player (and even he could end up being a downgrade on what what we had last year). I don't say that as a criticism of any of the players or of Gestede even, but we've clearly gambled and it could easily backfire. 

30 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

What did you see in his game thst gave you that impression ? I alway think that if I’m playing against this player what do I have to look out for ? What I saw was a player who wasn’t a handful physically, not particularly big, not particularly tricky with the ball at his feet, not particularly quick, no real “ hold up “ play to speak of, and when he eventually got a chance he usually fluffed it. I think £1 million is a great deal for us. They must have signed him going off memory because when did they see him play ? 

Obviously I respect your views mate, so we’ll see who’s right before too long.

I think that underplays his pace a bit. He's not lightning, but he's sharp and clever enough to get into scoring positions. Thinking back to the Boro cup game last year, he missed a couple of sitters but the thing I took away was that he was getting in the right areas. In fact over the course of his time here the ball seems to find him in good areas, and plenty of strikers with decent careers obviously never develop that knack.

I'm in two minds about letting him go. He's not that young anymore, so a million quid for an unproven player with a shocking injury record isn't bad business. At the same time, once he's given a run I can see him banging them in at that level (*if* he stays fit). All of a sudden a seven figure sum doesn't seem that great for his position and age. 

I agree that his all round game is unlikely to ever be that impressive. He's a poacher or nothing, off what I've seen. But then again teams pay the big money for goal scorers. 

17 hours ago, MarkBRFC said:

Plus we haven't beat Norwich at Ewood since our Premier League days.

Seem to be a bogey side at home for us, but funnily enough we seem to have done ok at there place in the venkys era.

Indeed - although not in year 1! Massive deflection and a dodgy pen in the last ten minutes making a draw out of what seemed like an easy win.

1 hour ago, MarkBRFC said:

No he's absolutely correct on the John McGinn story. 

We had the chance to sign him very early in the window but Mowbray told him he was coming in as back up to what we already had (Smallwood & Evans).

He did end up signing for Villa in that window, in mid August.

We ended up with Reed on loan instead, who was miles better than those pair but as you say spent most of his time out wide.

A very strange manager/character Mowbray, I personally dont particularly like or dislike him, but his constant sniping at the fans when in one of his many death spirals with "not 1995 anymore" ""I'm a development coach" " I dont work on set pieces" "I dont look at league tables" etc always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also the constant complaining that he was away from home all the time like he was doing us a huge favour, he took the job! Then ended up at Birmingham and West Brom years later that were even further away.

Also encouraging his own staff leaving the club for Sunderland because "they are a huge tank coming past our knackered little car".

People are too gushy over a 3rd division promotion when it comes to Mowbray for me. He did an ok job for around 24-30 months, then massively outstayed his welcome.

 

Personally, I thought at the time we were massively thin skinned when it came to that. He's obviously quite an emotional guy in a high-scrutiny job, and he ended up saying a handful of slightly ill-advised things when a microphone was shoved under his face after a loss.

Agree that some of his errors were shockers. Bradley Johnson as a 10 sticks in the mind!

2 hours ago, roverblue said:

Think quite a few are getting carried away after our win on Saturday against an abysmal Hull team.

This transfer window had been nothing but a downgrade replacing experienced championship pros with foreign gambles on low wages/low fees.

Having said that the signings of Morishita and Baradji have stepped up the quality of incomings all of a sudden so perhaps the message has landed at the club somehow.

If we can bring in one or two experienced or similar stature strikers then things would be looking a lot more promising otherwise I am still expecting a relegation scrap of a season.

I suspect you're right, but to be honest it's far too early to be making a call on that. It's undoubtedly a gamble, and not one I'm at all comfortable with. 

I would have kept Batth and Weimann, but being hard headed I can see the logic of standing your ground with contracts for players of their age. VI clearly wants an athletic, energetic team, so you shouldn't be held to ransom for players who don't even fit in with that (assuming that was the reason behind them leaving)

Different kettle of fish with Brittain, Travis and if rumours are to be believed, Hyam. Gambling on their replacements and getting it wrong could easily be the difference between a comfortable season and one where we end up going down. 

27 minutes ago, Bohinen1983 said:

Just watched Buckleys interview again, the lads gutted! 

Would rather have kept him than sign Tavares. The lad bleeds blue and white.. Surely he was worth a go as a deep lying play maker alongside Trondstadt.  

Oh well,  gutted.   Such a shame.

I really wanted him to succeed here (and rate his talent) but Buckley needed to go for his own sake. Getting a handful of minutes here and there didn't suit either party, he needs to get a run of games somewhere to get his career back on track.

Agree it's a shame, but he turns 26 in a couple of months. As much as he might've been unlucky with the odd manager, he's had his chance unfortunately. 

3 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Would anyone consider anything below 7th this season to be a success? If so, and in view of last season's finish, why?

If you offered me 8th, then I'd say that exceeds my expectations by a fair distance.

I wouldn't call it a success. Success for us in this division is either promotion or a big step forward from the previous year. 

Just now, yeti-dog said:

I'm not sure about that. He's being sold for a bargain price and clubs aren't exactly breaking down the door to get to him...

£3 million is only a bargain price to those with massive budgets - i.e. parachute clubs, and aberrations like Wrexham. To the rest of us, it's sadly a significant fee, especially if you're talking about a non-attacker and a player of an age where you're not going to see a profit further down the line. 

Those Championship clubs who want to do their Guardiola tribute act wouldn't be that keen. Other than that, I'd take some convincing that he doesn't start for every club who finished below us last year, and he walks into their XI in plenty of cases. 

1 hour ago, Paul Mani said:

I like Trav, he’s been a good player for us. But if he was ‘That’ good, he wouldn’t be signing for Derby at the cost of an average weekend on one of Balaji’s yacht parties.

I don’t think losing Trav will be end of Blackburn Rovers, put it that way. 🙈🤣

The sky won't fall in! We've sold better players in the past.

Equally we shouldn't do what it is always tempting to do and pretend that they were never that great to begin with. I seem to remember one or two doing the same about Cairney who left to a similarly middling club for a similar fee.

(Not that I'm saying that Trav is as good as Cairney! But most clubs in the league would love to have him, and hardly any non-parachute clubs will spend more this summer than what Derby are offering for a central midfielder).  

38 minutes ago, superniko said:

I'm not sure he's box-to-box per-se, how often is he busting a gut to the attacking box?

He's a solid championship midfielder but with his limitations (he'd be a league above if he didn't have any).

Most crucially, I could never really see him helping Rovers cross that 6th place, or 2nd place line - it wasn't uncommon for him to go missing in the latter stages of the season. Sam Morsy kept him out of the team at Ipswich, and I think that sort of backs-up Yeti's claim, he'd be more of a squad player for a team with ambition to get out of this league. (judging by Eustaces signings Derby are not that).

I'd obviously much rather he be that squad player here at Rovers, alongside Trondstad, Tavares and Baradji, as firstly, two of these are unproven and secondly it's likely we'll have injury issues and drops in form at some stage.  

I think that's a feature of how we set up to be honest. He's shown that he can drive forward with the ball well enough over his time here, if we played 442 (which I appreciate nobody does anymore) or even 433 then we'd see him do that much more I think. 

To be clear, I'm not arguing that Travis gets into every team in the division. Teams going for the automatics will have better options, as will a couple of others. But there are some absolute plodders who play his position in this league - we've had our fair share at Ewood! - so I think saying he's average is seriously underplaying his ability and how easy it should be to replace him. I hope I'm wrong, obviously, and that Tavares and Baradji are a class above! But I'll believe it when I see it. 

I expect these to improve as the season goes on (as Manning's Bristol City seemed to do last year) so this is probably a good time to play them.

It seems like they're (another!) team that plays out from the back with defenders who aren't up to it, so hopefully we can take advantage of that.

16 minutes ago, alexanders said:

It will be very exciting to see how Trav does in Derby. He did play very well under JE in Rovers and as I have said earlier in the summer. He had his best football days under Eustace and they seem to be a very good fit with each other. I guess this also affects the desire to leave Rovers for Derby. 

Agree that they're well suited. I expect him to be a big hit there to be honest, but I'd also have expected him to be a big hit at Coventry. Or at Millwall if they managed to sign him last year. Or others if they had the money to spend. 

I think because he's a bit of a wind-up merchant and can be a pantomime villain, we can be in danger of overdoing what he brings/doesn't bring as an 'enforcer', and missing how good (at this level) his all-round game is. We saw it when he first came into the side and could immediately do what Evans and Smallwood could do as well as plenty more besides on the ball. We've had countless central midfielders in the last decade or so since we've been relegated, and Trav is one of at most two or three that don't have glaring weaknesses in his game.

3 minutes ago, yeti-dog said:

In some respects I'm sorry to see Trav go but I also think were he playing for someone else he'd be seen as a bang average championship player.

It'll be interesting to see how he does at Derby. Although they've spent some money they also look bang average to me and I'll be amazed if they get anywhere near the play-offs.

Game of opinions, but I think this is selling him well short. 

If you were a team managed by a Russell Martin type (or even a JDT type, even though they're very different) then I can see how Travis isn't the sort you want. He's technically decent - much better than people give him credit for - but asking him to play one/two touch football isn't playing to his strengths. 

But if you want a classic box-to-box type, how many are better than Travis? I'd say he'd be a key player for at least half of the teams in this league (much in the same way he is for us).

8 hours ago, bigbrandjohn said:

Playing devil's advocate here. Toth plays a double header in Hungary and gets injured.

We are shipping out our  first choice keeper who had a solid spell in between his calamities. 

We are left with a rookie in goal who did not cover himself in glory in his recent first team outing. Is Pears really a third choice?

Mowbray thought Raya was suspect. We all thought Walton was suspect and he had a decent career away from us. 

Pears is howler prone but he has also been a match saver. I think we are leaving ourselves dangerously thin on the ground if Toth gets injured. 

Pears is absolutely fine as a Championship back up keeper. Definitely far too accident prone as a #1, but adequate as a stand in. We were happy to have him a few years back once Kaminski was injured. Unfortunately we then made the wrong call to let Pears keep the jersey and sell Kaminski, but that's hardly Pears fault!

If we get offered genuinely decent money for him (seems unlikely) then you take it, but I certainly wouldn't want to be chasing him out of the club. Not least because it's not as though Toth has really proven himself either just yet, so it's not even just injury we need to be wary of.

12 minutes ago, J*B said:

My officially unofficial "good enough or not good enough" ratings below, based on what I've seen over the last 12 months:

 

I think an issue we have is you could probably take at least two from Good Enough (Toth, Alebiosu) and to be fair a couple from Not Good Enough too (Kargbo, Montgomery, maybe De Neve) and move them into the Unknown category. Which now constitutes a majority of the squad!

We've well and truly rolled the dice this window. The law of averages suggests we'll probably get both successes and failures from this current crop, but we'd better hope there's at least four or five more in your good enough section come the spring or we'll be bang in trouble. 

51 minutes ago, alexanders said:

We have what looks like a very competitive squad now (who I think willv play this season): 

GK: Toth, MIchalski - Maybe weak here

RB: Alebiosu, Miller, Montgomery

CB: Hyam, Mclouglin, Carter, Wharton

LB: Ribeiro, De Neve, Pickering

CDM/CM: Tronny, Tavares, Baradji, Montgomery, Forshaw

AM: Cantwell, Henriksson, Tyjon

Wingers ish: Hedges, Kargbo, Miro

ST: Gueye, Ohashi

I'm pretty confident that, barring a very bad injury run, that there will be three worse teams than that squad. Beyond that, I don't think we can say it's competitive one way or another because we're heavily dependent on the new signings being up to it.

They could be - and one or two are showing good early signs - but the Championship is such a relentless league. It worries me that so much of the squad could be physically struggling once we get past Christmas, and that's before making judgements about their quality.

23 minutes ago, benhben said:

Saw his interview last night, which was nice. Its obviously a big life change for him leaving the club which is all he has known. I did get the impression listening to him, he's not entirely sure what he wants and wasn't exactly full of emotion or passion. I think he had some decent technique but lacks the sort of personality to become a very good player. Not much fight about him. 

I think a really big problem with Buckley is that he takes a while to get his rhythm. I've always been one that rated his ability and wanted him to kick on, but I don't think I can ever remember him coming on and changing a game. Similarly when he's had a spell out of the team and he gets his chance, his first game tended to be pretty underwhelming, where we see his under-hit passes and getting caught in possession.

He has tended to get better when he is given a run of starts, but he's not going to get that here so it's best for all parties that he tries to get his career back on track. I really hope he manages it. 

2 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Miller's not fit is he?

Rovers have posted pictures of him training with the group. No idea if he's fit enough to play at the weekend, but he's not on the treatment table.