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.

On last season's evidence, that's a lot of sharpening up.

That and the fact that their goals themselves were a bit freakish. Two worldie finishes from players who score one in ten. Another direct from a corner. We were poor - no question - but it was also one of those days where everything went right for one team. It's impossible to be too confident for any away game in the Championship, but I'm feeling good about this one. They're down on troops already and even with our attacking injuries, we should have comfortably the better team on paper, with a better XI and better options off the bench. 0-2 Rovers.

I don't think WBA will be doing much more than midtable this year, but it's a good time to be playing the Rovers with our already pretty unimpressive attack being down on troops. Going for an uninspiring 1-1

Completely agree. If we're in a relegation scrap, that will come from either an injury crisis or an unexpected implosion of form for me. Neither are impossible, but all things being equal there'll be at least a handful of sides which we should comfortably be better than, even without extra reinforcements.

Expectations for the season rest almost entirely on whether the new forwards are up to scratch or not. I suppose you'd throw in whether we keep/replace Kaminski too. If the new recruits can turn us into a more threatening side, then top six should definitely be our target. If there's not much improvement on last year, then mid table. The way I see it is that having gone through a tough transition, our squad is now pretty well drilled in how JDT wants us to play, and that we are a match for most teams in most areas of the pitch. Ironically our results tailed off the most last year when we actually started looking like a better team. We didn't pick up enough points in the last few months, but unlike the death spiral of the previous year, our performances were probably better than they had been all year and it was only our blunt attack that stopped good performances being good results. I'd only put the Norwich home game as one I remember from about February as one that we deserved to lose on the balance of play. What this means is that our 'floor' is pretty high. I can't see us being dragged into anything too concerning towards the bottom of the league, lower mid-table at worst. But realistically the top 6 as an expectation can only come with Ennis, Siggy and whoever else being a decent upgrade on Hedges and Gally.

I was disappointed when he was sacked because Kean and some of our more toxic signings were still a recent memory, and he was a good bloke as you say. Looking back in hindsight though, the underachievement seemed worse and worse as every season went by.

Agree with your first point. He wasn't the total disaster that some point out, but you only need to look at the the likes of JDT (who himself isn't perfect) to see that the game has passed him by in some respects. It might just be me, but I never was all that bothered about the odd thing that he said in the media. Football fans dish it out in spades, so we shouldn't be too thin skinned about the odd perceived slight that comes our way in the heat of the moment when someone shoves a microphone in front of a manager's face. Especially when it's pretty tame as Mowbray's comments were in my view, although I remember from the time that plenty disagreed!

As much as he should get credit for some good things that he did for the club, Bowyer was far worse for me. It's not just the goals we got from the front two. We had two centre backs that have gone on to be prem players in Duffy and Hanley, King starred in the top flight. Cairney was Fulham's best player when they secured automatic promotion. You can even look to players like Alan Judge as an example of a player who was excellent but completely misused. Dunny too in that last season. Playing 442 was a great way to get bags of goals out of Rhodes and Gestede but completely the wrong way to get the most out of a squad that should've walked the top 6.