Angry_Pirate

Always liked that Amari Bell.

"DO YOU KNOW WE HAVE TO SCORE!" 68rh minute before Rothwell comes on and Graham still on the bench. Should be 2-0.

On the bright side the red button is saying its 0-0 again.

People saying its clueless to be calling for the managers head after this season. Wont happen but so many reasons to be pessimistic. 1) Refuses to pick the best players in the best position 2) Too loyal to poor players for no reason. Refuses to pick others for no apparent reason. Blind to our weaknesses. 3) Tactically weak for this level. Plays scared against every other team. 4) Seems to be the only one in our club who didn't fancy a genuine promotion push this season. 6) Scouting ambition is limited to say the least. Got a bargain with Dack (because of 1 good game vs Cov) but who else, really? 5) 100% will not take us to the premiership. 6) 12 months from now it'll be like Bowyer MKII. I like the guy and hope I'm wrong, but I'm not. 45 mins here wont change my mind.

Mowbray out. This team (Reading) are atrocious. Yet we play a shadow squad of poor players and this is what happens. The pre match articles make it even more infuriating. Some 1875 fan with some balls needs to call him out on this tomorrow night!

Not even sure I can class Smallwood as an "Average L1 player" for much longer... Edit: Bell too on this first 30 mins.

TM "Let's go chasing wins if we can." Conway, Smallwood, Brereton, Bennett, Travis, Bell and Evans.... Chasing wins???? Tony, you're losing the plot mate. I'd get it if it was youth players getting game time (Brereton too). But why give appearances to the likes of Smallwood and Conway who should be at new clubs come August if we have any ambition. Finally beginning to feel it's time for a new manager. No ambition, no logic. See an 18th place finish if this is what we can expect week in week out now. Even a win tonight won't change my opinion now. He messes around with the formation and "tactics" too much and is too loyal to average L1 players. Wasted with this manager now. Seriously considering not bothering with the ? tonight... and I've missed 3 games all season.

Firstly, the 'referee' was appalling, called it after the opening kick off was restarted and he didn't disappoint. To not send off Travis for a 'stone wall' 2nd yellow was poor enough (but helped us), but that doesn't mean he has to allow the next 'stone wall' 2nd yellow card challenge to go unpunished... The obvious corner at the end was the icing on the cake to go along with Frank "I'm gonna hold this ball for 18-20 seconds" Fielding. Fundamentally... Mowbray is showing a severe lack of ambition, tactical awareness and blind loyalty to L1 players. We were poor today and much of it is the manager refusing to put our 11 best players on the pitch together in their right position. Is this £3 Tony Mowbray '?? fest' also a Q&A? Hope so.

Excuse being the problematic word. Keep Bell in, move Bennett forward for Nyambe and decide which way round to play Reed and Bennett. I'm 98% sure that none of Bennett, Williams or Smallwood will measurably positively impact our performance today. We need to create chants for Rothwell and Nyambe asap to make it clear from the stands.

Just throwing this out there right now... I'm absolutely furious that Williams, Smallwood and Bennett are all starting today.

The difference between the Raya mistake today and against Birmingham is that we were always going to lose this game, you sensed it... especially with Nuttall, Conway and Brereton 'roaming' their final third and Bennett playing as he tends to do away from home... crap. Don't forget the two world class saves he made in the 1-0 at Ewood and the parting of the Red sea for 3 of the other 4 goals. You can't train some of the things Raya has in his pocket, you can train and coach his decision making, and kicking... if only we had an actually professional GK coach. Flowers, Brad, Robinson, Given. How can a team with such a fantastic history of great GK's not have a previous professional as a coach. Might have been okay as a L1 coach, but even the staff need to improve as we do. Same potentially of David Lowe.

Have we fallen behind, heck even conceded a goal, in the second half of an away game this season and not capitulated? Bristol City, Swansea, Leeds, Staff Utd, Brentford, Preston and Wigan. Plus Stoke where we actually held on, thanks to a missed penalty. That's 8, plus 4 clean sheets and a 95th minute Ipswich goal. Middlesbrough had 10 men and still looked like winning and WBA was a pure bombardment too, for different reasons. All in all we have a weak mentality. We are solid as long as the other team has 0. Soon as the other team score after 45 minutes you worry for any points at all if we wernt already 3 or even 4 goals up. Our final 30/20/10 minute stats are going to be quite staggering come end of the season. Sad thing is I said at 2-2, "we score next and it's probably a 3-3, they score and we concede 5". At least Graham, Dack, Evans and Lenihan aren't all injured........

The amount of comments I have seen in the past 2 years about Nyambe being rubbish... he is Cafu compared to Bennett.

Iorfa to Sheff we'd for £500,000 from Wolves is a great deal - if he is anything like the player he was the last time we played Wolves at Ewood. Him and Nyambe would have been great options for RB. Oh well, as the legendary Greame Souness once said: "We'll have to wee with the willy we've got!" ... for me this is a missed opportunity to show the fans, the championship and more importantly our better players that we meant business in 2019.

So, a bi-typical transfer DEADline day for Rovers. I don't like the fact they have gone home... very naive to just leave... imagine in an hour if Middlesborough were to call and say "on second thoughts, go one then, £20kpw and you can have Assombalonga afterall, we need the wages for our own incoming". ... But all they can reach is the fax machine. Surely they stay till 11pm regardless.

Assombalonga didn't turn down a premier league team because of £5k a week... He turned down Burnley! That's the best type of attitude we can hope for in a player.

If Leicester City can be signing Youri Tielemens for £20m, nothing is impossible today! All quiet at Ewood. They haven't even gritted the car parks in anticipation ?! Curious, on a 19 game loan, would people prefer Sam Gallagher or Rudy Gestede?

Oh no... not Bristol City. PANIC.

Didn't way pay Jordan Rhodes more per week than Assombalonga is currently on? Didn't Sam Gallagher supposedly get a pay rise at Southampton after his loan here... are we even sure there is much difference between the two... £10k difference seems speculated (£25k vs £35-40k) Gallagher will still cost a fair few million too don't forget. So take into account the 50% discount for 6 months, then isn't Assombalonga at £9m with an 'option' actually the cheaper option for the rest of this season and beyond a much better proven deal? Not to mention a better player? Palmers wages saved this month. Whittingham, Caddis, Downing and Gladwins wages will (fully) be a thing of the past come July. Pretty sure that is £20-35k+ on literal deadwood. Plus Conway and Leutwiler will be on expired deals who could be replaced with better and maybe even cheaper, younger players, or take another pay cut. Danny Graham will be a year older... ask yourself who you would rather be our lone forward in 2020 between Gallacher, Nuttall, Armstrong, Brereton and Assombalonga. £35k might be high, but it's hardly Armageddon style spending... not when you have a £20m+ Dack likely to go within 4 Windows. #teamAsso.

Chapman and Mr Gibraltar.

Also, the post about Dack being an asset in our pocket regarding FFP is bang on. Not many teams know that they can likely spend £20m+ in the next 2 windows yet still be in profit if they chose to or need to sell one player. The likes of Travis, Armstrong, Raya, Lenihan, Rodwell*, Dack and Nyambe could all net us close to £50m if we ever needed the money to balance the (rules that only apply to a few teams). £9m on Assombalonga and money again on a Harrison Reed, Luke Freeman or whoever is worth it when you know you could possibly get £20-£30m for Dack alone down the line in case of emergency. Penny seems to have dropped after 9 years. ?

What an unexpected read that all was... Britt Assombalonga is straight out of Football Manager fiction and i love it. That would be a sensational deal if his Wikipedia page is accurate ? - Loan with an "option". Gives us a genuine quality striker to go with Graham, and allows Nuttall the chance to go down to L1 on loan where hand on heart we all know he needs to be right now. Also offers up all options regarding Brereton too. After 4 wins in a row we know we will be in the championship or Premier League next season. So our budget and aspirations look to reflect that. This all just got a lot more interesting.

Hull played like the team I thought They were 10 games ago... but we would have beat any team in the league today the way we pressed and played. There was one moment in the first half where we had FIVE players swarm on their left back and win the ball. Love this high pressing, long may it continue. I said at the time, in the midst of all the anger at him, but just think how worse of as a team we would be if Smallwood would have stayed on the pitch at Sheffield United. Turning point of the season that red card. Travis and Reed are our best CMs we have had since N'zonzi and Jermaine Jones. Did anyone else see TM with the thumbs up when the fans were singing "sign him up" after Reeds goal. ?

I'm of the view that you can't state that the likes of Williams, Smallwood, Downing, Samuel, Gladwin, Caddis and Whittingham etc are no way good enough... yet be concerned or unhappy due to "lack of depth" upon their departure. If they are clearly not good enough for our current team/league position, get rid. Maybe one of our youth team players is actually (far) better and just waiting for a chance to move up the queue... Travis, Raya, Nyambe or Smallwood, Steele, Caddis? We aren't going down, so now would be the perfect time to get rid of as many "deadwoods" (regardless of their previous contributions), and see if we have any other Lewis Travis type potential in our club already that we can test out in the result of a major injury blitz some people expect and fear so badly. If we have to blood another Jay McEveley, Grant Hanley or Phil Jones instead of playing a Downing or Williams for 10 games, would anyone really be unhappy if they are the difference between us finishing 9th or 12th? Thanks Paul, really nice bloke and honest pro, hope he does great at Donny.

I'm hopeful it was already part of his original deal. The club just chose not to advertise it for 'fallout' reasons, as he wasn't the most popular player in football. Say he signed a £5k a week contract for 18/19, but the club had a 2 year £10k+ option written in if he was successful. It would make no sense to take such a risk - even a relatively cheap one - on a player with his pedigree without an option of securing him IF he were a success. Last thing we want is to turn around his reputation for an 8 month "loan" and then lose him for free.