Angry_Pirate

Prediction: Alan Browne will come in, along with two (far too young/raw) PL loans join last minute - at GK and LW/RW. Leonard goes, Pears goes (or is mutually terminated), and unfortunately, I'm going to predict Tyjon gets sold to Arsenal. Batty and another kid gets loaned out too. ... and Junior Hoilett signs a new long-term contract!

Absolute brain dead fucking idiot. Cost us the game 100% with that pile of shit schoolboy decision/defending. Woeful!

So Lorient want £5m and Rovers are looking to discuss a compromise... Magic beans again?

I'd 100% rather have Dolan and Brittain vs Alebiosu and De Neve. Which is no slight on the boys. McLaughlin vs Batth seems closer, but I saw Batth for 35+ games vs 3 for Sean. I'd call it a wash, but Sean is younger and looked the part after 270 mins. Henricksson and Baradji vs JRC and Buckley isn't even close without seeing much or any of the two new guys. The departing two offered nothing barring being academy graduates. Tavares vs Bradford was excellent, seems extremely raw beyond that... give me Travis. Miller I dont really have a 1:1 comparison, but good addition. Morishita should an excellent addition to replace Weimann etc. Pears and Leonard out for New GK2 and New CF will almost certainly make us better. Though the aim should be a starting forward and not a like for like replacement for Leonard. Mixed bag for sure, but for me an A+ summer would have been the ones in bold vs the actual business.

So is this newly linked Japanese lad Ryõya decent, or is it just Mor(e) shita that we've been linked to?

Absolutely mint when our only negatives are that we didn't score at least 5. 0-7 wouldn't have been undeserved. I apologise for not being more ambitious. We said the exact same thing. If he can be a consistent (and healthy) version of an good version of JRC then he'll do nicely.

Barring a couple of moments, all can be happy with that 46 minutes. Sondre and Hedges done more in this half compared to the first 3 games combined. Some referee's are bad, and make one shocking game changing decision (pens and cards), this guy might actually be the first referee I've ever seen that is actually getting easily over half his decisions wrong. He is miles out of his depth. Hull legitimately have had 7 or 8 yellow card offenses in that half. Rovers look open at the back, and a bit disjointed. McDicknie, Ndala and Gelhardt are the ones to watch. Chance to win this 3-0, but I dont see many clean sheets in this team. Big 50 minutes to come.

Off topic (but this group gets the most traffic), not looking to discuss the chants from Saturday (which I didnt hear from the JW, W12). But I see the club are now "Restricting Responses" on social media posts.... Not necessarily a bad idea on this occasion, but it is the first time I've seen them do it. Would it shock anyone if they used the tactic much more often, and I wonder if that'll become more and more the norm as they continue to strangle opportunities for the truth.

Rovers offer less than 50% of a players asking price = business as usual. Club offers less than 50% of a Rovers players asking price = player hung out to dry in the (club) media, dropped from the squad and called a snake. Hull should offer £200k for Cantwell, Hyam, Tronstad and Toth... make us play the reserves, because that's apparently how it works at Ewood. Club is a shambles.

At least the club got their priorities right in kissing the arse of the away fans.

So we released a statement: "The club limited media questions at today’s pre-match press conference on matters relating to individual players." During the same press conference:

When is the next big "express yourself" day where we can all do 250 different things with no clear unity?

"Losing Travis, Dolan, Pears, Brittain, Hedges, Hyam, Batth, Buckley and Leonard doesn't bother me one bit." (Below Average Fan) What the club and (some) supporters need to realise is the prices of British players are ridiculous (which Rovers will not pay). Shipping out over ⅓ of last years squad - all of whom are British - will severely bite when they realise only a maximum of 1 more foreign player can be brought in (Mafoumbi leaving first). Its an absolute disaster. A Burnley fan playing Football Manager couldn't do a better job at sabotage.

Gueye: Hedges, Tronstad, Dolan Shefki: Bellamy, Tugay, Pedersen

💯 Even if Axel isn't a "Wide Forward, #7, or Winger" he certainly is an improvement on Hedges. Hendrickson probably touched the ball more last night then Hedges will in August.

God I'll have regressed that memory if he did. Kenna, Grayson, Curtis, Neill would all be ahead of him in this scenario though? Wikipedia (I know) has him down for 88 appearances in 6 years - with 33 appearances in 2002/2003, so maybe he was more involved than I remember. Maybe he took over from Craig Short as he aged out? Tiny is 45yrs old. Jesus.

Was he ever a "Best XI" guy. We had Short and Berg for most of his time with us, and Chirstian Dailly was the starting CB before Berg came back. Amoruso, Babbel and Zurab came in not long after. I'd have Tiny in with Damien Johnson, Jonathan Douglas, John Buckley etc as guys who played and were "Bench" options, but can't say I ever think of him as a quote-on-quote "Starter".

So the club likes to semi themselves with this "proud academy" stuff... With Travis leaving - and somebody please correct me if I am missing a time period - (Edit - I think there was a period in the mid 00's), this may be the first time in the entire Premier League era that a Blackburn Rovers best XI (ignoring injuries) does not feature an academy player? Maybe you could squint and say Carter/Wharton as a CB, but I think we will see McLaughlin as the CB2. Looking through the entire timeline from 1992: Jason Wilcox, Damien Duff, David Dunn, Phil Jones, Martin Olsson, Junior Hoilett, Jason Lowe*, Marcus Olsson, Grant Hanley, David Raya, Darragh Lenihan, Ryan Nyambe, Adam Wharton, Lewis Travis. All those players seem to cover the majority of the past 23+ years - maybe there is a gap when Dunn/Duff left in 2003 in the Souness/Hughes eras. Which would make sense with the 720+ match streak putting us around that time. Still though, for where we are nowadays (as shell of a club), with an apparently excellent Academy, to say none would be in our best XI, is scandalous.

Operation blame the player : Achieved.

If Montgomery comes out for the 2nd half, we aren't actively trying to win the game. Alebiosu needs to come on, or McLaughlin to move Miller. Tavares the standout, Tyjon and Axel trying to play 1 touch football, both could have had better halves, but the intent is there, all three always turning forward. Haven't had a player the style of Tavares for years.

If Ryan Hedges ends up being the first "significant" contract renewal in +2.5yrs...

Did Rovers deserve to lose? No Did Rovers deserve to score? Also, No Should WBA goal be disallowed? 50:50 Should Rovers of had a penalty? 100% Two bang average sides. Hedges and De Neve look like back end squad players (being generous), and should be nowhere near the first XI. Sondre was honestly abysmal today, and Gueye looked like the October version of Gueye. The back four seem okay, we miss an (on form) Cantwell and desperately need a RW. Set pieces were hot garbage. Referee - a premiership referee - cost us at least a point there. 0-0 was the least the team deserved.

Jeez, grim reading... if only we'd have "expressed ourselves" a little better back in the spring.

Worrying about resale value on signings... People seem to forget we are Blackburn "run your contract down and leave for nothing" Rovers. How was the resale on Dolan, Brereton-Diaz, Lenihan, Rothwell, Nyambe, and Dack (though we can forgive that one to a degree). That's £25m - £30m worth of assets that walked for nothing in the last 3 years. Travis, Hyam, Tronstad (£7m?) - even Hedges (£500k?) - are at best going to be sold for under value (like Brittain) due to contract malpractice, or will join the list of £0 departures. Let's just say I don't share the same concern if they spend £1m on a 28-year-old. Rovers players walk for free 80% of the time regardless!

Literally give me all these Right Winger links and throw the lot of them at the wall to see what sticks. At least one (if not all) will be more of an attacking threat than Ryan "Chip" Hedges.