No Pickering today, ankle knock and won't be risked

JDT on JRC !!

If you say so 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Sorry Ossy, that's bs. You were quite obviously trying to portray a lack of professionalism on the part of the two players which is blatantly untrue. Rovers are being cautious with Ennis, nothing more

Phillips and Pickering the stand outs according to Sharpe and Jackson. Not sure Ash can be held back much longer

Buckley seems to be impressing as well

Love this forum 😀 1st pre season friendly and it's started already

No Trav for family reasons

Just found this clip of him. Looks a player ! Already training with 1st team apparently this pre season 👍👍

Latest on St sales https://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/1183052022?-11198:839 The club are approaching 8,000 sales, which is said to be ahead of the curve based upon the previous four years and day-to-day sales remain healthy. Waggott said 859 supporters were yet to renew, while 540 had signed up for a season ticket who didn’t have the full 23-game package in 2022/23. The club exceeded their 6,500 target in phase one, which Waggott described as the ‘best response in five years’, as around 7,000 took up the offer. He also outlined that a third sales phase would only have been implemented should Rovers have won promotion to the Premier League.

Goalkeeping standards in general have dropped over the years in my opinion. Time was a keepers job was to keep the ball out of the net, nowadays they are being asked to do Cruyff turns and ping a pass 70 yards onto a full backs toe. Consider that De Gea has just won the Golden Gloves award this season with performances like this Imagine the reaction on here if Pears made anything like those kind of mistakes.!

May be a good sign. Crashed due to the volume of new applicants and renewals? 😆

Got to feel for Barnsley (and their keeper especially) after that. Absolutely gutting but just shows , Wednesday were dead and buried after the semis. If the football Gods are with you ....

Luton bullying Cov all over the pitch

Brendan Rogers anybody?

Pretty fair summing up from GB imo. Football can be a cruel game Gregg Broughton reflects on Rovers’ season as a positive one, though admits that’s taking the medium to long-term view his role requires, rather than that of a supporter. Rovers missed out on a play-off spot on goal difference, with their win at Millwall on the final day their first since March 15. Wins evaded them at the worst possible time as despite taking 19 points from their nine games leading into the international break, the final nine yielded only eight, three of which came at Millwall. It meant that Rovers’ minus two goal difference saw them miss out, as an opportunity to make the top six passed them by for a second successive season. That was the first in his role for director of football Broughton who believes there has been progress across the club which brings encouragement for the future, even if supporters were left with a sense of ‘what if’. “If I wear my football supporters’ hat I can be disappointed with it, but it’s important in my job that I don’t wear a football supporters’ hat and think about the medium to long-term success of the football club,” he explained. “That’s what my role is all about, I have to think not about the outcome but the process that underpins that. “If you look across the six departments that I am responsible for overseeing, huge progress in all of those and that leads to progress on the pitch, we really believe that. “I think some of the performances post-Christmas have been excellent and one of the great things, but also the worst things, is that you can perform so well for the last nine games of the season but have so little to show for that and that’s why we all love this sport. “Those little moments can change it. “It goes back to Sunderland on Boxing Day ironically, you can never take one result, but that’s ultimately allowed Sunderland to finish above us in the table. “But Coventry at home, Preston away, those little moments that just go against you in the last few seconds. “I think I have to focus on the medium to long-term and the processes that underpin that and we’re pleased with how that progress has gone.” Rovers’ results tailed off for the second successive season, however, performances in 2023 did pick up, even if the wins didn’t follow. They enjoyed a strong February, and went into March looking well placed in fifth, and with a game in hand over their rivals, many of who they would meet in the run-in. Broughton said performance metrics in every area bar set pieces improved in the closing weeks of the season, even though they weren’t backed up with wins. “When the transfer window closed we had 18 league games left, and a couple of cup games as well,” he added. “Of those 18 league games, the first nine, up to Sheffield United in the cup and the international break, we got 19 points from those. “You continue that form and you won’t only finish in the play-offs but you might get third in the league as well. “When you look at those nine games after the international break we only got eight points from those but every single performance metric we use has gone up, chances created, chances conceded, amount of possession in the opposition half, counter-pressing, all the things that underpin how we play and measure our style of play. “Those little moments have just gone against us and when we dig into it the performance point we were disappointed with from those last nine games was the amount of chances and goals we conceded from set pieces. “You might think that’s irrelevant but it’s in the bigger picture of looking things. “The goals conceded in the nine games up to Sheffield United, one set piece goal, in the last nine five set piece goals conceded, and crucial ones. “Birmingham City away, Huddersfield away, Luton Town at home, those games go on, and those are the margins that can cost you.” Jon Dahl Tomasson pinpointed a lack of goals as the reason for Rovers’ failure to make the top six, refereeing the January transfer window where the club failed to bring in a striker. Rovers also failed to secure the signing of midfielder Lewis O’Brien, as well as prospect Ethan Brierley, on what was a window to forget. Many supporters also focused on the lack of activity, with Sorba Thomas’ loan signing the only addition across the month, as why they missed out on making the play-offs for the first time since relegation from the Premier League. Yet Broughton says that while mistakes were made, and a better window was planned, he doesn’t feel that was the sole reason why Rovers missed out. Indeed, their best run of form of the season came in the weeks after the transfer window closed. Asked if he felt the January window was a determining factor, Broughton said: “I think to look at that way is too binary, too black and white. “Would we like to have had a different January? I think I’m on the record as saying yes of course we would have done. “It would now be stupid of me to say ‘ignore that’, but the fact is we came out of January and got 19 points from the next nine games. “It wasn’t like February 1, crash, we set ourselves up in a really, really good way to play. “We know there have been lessons learned from January. “It’s on the record what happened, I’m not trying to brush it under the carpet, I’m happy to answer any questions, but we must look at the lessons learned from that and do better in the future.”

Agree, can only hope they've learned from past experiences