From a “cult hero” status, I’d much rather see him leaving and playing in La Liga with our best wishes than take 3m or whatever and see him playing for a Bournemouth or Forest. Not his fault we ballsed the contract, he’s always given his all and it’s a great opportunity for the lad. Plus he gets to fire us to playoff victory in the meantime.

Another 12 months is a different story. With all of the issues with the club though, if “nobody is mentioning promotion” what does sacking the manager actually achieve? You genuinely believe you can predict he’ll take us down next season and it’s all his fault?

Bossed the game first half. Was everywhere. Got tired and understandably frustrated towards the end. We need a few more on his kind of level, even if he’s not quite the same player as before.

Well if it’s that easy I look forward to the imminent appointment of a man that can take us straight up with a patchy young squad, mid table budget (at best), and batshit owners. See you then!

And sacking the manager after that would’ve been a good idea in your book?

Hardly dubious quality though.

Who would you like to see succeed him and what would you like to see as long term strategy to improve the health/prospects of the football club?

Yeah. We lost more than we’re brought in. Hence the need to rebuild? Can only assume you’re talking about Szmodics “for big money and dubious quality”. Surely can’t be Hyam or Brittain? I still need to see more to decide on Sammie, don’t think he’s been totally crap. Broughton seemingly has inherited a disjointed (if not downright poor) recruitment team/process, had to replace starters first, brought through more kids, and has had one transfer window. Take a bloody breath lads.

Give us a name then? Remove 4 starters from his team, pad it out with kids and give him twenty games to get us in the top two or else. Seems a fair, reasonable and not batshit way to run a football club. Instant gratification mindset, zero patience, and catastrophizing every defeat isn’t a constructive way to operate. This was a rebuild job, everyone’s expectations were low this season. But yeah let’s try and build a promotion challenging squad by changing the manager every five bastard months.

Only real men abandon their family for work reasons innit

Need a striker and a signing like the old Lewis Travis. Talk of JDT out is so laughably premature as to be embarrassing. Just the turmoil we need when we’re relatively stable in the league with a squad punching above their weight isn’t it? Those calling for his head - who have you got your eye on to do better with this squad and why?

It's how unbalanced it is that pees me off. He's taken 4 RBs again, 4/5 players that can play CB, 5 attacking midfielders and yet we've only got two strikers. Relying on Kane to stay fit or we've got the option of Callum Wilson, and that's it. It's really negative imo. He made the argument about form in order to overlook Abraham, yet picks Maguire, Alexander-Arnold, Phillips, Grealish etc. I think there's English players playing far better than them that can feel a little unfortunate.

The expected stinkers. Maguire/Dier/Coady are all worse than Tomori or Tarkowski. Even Scott Wharton can feel unlucky watching them 3 play for England. Ward-Prowse robbed for Conor Gallagher Would've had Abraham or Toney over Wilson too, expect he'll pull a muscle.

Just seen the goals vs Blades. Set pieces and getting in behind over the top seem like weaknesses that should play to our strengths. Unsure about starting A. Wharton - feel we need a bit more robustness and experience in there - unfortunately we look a bit thin at CM in that regard.

Pep currently earns that in 6 months. Doubt it would be enough 😅

To be fair, he doesn't seem like a bad fella really, just a propensity to chat shite. Enthusiastic but woefully, terribly, and unforgivably out of his depth above Scottish second division sized clubs. Says he regrets taking the job, never should have, but to be fair I can't blame him for taking it. At the time he was (rightfully) on the scrapheap.

Struggling to rationalise the problem with renaming the Riverside. Can still stick a sponsors name in front.

Of course, I understand why you don’t remove posts calling for our players to be injured. You’re a media outlet. Misery and nastiness sells. No need to pile doom on gloom though by deliberately misrepresenting “interest in the team” stats that obviously overlap with a transfer window ending. It’s depressing enough to read how everyone is shit and the managers is wank etc Interest/participation in this site and it’s content is not the same as interest in the football club imo.

People don’t want to come to the website to read shit like this every week.

Would’ve been meltdown towards the owners if they’d flogged Rothwell. There’s only a 50/50 chance at best that we’d have got any replacements over the line and even then they might’ve turned up wearing ripped jeans. The timeline of events has been unfortunate in the BBD situation. Went from pretty much valueless (with no clamour for a new contract from anyone) to a goal scoring sensation overnight. Again, should we have cashed in in January when we were 2nd? If we’re only getting bids now of ~£8m, how much would we have re-invested into the team, and how much to “stave off FFP”? After finding an adequate replacement we might as well have gambled the remaining £4m on Diaz firing us into the playoffs himself. Unfortunately, we can’t make nor expect the lad sign a new contract now, but I don’t necessarily think these were missteps by the club, it’s a bit more nuanced imo

They should have never sold Abraham! You'd expect Toney to cost double. I'd disagree with the earlier poster, always thought Abraham was fairly underrated even when he was banging in the goals for Villa and early on for Lampard at Chelsea. His exploits in Italy show he is very near to (if not already) a top level striker. Kane of course is in another class completely.

Interested to see how Abraham and Toney get on. I rate both and think they offer something a bit different to Kane, who we've needed an alternative/backup to for a while. Obviously come the World Cup both will be left at home so we can take 6 right backs.

Don't know where to post this or if it's been mentioned, but I really enjoyed the Tommy Spurr podcast. Seems a good fun and honest lad and always good to hear stuff from behind the scenes. Thought he was pretty underrated when he was with us tbh. A long one, but the Rovers related stuff starts around 1h 35 in

Probably one of the posters I engaged with most on here, even if it was 90% disagreement and bickering, I did enjoy the back and forth, he always had a considered perspective with decent banter. In fact, my profile pic is a pisstake from his "Bradley Dack bent down at a BBQ-gate", iirc. Don't see it at all. Hedges though surely must be in with a shout if he keeps up this form. Dunno, I enjoy seeing our players at the top level and on the world stage. Good for the club that players can see that platform here and like to see our lads have fulfilling careers. Would be delighted if BBD got to go with Chile, but I'll also be incredibly pissed off when he inevitably does his cruciate within two minutes.

Can I get access to this please? Sent a message a few weeks ago but nothing happened.