Admiral Nelsen

Not sure if this has been commented upon already, but Ryan Gauld isn't coming to Ewood, or Britain for that matter. Accepting a deal from Vancouver which depending on who you listen to is between £20,000-£40,000. Never going to happen at that cost. https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/7415133/ryan-gauld-mls-deal-vancouver-whitecaps/

To be fair, THB and Branthwaite were only brought in post Wharton's injury, otherwise he would've played. I'm broadly sympathetic to the idea that we need to be very, very discerning when it comes to loaning young players. But it's not right to say there's no benefit to us - we could've been bang in trouble last year if we take Elliott's contributions away. Throw in that we've obviously got next to no budget to play around with and that the squad is looking pretty thin, we could easily be looking at the impact of loans to keep us away from trouble this year too.

Maybe five years ago - now I'd have him in the same bracket as Gordon Greer when we signed him.

Yeah, in retrospect there's not much of a comparison in terms of their ability, but it wasn't at all long ago where Grealish looked like he was going down the 'wasted talent' career route. All this at the same time when Dack took to the Championship like a duck to water. The way that Grealish has kicked on makes the whole comparison seem a bit silly now, but it wasn't daft at the time.

The unwanted under Coyle thing is something which didn't get discussed enough during the relegation season. Bennett, never a world beater, was still a far more productive midfielder than Feeney that season who inexplicably kept being picked. There's a decent argument that we stay up that season if Bennett played more, although I suppose the flip side of that argument is that Coyle doesn't get sacked as quickly. Legend is certainly a term which is banded around far too frequently. Nobody has got close to that tag since at least Dunny left, if not before, and it would be a bit ridiculous to pretend that Bennett was within a mile of that conversation. Right for all parties that he moves on. He needs to play, and we need better. I would say for him though that was clearly made of the right stuff, and whilst that is clearly no substitute for being a better player (what did Souness about not wanting a team full of son in laws?) he was decent too before he was moved to full back. Genuinely wish him well, and give it a few years I suspect a lot more Rovers fans will remember him fondly than they would have admitted over the last season or two.

Clarkson's the lad who supports Rovers, right? Don't really know the first thing about him beyond that.

Ah, I hadn't realised that. Not at all surprising that his form dipped under those circumstances.

Slightly off topic - but on Celtic I was amazed to see Duffy be as bad as he was last year. I know he was always a pretty clumsy player at the best of times, and not a modern centre half in how he plays the game, having made a pretty decent first of things for Brighton I expected him to cope fine at Parkhead. I even thought that with the number of corners/free kicks the Old Firm get, it wouldn't be ridiculous if he reached double figures!

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/england-euros-sol-campbell-portugal-24272786 For anybody out there who still harbours a grudge

I still want them to do well generally (although I think that winds them up even more) but I find the games where we play each other absolutely unbearable. It's almost like when we hadn't lost to Burnley for 30 odd years, it makes the prospect of losing so terrible that you can't enjoy the rivalry. If you offered me the choice of winning the tournament but losing to Scotland in the group stage, or getting knocked out in the semis but beating Scotland along the way, I would genuinely need to think about it.

Even allowing for a horses-for-courses approach, I struggle to see how he can leave out both Foden and Mount at the same time.

He is - don't get me wrong, Grealish is no slouch either - but I don't see either of them really stretching teams by making runs in behind. I'm remembering when we scored three goals away against Spain a couple of years ago, and how important our pace and power was in that performance. There's no doubt that form-wise, Grealish & Foden should be higher in the pecking order than Rasford & Sterling, but at the same time I think one of each would have a better balance to it. Tough call.

I desperately want to get Grealish and Foden in the same team - but looking at the front three, there isn't much in the way of pace or players who run in behind the defence. I can completely understand Rashford playing for that reason, especially against the better sides, but it's a real conundrum. Leaving either Foden or Grealish outside the XI is such a massive call.

Was a very common opinion at the time, as I recall. The way he left probably seemed to change the opinion of many who otherwise would have given him the benefit of the doubt. Agree. He was an average footballer, no worse than that.

The 7 year contract is definitely true - the free transfer might be a false memory, but I think it was. It definitely was at most a tiny fraction of what we paid, but it might've just been a straight swap with Ostenstad.

Quite a lot in this I think. Having said that, I don't remember too much frustration with Cairney's performances per se, more that he wasn't used properly. Trouble with inconsistent players is that whereas sometimes it just takes the right environment to set them straight, sometimes players will just remain inconsistent. Hard to say which sort Rothwell is, although I'd definitely keep him if he's open to signing a new deal. Wonderful player to watch, and his end product is improving, which is easy to miss with the team as a whole underperforming.

Agree that there's quite a lot of sense in that move, especially if they have full crowds next season. If I were Liverpool I'd want him to start getting used to producing under the kind of pressure he'd face at Anfield - so either Rangers or a team expecting promotion would bring that in different ways. I actually think he played with a perfectly decent squad last year, just one which badly unperformed. I also disagree quite a bit with your assessment of Buckley too, but you're alrighty fighting that one on a few fronts so I'll leave it there!

Pleasantly surprised to see rumours that we are looking into taking Elliot back, but taking it with a massive pinch of salt at present. He would probably have the pick of the whole division next year if available, so I doubt that our brownie points with Liverpool would put us at the front of the queue.

Yes, no contest really. If you take transfer fee inflation into account, we paid an eye watering sum for Kevin Davies, and he signed a 7 year contract! Given away for nowt twelve months later, so he could play with the Rovers fan we also gave away for (next to) nowt, who himself played for England, was the top English scorer in the league at one point, and who himself went for fees of over £10million over the course of his career. This is before considering that playing Beattie in front of Davies could have easily been enough to see us safe that season, even if that's a bit of a speculator. Easily the worst use of money, even if we have better reasons to dislike some of the turkeys which came along later.

On paper, this one should have been the easiest one to get done. Even so, a relief to see one of them get over the line.

Partially serious counterpoint: Brentford are getting plaudits from everywhere for their success using a model which prioritises performance on different metrics over results, assuming that the results will eventually follow. The problem comes when performances have also been poor, as has been the case at Rovers.

If it turns out that we get 5 million for him, I think that's approaching getting a pretty reasonable deal.

Yes, over time there have been plenty of examples of shooting ourselves in the foot to go along with some bad luck. Sometimes in the same game, like Beckham getting sent off and Campbell (again!) scoring a perfectly good goal against Argentina. Every country will have probably their own examples, but I'd be surprised if anybody's list is as long as ours! Mainly agree that the 06 team was stronger too, although Scholes wasn't there in 06, which is a big loss even if he was starting on the left. There was a great interview with Sven on Sky a year or two ago where he made a case for playing him out of position. Wasn't totally convinced, but he was pretty persuasive. Pointed out that he occasionally was played out there for United too, so maybe that's overdone. One often forgotten area where we were slightly unlucky in 06 was that Owen got badly injured early on. In theory that should've been a very small window when both him and Rooney should've been near the top of their game, which sadly we never really saw.

Didn't see another thread on this, so I started a fresh one. Rovers to play Bolton and AFC. Fylde in pre-season friendlies. https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19329495.blackburn-rovers-announce-two-friendlies-including-bolton-trip/

Exactly this. And coupled with tournaments themselves only coming around every two years, a good crop of players can often have a fairly small window to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. They take responsibility for things like Rooney's red card, or wilting when it comes to penalty shoot-outs, but the fine-margins and the sheer randomness you get in football matter so much more in knockout competitions. Longer term, I look at England's lack of success in tournament football not too dissimilarly to Liverpool's barren years. Some periods when we've been miles away from being good enough. But others when we we've been very good and close to where we need to be. I think/hope we're about to enter another one of these phases now, so we just need to hope that they play near their best and hope that their luck is better than the good teams of the 90s and 2000s.