Admiral Nelsen

That was amazing! Forgot about that episode. Pretty sure it was even described on Sky Sports News as "Blackburn are interested in signing Bulgarian speedster Domovcheski". Top work.

Pleased with this. Think he'll prove his worth this year when you'd expect that we'll have a bit more defending to do!

Definitely! Clearly a very good player, but you could make an argument that in 2002, he wouldn't even get in the team in front of Ronaldinho, Rivaldo & Fat Ronaldo. Was the big superstar in 2014 because it was the worst Brazilian team in memory. Simple as that for me.

Agree, but to be fair I'm all for a pragmatically direct/defensive approach, just so long as it's coherent, planned and part of a blueprint of 'this is how we play'. I mentioned Brentford, but there are so many clubs that have succeeded way beyond their 'natural level' for parts of the last decade or so. Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Hull, Reading, Swansea, Brighton, B*rnley, Blackpool, Wigan, Cardiff, probably others that I've missed all with spells in the bigtime. There might be the odd cash injection here and there, but it shows what you can do with proper recruitment fitting into a specific culture and way of playing which gets the most out of what you have. As much as I loved Bowyer, I never got the sense that we had an 'identity' beyond being hard working & organised. The less said about anyone else who graced the managerial hot-seat in the meantime the better. If our days of being big spenders behind us for now, then it's encouraging that we at least are looking as though we're trying to be a bit cleverer in recruitment. If we can do that whilst playing attacking football, then so much the better!

Probably, I'm still trying to treat it as a long shot rumour at this point, albeit the detective work a few pages back is getting me a bit excited. If true, and along with signing Rothwell and especially Davenport, it looks like Tony is trying to put together a team which really goes out to play on the front foot. Maybe not too dissimilar to how Brentford set up when they were first promoted. Remains to be seen if it actually turns out like that, but I like how it appears that there is some attention being played to how we play, which hasn't seemed to be the case since Sam. The better & quicker our wingers, the more space we'd expect Dack to get, so hopefully this is sort of player we're looking at, even if it doesn't come off.

Was about to post this, so thanks for saving me the trouble! Usual caveats for a highlights package, but the fact that they can put together a 6 minute video for one season is encouraging! Could you get 6 minutes from Feeney's entire career? Obviously has great quality of delivery, but seems to like to run with the ball given the chance too. Couldn't tell if he had absolutely blistering pace or not, but definitely quicker than anyone else we have there at present.

To be fair, you've probably picked the worst time in the last 30 years to ask that! Of those who played yesterday, I think 8 were academy graduates, and most of the rest were frees, with the odd 6 figure fee there too. Having said that there's probably still a fair gap in wages though. In any case, glad to see optimism about the state of the game North of the border. A healthy game in Scotland is good for football in the rest of Britain & I'd say we've tended to get a pretty downbeat picture of things down here in the last few years, to the point in which I had no idea anyone outside the Old Firm were getting near 20k crowds. Best of luck in Europe.

True. My point is that it's vanishingly unlikely that he'll be at the level where City will want him back. If he is, then we'll likely as not be back in the top division off the back of it.

Think there was something similar in Rochina's contract from Barcelona. Wouldn't be too concerned about it, if he plays well enough that City want him back then we'll have already have our moneys worth!

Think I've posted something similar before, but the spell when we looked really dangerous under Bowyer is when we had all three of Rhodes, Gestede & King in the side when Ben Marshall (probably considered our best winger at the time) was injured and we were forced to go for it because we needed wins to get in the play offs. So a team of roughly Robinson Henley Hanley Duffy/Kilgallon Spurr King Cairney Lowe/Evans Conway Rhodes Gestede There were several away games when we looked lethal with this sort of line up, and King was unplayable. When Marshall was back the season after, the handbrake was put back on and King was on the bench. Would've been interesting to have seen how things would've panned out if we stuck to that set up imo. At the very least we might've kept King happy.

Think it's comes from what Southgate was saying the other day, a team we've consistently under estimated. We've often seen them as a side we expect to beat, and more often than not it's ended up as a draw. Interesting to see how it pans out now that it's a knockout game and not a group match. I know it's not panned out this way so far, but I think if we get the first goal then I'd back us to win this fairly comfortably. Watched Sweden against the Swiss, and whilst they were clearly very well drilled, there was a serious lack of quality and pace when going forward. I don't think they have the players to really take the game to us if we get in front, just a case of making sure we can crack them first!

That's pretty much exactly how I feel about where we're at. Only thing I'd add is that as much as we've not been tremendously creative until now, I think our players and the way that we set up is better placed to counter attack against better sides, rather than the sorts of teams that we've played so far. The likes of Sterling, Alli, Lingard, Rashford and Vardy are all different players if we can play slightly more direct into space, and whilst this obviously won't be helpful against Sweden, if we can get past them then it might come to the fore if we play Croatia in the semis, or without getting carried away, whoever in the final.

Seem to remember that Sharpe poured cold water on the Edwards rumour when it was first mooted a few weeks back. Suppose things could have moved on since then though.

I'd guess it wouldn't, maybe delay it slightly as they bring someone in first. It's up for debate if Chapman is Tony's sort of winger, so he's definitely not going to be Pulis' cup of tea! If anything, having 20 million burning a hole in their back pocket may make it easier for us when it comes to the finances, but I doubt it'll change anything.

Think that's right, but to be fair almost all of the footballing world has to have that approach, so I wouldn't say you were being overly pessimistic! Still really unsure about how to assess the competitiveness of the squad, but I think looking at the 'potential to get a good fee' isn't a bad indicator of how much better shape we're in than this time last year. When we went down and started thinking about who might have to be sold, I remember thinking how few players we could realistically expect to get cash for. There was Lenihan (and bizarrely as it turned out, Steele) but that aside it seemed like the whole team were the equivilent of toxic investments. Fast-forward 12 months and we have Raya, Lenihan, Dack, Nyambe, Bell, Davenport, Rothwell, Smallwood & Williams who are all to varying levels of the age/contract status to command a reasonable fee if they were available, with a couple of them with the potential to grow their value substantially. Still looks reasonably likely like we'll be able to add at least one of Chapman & possibly Armstrong to that category too by the end of the summer. Obviously we hope they all stay at Rovers & excel, but looking at this way shows just how much healthier we are with Tony than the paper-over-the-cracks approach that Coyle took, which really left us in the lurch when we went down.

Delighted with this. Not sure exactly what I'm basing this on, but I never saw Lenihan as the type to commit to such a long deal, especially after the Sheffield United rumours last year. Maybe having such a good second half of the season after a long term injury has helped him think differently about being here, not sure. Whisper it, but this is starting to look like quite a promising summer. We're still desparately short of help for Graham and pace out wide/up front, but the rest of the side is looking very decent imo.

I reckon so, on paper at least. Expect a tight one tomorrow in any case. A good performance and win tomorrow and any pretence of expectation management will be straight in the bin as the country goes mad! Seems a fair away away from here though.

Incredible game. So nervous about tomorrow after the last few days. We're a better side than Colombia, but not by miles and it doesn't look like anybody's doing it easy.

What's the difference? (not meaning to sound argumentative - genuine question) If the difference is in terms of ability or what they achieved generally as opposed to winning goals against Burnley, then I think I can see where you're coming from in the sense that you'd never put him in the same bracket as Shearer. But even then he still achieved international honours, as well as promotion and a major trophy with us, and even with his injuries played hundreds of games and scored a bagful. You could pick a handful of players in the last couple of decades who were better than him, but I'm struggling to see how he could be classed as a cult hero but not a legend to be honest (unless I'm getting the wrong end of the stick).

To be fair, any kit which is being worn by Roque would instantly look amazing. Such a beautiful man.

Don't think they'll win it, but like Croatia look capable of knocking anyone out on their day.

Potentially looks like he was the player that we wanted before signing Payne as back up. Bet we weren't in Oxford's good books come February 1st. Unlike Payne, he looks capable of competing physically too. Cautiously optimistic about this one.

Not surprising given they have Modric & Rakatic, but Croatia look capable of giving anyone a game. Think the eariest that they can play England is the semis fortunately.

Thinking about it, that spell of City youth players could warrant a thread all by themselves. S. Wright-Phillips, Stephen Ireland, Michael Johnson & Micah Richards all off the top of my head looked like they were going to be worldies, and all ended up fading away far too soon. Not sure that their fans would be too bothered now, mind.

Will be interesting to see how Portugal deal with having to be the team on the front foot. They were pretty abysmal in the Euros when they couldn't counter attack towards Ronaldo. The other two will be training exercises.