With loan players not necessarily coming back, we're short of support for Graham for next season. 

What's Luca Toni up to these days?

43 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

I wouldn't consider any offers less than 15 million. He is our main man and we are half the team without him 

 

Agree completely.

Only entertain the idea if:

i) The bid is big enough to mean that we can comfortably bring in 4-5 players of a good calibre 

&

ii) we actually get to spend that money.

£15 million sounds about right for that, wouldn't consider anything significantly less. 

18 minutes ago, Silas said:

I'm not sure VAR is the issue, it's the incompetent morons in the hierarchy of football that seem incapable of implementing it. 

It's not a popular view, but I would be a fan of giving managers 2 challenges per game (red cards, yellow cards, penalties, goal reviews for fouls - not offsides as it's become a mess. Just stick with lino decisions, you'll win some, lose some. )

This takes it totally out the hands of the officials who are clearly struggling to decide when and when not to use it. And you generally don't get more than 2 contentious decisions against you in a game.

The main  argument I have heard against this is managers abusing it. i.e. Mourinho challenging a blatant yellow in 89th min of game to break up the flow and get to have a sideline chat with players.

Easily resolved for me. Have a Monday panel, and if they decide a manager has abused it VAR challenge privileges revoked for 1 game.  Do it again in a season, revoked for 2 games etc etc.

Once a team has a dodgy penalty and/or red given against them in a game and they're powerless to challenge it, they'll soon learn not to abuse the system. 

 

Edit- Oh, and after the challenge the VAR makes the decision. None of this ridiculous running to side of pitch to look at a monitor.

Manager challenges, ref signals VAR so fans know. Minute later decision comes back, ref signals it, game moves on.  

I can see how this would work practically, but it doesn't change my biggest problem with it, which is that it simply takes all the joy out of the act of scoring, and it doesn't do anything about how a huge number of contentious decisions are just because they're not black & white. 

All this "but it works in rugby" you get from some quarters is entirely misplaced. I watch lots of rugby league, and even in a game where technical offences are much more clear cut, you still get controversial decisions all the time. This is even after taking 2 minutes or so to reach the decision, which is bad enough when you've got 6-10 scores a game. When so much emotion in football is often invested in one goal in a game, there is no way of brining in VAR in a way which doesn't mean that the high you get watching your team score is seriously dampened. 

Think I might've posted something similar a few pages back,. so sorry for drowning on about it, but I genuinely dread this becoming a permanent fixture in English football. 

On 06/04/2018 at 22:57, OxSouthernRover said:

Reckon Armstrong is a 8-10 goal a season player 

I can see him getting more but depends on how much we allow him to be a goal threat and not all that much else imo.

If we play him like it sounds Bolton did then he's probably not going to be scoring that many, if we take his weaknesses on the chin like we did with Rhodes, then I can see him getting 10-15 quite easily. 

15 hours ago, S8 & Blue said:

Does this mean that the Charlton fixture is set in stone?

I assume so. Think there there were only those two slots for football league games, so we should be alright now. 

Just now, roversfan99 said:

How much of a joke is it that Sky have put on Sunderland away at Fulham on a Friday night with 3 weeks notice?

Shocking, but to be honest I'm just pleased that it's not us.

Just now, speeeeeeedie said:

Here's a little snippet to illustrate what England are up against in Russia.

Spain squad for friendlies;

Goalkeepers: Kepa Arrizabalaga (Athletic Bilbao), David De Gea (Manchester United), Pepe Reina (Napoli)

Defenders: Jordi Alba (Barcelona), Cesar Azpilicueta (Chelsea), Marcos Alonso (Chelsea), Dani Carvajal (Real Madrid), Nacho Fernandez (Real Madrid), Gerard Pique (Barcelona), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Alvaro Odriozola (Real Sociedad).

Midfielders: Isco (Real Madrid), Thiago Alcantara (Bayern Munich), David Silva (Manchester City), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona), Saul Niguez (Atletico Madrid), Dani Parejo (Valencia), Koke (Atletico Madrid), Rodrigo Hernandez (Villarreal), Marco Asensio (Real Madrid)

Forwards: Iago Aspas (Celta Vigo), Rodrigo (Valencia), Diego Costa (Atletico Madrid), Lucas Vazquez (Real Madrid)

Excluded from this squad are Busquets (Barcelona), Alacantra (Bayern Munich) - injured, Martinez (Bayern Munich) - out of favour, and Morata - currently crap.

It will be a tall order for England to beat their best 11.

Excellent squad, have to be amongst the favourites.

That said, still not of the same vintage as their WC/Euros winning squad in my view. If England were to draw them in a knockout game, I'd make them favourites by a fair margin, but not unbeatable.

59 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

The issue with hamstring injuries is the scar tissue it leaves behind. It means players can be far more prone to reinjury.

Consistent hamstring injuries are the end of some careers. See Sturridge for the most perfect example. He has to give himself time to recover and if I was him I'd be looking at missing out the season. He's young and has the next 12 years to think about

Agree. Obviously would love for him to have a future at Rovers, but this is one of those cases where you just want to make sure that the lad has a career. Promising news that's not a recurrence of the previous injury at least.

12 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Stuck on a train and bored, so my guess for a team if we do go is

--------------------Pickford

Walker----Stones---Maguire---Rose

-----------------Dier------Wilshire

-----Sterling------Alli-------Rashford

-----------------------Kane

A lot of decent attacking players in there but only two who are top class in Kane and maybe Walker. Key individual is Wilshire for me as he is the only real passer in the frame. If he can perform we will be a much better team than with another workhorse alongside Dier.

That said irrespective of Wilshire Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain all clearly superior to us. 

Think it will be out in the second round. Reaching the quarters would be a good performance.

 

The one thing that gives me hope (ridiculous, I know) is that as far as I see it there's none of the other top sides look unbeatable.

Not disagreeing about the squads you mention being better than us by the way, but there is no, say, Spain of a few years ago for instance.

Germany aren't as good as they were last time out in my view, Brazil have clearly improved but don't strike fear in the same way previous sides have, and there is Neymar's fitness issue. As ever, Argentina look amazing on paper but only Messi's heroics mean they're there in the first place. France have a quality squad, but their big guns aren't on form in the same way they were at the Euros. Spain look good too, but don't carry the same air of invincability that they did in their EC winning sides.

Basically, I think it's wide open! Just a shame that it's almost certainly not going to be England that takes advantage!

Just now, scotchrover said:

Looking long term, I don’t think he’ll go back now. Pulis will want 6 foot monsters in the side.

Especially if they go up, which is looking more and more possible through the play offs.

1 hour ago, BlackburnEnd75 said:

Personally I hate it. Even if it worked properly and it clearly doesn't yet. It takes the joy out of scoring a goal and fundamentally changes how we watch a game, it might be okay if your watching at home but in the stadium it must be awful.

 

Agree 100%. It's the high that you feel after your team scores which makes football so special. I watch a lot of rugby league, and whilst I see the value of video refs in a game which has a lot more technical offences, even there so much of the feeling you should get once your team scores has been dampened by the time any points have been awarded.

Thinking of some of the memories I have watching Rovers that would've lost their edge, I sincerely hope this dies a death before it gets going.

55 minutes ago, Tom said:

Like to see Ainsworth in a bigger job; fancied him at Ewood a couple of times when we've had the vacancy.

He would've been top of my list by a million miles if Tony had walked in the summer. Working wonders on a small budget & still refers to Rovers as 'we' on the odd occasion you get him on the radio.

Magnificent hair too.

For it even to be slightly viable (I'd guess it's not even on the cards, and just lazy journalism) we should be talking of the lions share of the £11million they've just received.

Speculating here, but I'd wager that they'd also need to offer him the sort of contract that Pritchard was on to turn Bradley's head. Can't see it happening for this alone.

Awful. The sort of nonsense you associate with tiny clubs & Bolton. Probably the most annoying non-Venky's related aspect of supporting Rovers at the moment.

Doesn't sound like a world beater, but could well be what we need alongside Whittingham & another ball playing midfielder, whoever that turns out to be.

More importantly, Mowbray knows what he can do, good luck to the lad.