Admiral Nelsen

Talking of halved away kits, I still live in hope that we'll end up bringing out a yellow & black halved kit one of these days.

Our third kit the season after was the same design but with a slightly more tasteful Crown Paints sponsor on the front. Annoyingly, Rovers didn't have the foresight to let anyone buy it!

Ironic that he's now most associated with being a clogger because of the fallout of that Eduardo injury. If he was more of a hard case then he could well have been a Rovers starter for the rest of the decade and even picked up a few England caps along the way.

My issue isn't so much the length of the delay, to be fair it seems like it's not hugely disrupting the flow of the game so far. Bigger problem for me is the period of uncertainty of whether a goal is being disallowed or not. Even if it's only 30 seconds, it takes the joy out of that instant when you know that you've just scored.

Couldn't agree more. I know we all love a good moan at refereeing decisions, but in the cold light of day, we all basically accept that refs are fallible and mistakes are part of the game. Obviously the more correct decisions the better, but if the price of getting more correct decisions is making the game more sterile then it's a price not worth paying.

I wonder how this compares to other countries. Apparently the Brazilian, Italian, French and Spanish press & broadcasters can be brutal at times, but I guess that it might be slightly easier to shrug off if you've got a recent history of success.

To be fair, about half of their team are well known to European fans. In any case, we can get a sense of the pedigree of the squad even if we haven't seen all of them play. D. Sanchez is quality for his age, but wouldn't be getting in our squad yet if he was English. C. Sanchez didn’t play every week for Villa when they were awful. Ospina’s a good shot stopper but an accident waiting to happen beyond that. Believe that Falcao has started scoring again now he's back at Monaco, but hardly the most competitive league in the world. Hard worker and a good finisher, not someone to be overly scared of. Rodriguez & Cuadrado are clearly good players, but England have some too (at least of the same level as Cuadrado). England have lost to worse teams! But it's not getting ahead of ourselves to say we should be favourites to get to the quarters if this is the best that we have to play. Watch us lose to Panama now I've said all that

Colombia are a very handy side, but I think you'd still have to make England favourites on paper (I know that's been said before about 100 times!). Route to the quarters looks very manageable. After that...

Hope it works out that way, always prefer the away xmas game to fall on boxing day than New Years.

Agree when he's on MotD, but I think he's much better on the radio. Think there are a few on the Beeb like that actually. Get them 5 minutes to summarise games then they're dull as dishwater. Get them talking about the game more generally and they're not as bad. An exception of course is Danny Murphy, who is equally excruciating on whatever format.

Or Nicky Butt get almost 40!

Football about opinions etc. but if his form dropped that massively then it was completely lost on me. His distribution was very hit and miss, but I remember him doing his job as a centre half to a pretty good standard until Lenihan came back. I agree that he's not likely to shift Lenihan & Mulgrew, who are much more well rounded players, but I think that was equally true when Downing first came in the team.

Thought Watt was very decent in his time here, and didn't get any sniff of an attitude problem. To be fair that might just have been because he was on loan and trying to earn a contract, but take as you find, I'd definitely have him back.

It's amazing how Bolton manage to take such a simple design as a plain white shirt, and every year find a way of making it look disgusting.

Fair, and I susppose Hoillett at his best had games where you were just certain he was going to get past players and keep the ball. Even so, there were times when King looked imperius at this level. Underplaying him was a massive own goal.

A few years ago now, but for me King's real value shone in that last few months in the season we almost got into the play offs under Bowyer. Rhodes & Rudy up front, with King & Conway on the wings. There were certain times when teams just didn't know who to mark or double up on. In that run we played Brum away and King scored a hattrick in about 20 first half minutes from midfield if I remember correctly. Absolutely unplayable. All in hindsight now of course, but looking back on it it definitely was a mistake not to get him in the side somehow, either as a partner for one of our goalscorers or in place of Marshall (or Conway). Horribly frustrating player, but I've not seen any Rovers player terrorise defenders like that in years.

No doubt we're still short of pace. Stil think Pilkington would be a top signing though, has the sort of quality out wide that we simply don't have at present.

That;s the main reason I brought it up to be honest! I was thinking as a number 10, or depending on the system deeper in midfield like he did at Ewood a couple of years back. Agree that his days as an out and out striker are well behind him, but could still do a job out wide if needed, right or left. I'm not saying we should go out and break the bank for him or make him integral to the side, but he'd still be a useful and pretty versatile squad player imo.

Something quite 90s which I like about the Umbro badge trim on the sleeve. Wouldn't mid that at all

Whilst we're speculating on the prospect of Rovers fans signing, would anybody take Jem Karacan? Been released by Horwich, apparently doesn't really fit in with Parkinson's style of play. Not seen much of him recently, but a talented player and one that would suit Tony's style a bit more, perhaps?

I think Gallagher as part of the squad would make sense, if only because he play in a number of different positions to a high standard and should fit in with Tony's style of play. That said, we still need more pace, badly, so he'd need to be an 'extra' one assuming we have the budget for it.

Little surprised that Bristol City are interested in him after his season tailed off so badly at Shrewsbury. Might be worth it if it was a permanent deal but not a 12 month loan

Never heard of him, but had a quick scout on twitter, some posts raving about his debut in February. Left pegger, technical midfielder, scorer of good free kicks.

If that's true it's amazing that hey haven't developed a superstition about blue and white!

Some good names there. Don't think we've got a cat in hells chance of signing Grabban though. Noises that Tony's been making about not signing players on massive wages, I expect that he'd be one. Paddy McNair would be decent but not sure what sort of money he'd be on. Right age, and not easy to look good in a team that is absolutely tanking.