Admiral Nelsen

Personally I never saw the lack of effort thing - thought it was just his style, but plenty of people bring it up so I accept I could be wrong. Agree with the rest of your post though - I suppose we can't complain about securing the contracts of young players after what has happened over the last few years, but I thought such a long extension for him was really strange with what he had shown on the pitch. With any luck he can show his potential over the rest of the season and he can finally get his career going. A decent scoring run and there's a chance we can get a low-ish fee for him.

It did indeed. Although I always thought it was David Gold who said that, not Bruce. That could be my memory playing tricks though.

On the whole, Rovers have been very bad a taking the points from the low hanging fruit away games for some time. Add in the fact that their performances have picked up under the new manager, will have their tails up after getting a point from Leicester and that we have a perfectly decent Championship XI sat on the sidelines, I'm not as confident about this one as I should be. Still really looking forward to it though, their tends to be goals in our trips to Hillsborough and with the way that we're playing at the moment it's odds on to be the same. I just hope it's more like the 5-0 of a few years ago and less like the 3-3 under Bowyer. One of my least favourite games in living memory, that one. With our squad stretched as it is, the run up to the New Year is not looking kind. Leeds, Southampton away, Hull away and even Watford are not particularly easy games to be having back to back even with a reasonably fit squad. Three points and a clean bill of health here would be a huge bonus.

I think it's part of a wider change in how the game is played at the top level(s), and you can put the standards of defending in as a part of the same conversation. Basically if you're judging a player on a much wider skill set (i.e. contributing with the ball) then that's going to: i) promote players who are good at that but not so good at the traditional 'core' skills - see Alexander-Arnold ii) incentivise players as youngsters to spend more time working on all aspects of their game, and not just the typical aspects of goalkeeping/defending. As well as that you've also got teams setting up in ways which (by and large) leave keepers and defensive players much more exposed than times gone by. It would be so interesting to see how Brad would be perceived in the modern game. Obviously he was as good as anyone when he was at Rovers, but there would be plenty of managers who wouldn't even consider him these days, and not just at the top clubs.

Thought he was excellent tonight.

I think with Broughton we're very unlikely to get either. Say what you like about him, but Broughton has imagination and whilst I'd be surprised if we could get someone in as good as Tomasson, I can't see us going for an obvious out-of-work name.

I wouldn't say I expect them to turn it round, but there's definitely a way to spin their poor home form. Their first five included Man City, Man United, Spurs, Chelsea and Villa (who are sitting 4th). They'll be scratching their heads how they managed to lose the other two against Palace and West Ham, who themselves are still decent teams. I can definitely see them finishing above Sheffield United and Luton over the course of the season, but there's a real chance of the gaps to other sides will become too big in the near future. They have loads of games coming up in December, and you'd make them big outsiders in almost all of them. They might be betting the farm on Everton not being able to respond to their points deduction, because if you take them out of the equation they already look like being cut adrift.

True, but at the same the game is built on schadenfreude! I don't think I'm as bitter and twisted as some, but if I were a PNE fan I don't think I'd have been able to be as generous as you seeing Blackpool having their day in the sun.

I know that he's given away loads of chances under JDT by giving the ball away, but I don't agree that he doesn't have ability on the ball. His passing out from the back was a really strong part of his game under Mowbray. Granted they were usually to start a counter attack instead of trying to keep the ball, but I think the ability is there. I think you're right about our style of play not suiting him though. Where Mowbray's back three was a centre back's dream (something which arguably made JPvH look slightly better than he was), JDT is the polar opposite in terms of how demanding he makes it for centre halves. I think Wharton's lack of pace is probably exposes him more than his passing does, but either way it's definitely really challenging for defenders. As much as he deserved to get dropped last year, I think there was an element of that coming when the team was still adjusting to our new way of playing. Lots of examples of forcing passes when nobody was really looking to receive the ball. Hopefully he'll be different when he gets a run this season where everyone has adapted to how we trying to play.

I think a lot of this is generational. The fixture has been competitive for the last 8 years or so, but before then you're talking plural decades since you could last say the same. There's a whole swathe of Rovers fans approaching middle age (arguably already there!) who had gone their whole life without having to give a second's thought to PNE, whereas our younger fans probably take a very different view.

I can see the temptation, but if that ends up being our back four then I think we need to lean into our strengths rather than try and beat them at their own game. Our best chance of winning comes from dominating the ball and having more quality through our creative players, so there's no way that I'd be dropping Wharton.

Really hope Wharton takes his chance if he gets it. Even though dodgy passing out from the back got him and us into trouble far too much last season, it's not as though he can't cope with that side of the game. He showed under Mowbray that he can play, and he should benefit from having more options now the rest of the team has gotten used to how JDT wants to play. His lack of pace might end up being the bigger problem, but I still think he has the tools to be a success at Rovers.

The obvious choice. Szmodics is great and he obviously has the drive that you want from a captain, but I'd be wary of giving him more responsibility outside of concentrating on his own game.

Agree, and I think the route that JTD goes down will be revealing about how much he trusts S. Wharton. Playing him and keeping Hill at RB is the least disruptive option, but if he really doesn't rate Wharton then he has the players to reshuffle to keep him on the bench.

That's the team I'd go for. Dolan's recent upturn probably takes the pressure off throwing Ennis in too early. There's a chance that Szmodics might be moved deeper and either JRC/Brittain moved to full back, with Hill coming in for Hyam instead of S. Wharton.

I know what you mean - but I think the criticism of Vale and (in the main) Hirst was warranted at the time. It's the writing off of them prematurely which can come back to bite us, as we saw with Brereton before them. Having said that I'd be very surprised if Vale ever reaches the standard needed to make it at Rovers, but with a decent run at a lower level like Hirst, who knows?

I never saw the laziness thing with Vale. He wasn't exactly Paul Dickov either, but the problem was that he wasn't nearly threatening enough. That's the top and tail of it for me.

The way I remember it was he took a crisis club and kept them up when they were staring down the barrel. Down the season after, granted, but only after huge points deductions and administration. The results were as good as you could hope for given the circumstances. Good point about Rosenior though. He wouldn't be the first manager who is made to look good by having good staff underneath him. The way that Sparky's career has panned out recently, I wonder how much of that success can be put down to Bowen and others.

Ha! Fine, the optimistic spin is that we're more than fine if we carry on as we are, and if we become slightly more clinical then the sky is the limit! Or Leicester. Leicester are probably the limit.

It'll be interesting to see how Rooney gets on with a half decent team. Did a good job at Derby and seems to have something about him as a coach beyond just relying on his playing career. Still absolute madness to get rid of Eustace, unless there's more to it. He's got a far better tune out of them than anyone seems to have done for a long, long time.

You obviously don't deserve to win just by creating more chances than the opposition - it's our fault for not taking our chances and giving away soft goals. Having said that, if we keep on creating the number of chances that we have been doing, then there's no way that we're going to carry on slumming it at the wrong end of the table. Giving a team a battering like we did to QPR has been on the cards for a bit, and we'll do it again before the season's done. Whether we can become clinical enough to make a genuine challenge to the top six is another question, but there's no way we can carry on playing as we are doing and not at least find ourselves stable in midtable.

Hell of a selection headache for JDT assuming we don't pick up any injuries over the international break. I'd say there are five players which are pretty certain to keep their places from QPR - Leo, the centre backs, Szmodics and Sigurdsson. Nobody else is a shoe in as far as I can see, especially with Wharton hopefully coming back and Ennis having another two weeks on the training ground.

Yes, so my issue isn't so much that one club wins everything, and there have always been big clubs and small clubs. My point is that I'd be perfectly happy seeing Haaland play for Real Madrid, Salah play for Bayern Munich and De Bruyne play for Juventus if it made our domestic competition more competitive. Thinking also about Rovers in the here and now, Championship clubs are almost universally making huge losses every year (unless they sell a prized asset), mainly because of paying out massive wage bills which have become the going rate because of wage inflation in the top division. If the elite were made to live every so slightly more within their means, I think the wider pyramid would be much healthier.

I'm a lapsed Wigan fan too. No arguments that the game has been on its backside, but I think there are loads of factors which account for that more than the salary cap. Thursday night games, slower games, the fact the league table basically doesn't mean anything until September. If anything the salary cap has done a good job of making the smaller clubs more competitive. It's all academic really because there's no way in hell that it will actually be introduced, but I suppose my point is that I think it would be a good thing that the Man City of 2033 would get handsomely beaten by the 2023 team because they weren't allowed to massively outspend everyone else.

It's certainly harmed the top teams, making it hard for Wigan and a couple of others to be as dominant as they were. I'm not so sure about whether it has harmed the overall state of the game. It begs an interesting question though about how much the standard of player really matters for fans. One of the arguments that you always get against a salary cap - or other interventions to ensure competitiveness - is that we can't do it because we'll suddenly see an exodus of talent to other countries. Speaking personally, I'd be perfectly happy for the Prem to be knocked down a peg or two and lose some of its stars if the league was made more competitive on a week to week basis.