Angry_Pirate

Vale should be loaned out to a top end L1 club based on this performance. Could be decent at that level. Do Wrexham or Stockport need a forward?

6 potential starters on Saturday in this XI. Wonder if that is a (not so) subtle ploy by Eustace to highlight how lacking our 25 man squad depth is.

In terms of bonafide LW/CAM/RW options we have only 5 in Sigurdsson, Rankin-Costello, Dolan, Hedges and Weimann... however Buckley and Ohashi could play the #10 if needed. JRC and Hedges are injury prone, Dolan and Buckley are maddeningly inconsistent, and Weimann is getting on in age. Sigurdsson and Dolan are also into their final season. Needless to say that there is still definitly space for another Winger AND Central attacking player. Cantwell on the right deal (ideally permanently), and a proper pacey/tricky winger is certainly something Rovers should target.

£27m in TEN years. The total outgoing players (non tribunal) who received a fee are: Wharton, Armstrong, Szmodics, Rhodes, Gestede, Cairney, Hanley, Duffy, Raya, Marshall, Kaminski, Phillips, Ennis, Steele, Olsson, Telalovic, Wahlstedt. €106,000,000 thereabouts according to transfermarkt... £90m I think. Rovers basically spend 30% of what they create through sales. No wonder this team hasn't made the playoffs.

Some may call this an overreaction, but I think our best XI (right now) is how we finished yesterday - except JRC on the RW. Ohashi looks like a potential game changer at #10, the team needs the presence of Gueye, Sigurdsson has undoubtedly quality and end product. JRC is not a RW, and I'd like to see him play more CM/CAM when appropriate. But Ohashi, Sigurdsson and JRC could be fluid as a 3. Dolan, Hedges, Weimann all have a key role, but we don't want 2 of those 3 starting any game. All being said, this team needs to add another quality addition who can play 35-40 games from the LW/RW.

Whilst I would agree it has been an encouraging start to the season. If those plebs above the manager think that is cause to skimp on these next 6 days, then we could sink fast. Especially since we have no significant injuries at all (Leonard and Gilsenan). Whilst we have 2 wins and an unbeaten start, (ignore the fixture order) if you told me that Rovers got relegated on 7pts and only won 2 games all season, most would pick (L1) Derby and Oxford at Ewood. Hardly cause for delusional optimism. Literally the two most (on paper) winnable games of the season. Signings, good signings, definitly needed. Dolan, Hedges, Travis, Hyam, Pickering and especially Pears cannot carry us for a season.

I'd love to see that 60 player transfer list. "1: Victor Oshimen. 2: Vitor Roque 3: Ivan Toney......... 59: John Ruddy. 60: Ben Benson."

Enzo Boyomo, nice kid. Was shocked when he didn't sign up but fully understood his choice. He certainly always seemed to be the strongest pedigree in that (weak 2018) cohort - Sam Burns, Jalil Saadi, Isaac Whitehall, Dan Pike, James Connolly, Luke Brennan, Chanka Zimba, Jordan Eastham and Sam Durrant being the rest. Whilst Saadi, Eastham and Whitehall are still somehow on the books, Burns has fallen to the Northern Premier league, Pike and Durrant are at Dundalk, Connolly (after a decent 2 years at Bristol Rovers) has just joined Crewe, Brennan has signed for AFC Flyde, and Zimba is (I think) without a club after being released from Cardiff after a spell at Maidenhead on loan. Dreadful return all things considered. At least the year below have given us Garrett and Gilsenan. * weak as far as career, they did have a mega run in the FA Youth Cup.

I like JRC, but he's just getting in the way here.

Try to waste 40 seconds to take a corner when there was 10 seconds of time left, we deserve to get the whistle blown on us... regardless of WTF the linesman was looking at.

Do something shit, get kicked in the face.

The "Sigurdsson is shit" consensus is baffling to me.

How many players in the squad?

Bollocks...

Surely Ipswich will want to give Szmodics another week, if not simply for him to put another couple past Norwich on Saturday.

Used to get excited and play the "guess the new squad numbers" game with my sister. Now it's a dull as used bathwater.

Him or Vitek from United it seems. Bollocks.

The right 4 of 5 loans could literally get almost any Championship team promoted. Emiliano Martinez, Dean Henderson, Reece James, Fikayo Tomori, Ben White, Marc Guehi, Nathan Ake, Levi Colwill, Tosin Adarabioyo, Jan Paul Van Hecke, Mason Mount, Morgan Gibbs-White, Conor Gallagher, Emile Smith Rowe, Harvey Barnes, Amad Diallo, Harvey Elliott, Tammy Abraham, Harry Kane... the list is almost endless. All listed above played and succeeded in the Championship since we've been down here. Rovers have had maybe 4 excellent loans in 12 years. Two or three of the calibre listed above - in the same season - anything is possible. Look at the squad Villa got promoted with, and the one Derby had pushing. Hell Rudy Gestede, Josh King, Tom Cairney, Harrison Reed, Harwood Bellis are all a level of loan that (with help) can propel you into the top 10. Rovers don't seem shy to "pay" for loans (Poveda, Tosin etc), they just seem to happy to take the extremely raw players who offer little.

Consensus odds/predictions I see have Rovers (usually bottom) competing with the 3 promoted clubs (Portsmouth, Oxford, Derby), Plymouth and Preston as the weakest 6 teams. Gotta hope we're better (luckier?) than 3 of them.

If negotiations are still ongoing, then it means negotiations haven't been concluded, which means the transfer hasn't been agreed. The club may have agreed that it is £8m up front, + £4m in instalments. Eg. Ipswich may want to pay £800k a year for 5 years, whereas Rovers want £2m per over the next 2. Ipswich and Rovers haven't agreed how/when the £4m is to be paid, then they haven't agreed a fee.

I have no issue with whatever cock and bull negotiation "strategies" Maggott and Co use when selling assets. The issue I have is that (due to the abject disaster of the past 4 weeks) we're 26hrs away from the first league game of the season, and our best player is still here and we won't be using him!

Szmodics hasn't played in a (known competitive) game since July 13th, so effectively 4 weeks... There is essentially another 3 weeks until the deadline for this to drag on. What other fecking useless joke of a football club would even comprehend to allow their best player to go unused for perhaps up to 48 days (Tranmere Away -> Deadline Day) JUST BECAUSE a newly promoted team made a bogus enquiry/offer about him way below what you would accept. Imagine the universe Szmodics stays, yet cannot feature until after the September internationals as he isn't up to speed and misses the first half dozen games anyway... Derby should be on the phone today and offer £100k for Carter and JRC. Maggott would then hold them out of Fridays game as not to risk injuring them in case Derby come back in with £10m. The whole thing (club) is an absolute farce.

The bigger problem seems to be that Rovers have...

I'll keep banging the drum for Gabriel Slonina at Chelsea until he moves elsewhere. I think he may be as far as eighth on their depth chart. Jogensen, Sanchez, Kepa (for now) and Petrovic as their top 4, plus Bettinelli as thier "English" option, add two other kids in Bergstrom and Beach - they've too many to keep Slonina. Still only 20 years old, signed 2 years ago for £12m from Chicago Fire, and spent last year on loan in the Belgium Pro League. Exciting prospect to say the least. Loan would be 100% achievable, maybe even a creative incentive based transfer. Alas, the word creative was used, therefore won't happen. Chelsea have around 45-50 players, so will be sending a dozen "quality" players out on loan and should need to sell even more on the cheap.

Off topic, but fair to assume JDT could have made us a Premier League team if not for the Undav and O'Brien incompetence from above. What a difference 18 months make.