I think you could easily argue that he was to be fair. Certainly as far as the attack and midfield go, there was only Brereton who I'd have in front of him. I'd have him in the top five alongside Brereton and the back three.

Nasty player because he had to be. Despite being the best of the lot, he didn't even get in that Man United youth team XI because players used to just run over him. You can see their coaches telling him endlessly that he needs to find a way to not be bullied, because that would be the only thing that would stop him being a player. It's a different game now, but I wonder if Buckley's poor discipline can be attributed to a similar thing. I suppose a lot of Buckley's cards have come more through petulance rather than bad fouls, but there have been a few of those too.

Yeah - whereas in reality neither is really true. He definitely flattered to deceive. If Buckley drifts in and out of games, Rothwell was on a different level. For a player who got himself into so many good attacking positions, you'd expect him to score and create more than he did. BUT the way that he could travel with the ball from deep did play a huge part in our good early season form. Similarly to Buckley too, just because he isn't involved in the final ball doesn't mean that he hasn't played a vital role earlier in creating the chance. I think he's a good level Championship player, no point pretending that he's no good just because he binned us off.

Seeing Buckley's pointless yellow card last weekend screamed Paul Scholes to me! I think you're right that Scholes got stuck in more, but on the ball and how they play, there are some real crossovers I think. (Which isn't to say that Buckley's in his class - obviously. Although at the same time the world class version of Scholes which everyone remembers only really developed in his mid-20s).

I'm a huge Buckley fan, but I think saying he should score/assist more is a fair criticism. He was playing further up the pitch last year than Rothwell, so he should be contributing decent numbers. That said, I think the dilly dallying on the ball is something that he doesn't really do anymore. He keeps possession excellently and hardly ever gives it away unless it's when he's playing a through ball. I see Buckley as a bit of a poundshop Paul Scholes. His goals/assists actually aren't that fantastic, but will play a crucial role earlier on in the move and is vital at making the team tick.

Probably, but not necessarily at Rovers! James Beattie had an amazing career, for all the good it did us.

Fair comment - although Buckley being seen as a deeper midfielder and not a false 9/attacker arguably strengthens it, depending on how you rate Rothwell.

Respect your opinion, but I think it's too black and white. Bringing through youth players isn't an inherently good or bad thing - it depends on how good the kids are! I don't think anybody would advocate playing Garrett, Wharton or Carter unless there was a reasonable expectation that they will soon be worth their place in the side. Obviously it doesn't always work, but we've had our fingers burned by not giving young players enough chances. Josh King and Jack O'Connell to take two examples both turned into good premier league players pretty soon after they left Rovers, and we let them slip through our fingers by not playing them enough. As well as costing us very good players who could get us out of the league, those decisions also cost us potentially tens of millions of pounds that could've been crucial in funding a serious promotion bid. Given the financial advantage that relegated clubs will always have over us, we can't afford to be wasting assets that we already have on our books in my view.

That probably makes the most sense to me, but I'm sorry to see Markanday drop out altogether. If I were JDT I'd be saying to him that he'll be starting (hopefully with Dack) against Hartlepool and that's his chance to show what he can do.

Would be interesting to know how our budget for this season was arrived at - but I'd guess that had we not sold Armstrong & we let him go for nowt this summer, then I suspect the budget would be smaller. We might be saying something similar next year with Ben, depending on what happens this summer.

What do you make of his sharpness & general physicality? My sense of his game vs QPR was that he showed one or two nice touches, but often struggled to get a kick. Certainly don't want to judge him too harshly given it was his first league start, and the service into him might've been a problem too, but it definitely felt like he was lacking the quickness or power to impose himself on the game.

Maybe not a masterplan, but not a total accident either. I might be fighting a losing battle on how his handling of young players is remembered, but I really don't think Mowbray did anything especially unreasonable there, especially with Travis. He gave him a bit of game time in the L1 season where he looked decent but not outstanding, and where he also got sent off for a horror challenge in an important game towards the run in. We then understandably began the season with the pair who got us promoted with 90 odd points, initially getting us good results before a dodgy spell leading up to Christmas (the first of many!). Travis then got his chance alongside Smallwood at Brammall lane & has been a key player since.

Yakubu also in the Venkys era! And Gestede at the same time as Rhodes. Almost an uninterrupted decade of prolific strikers and 1.5 seasons towards the top of any league to show for it! There will be some on here who will say we might as well keep him because we won't get the money to invest. That might be true - but if we were considering this from a normal perspective then selling is an complete no brainer (assuming he won't sign a new deal). We've assembled some very good players amongst the dross over this last ten years. Our trouble is that we've managed our assets abysmally and we're almost certain to carry on treading water unless that changes. The challenge is finding someone to replace BB even if we have a few quid to spend, and not just his goals because unlike poachers like Rhodes, Brereton has developed an impressive all round game.

Must admit that surprised me. It took him ages to get going as I recall. I knew that he scored a few when they replaced their manager but I still had him down as comfortably in single figures.

Did he? Do we actually have any evidence at all for this? I'll grant you that he didn't look the sharpest on his return last year (it would be a miracle if he did) but he still scored and showed some moments of real quality when most of our attacking players couldn't hit a barn door.

Definitely premature. There are obvious question marks, but while there is still uncertainty about i) How extreme JDT will lean into basing our game on high pressing for 90 minutes, and ii) Dack's fitness and mobility once he gets more games under his belt, then it's impossible to know how well he can cope with playing in our new system.

The highlighted bit is the thing that remains to be seen for me. If Sammie doesn't cut the mustard and we have a player of Dack's quality on the bench, it'll take a strong manger to stick to his guns (which, to be fair, he still might do). Equally, if Dack does 90 mins in the league cup, puts a shift in and shows what he can do, then that might be the start of JDT becoming more confident that Dack has something to offer in this system. 100% agree with the rest of your post, and Dack will obviously have to prove that he is still physically capable of playing at this level, which also remains to be seen. As an aside, whilst it was clear to see from Saturday that pressing as a team is something that JDT wants us to do, I don't think it looked streets away from how we've pressed (at times) under Mowbray. Maybe it'll get more intense as time goes on, but we've definitely seen teams that commit to pressing more than we appeared to. A pre-injury Dack could've played in that team without any issue whatsoever, although I accept that might not be the case for post-injury Dack!

Yeah, I think this is fair enough. I do think some of the comments are in danger of forgetting the sort of player he was prior to his injury. He was never lazy in a million years for instance, quite the opposite actually. You couldn't miss his enthusiasm for the game and he'd often end up trying to chase down defenders when he didn't have much hope of catching them. He was never the most athletic I suppose, but it wasn't as much of a weakness as all that. Hopefully it's just a case of him having to be a bit more patient than he would ideally like. He'll certainly get chances to show what he can do with our squad being as it is.

It certainly means that we'll be asking Garrett and Wharton to play non-trivial amounts of football. If we rate them enough then you can't get in their way too much, but I'd be more comfortable with one more senior player there.

As much as we always beat QPR at home, we always lose away at Swansea. Even last year when we had about three gilt-edged chances, we somehow managed to lose. Can see that continuing at the weekend, sadly. Think they'll have a much better season this time than they did last year. I'd stick with the same team, I think. The only possible change I'd make is bringing in Dolan for either Vale or Gallagher for his pressing.

Fair enough. I know that Bowler scored few last year, but I wasn't really sure what sort of player he was bar being an attacking midfield type

Saw that one of Nixon's denials was predicated on Brittain and Bowler not being suited to being in the same team. I know that doesn't prove anything, but is there perhaps a point there? Is Bowler a proper chalk-on-his-boots winger? And if so is it likely we'll be playing that sort of player alongside a wing back like Brittain?

Unlucky with injuries, and there is talent there, but if he's behind Vale (admittedly two very different players) at his age then his time is up. Hope he makes of a success of things and we have the sense to put in a sell on % for one of our players for a change.

You're probably right, but then again we're now left with only three senior centre backs, one of them is Carter and another can't be trusted to stay fit. I know we have Phillips too, but it does leave us particularly short. I wonder if it's because we're close to bringing one in.

I think the loss of Lenihan at the moment is looking massive, especially seeing as we don't have Van Hecke either. Agree that Nyambe isn't as big a loss. I wouldn't say that I'm terrified because we can beat QPR with this squad and I expect more decent incomings over the coming weeks. If I'm wrong though, then I think we all should be concerned because we would be left on a big downgrade from last year.