Ewood Ace

He'll be a replacement for Downing to help fill the Middlesbrough quota.

Say's the poster who until he finally saw the light over Mowbray (2 years too late mind) did nothing but put the club down and quickly shot down any suggestion of possible successors. Even at one point asking why would a manager (I can't remember who it was) would want to come to 'a club in East Lancashire'.

Brereton and his agent are geniuses to firstly get him bought for £7 million (a fee that even 3 years on he isn't worth), secondly to get himself an international call up and thirdly to get his name linked with clubs like Leeds and Sociedad which are most likely total nonsense. You talk about mediocrity, mediocre at the very best is all that Brereton has ever been in 3 years at the club and most of the time he has been poor and it is very debatable if he even get's into our best starting 11. South American football is no way near as strong as it was, one only needs to have watched this Copa America to know that, in fact it is rather sad to see how poor the standard has become. At the last World Cup no South American side made it past the quarter final, no South American side has won the World Cup since 2002 and they have only had 1 finalist in the last 4 finals. There is no chance whatsoever that Bolivia would qualify for the World Cup if they were based in Europe and it is very unlikely if they would in Asia. Also during this tournament Bolivia haven't been at full strength, so it was hardly an elite full strength national team he scored against. As for Brereton's assist, assists are pointless a stat all it was an easy lay off by Brereton, all the credit should to go to Vargas for his run and finish. I didn't see the game against Uruguay the other morning but I did see his other three games and I thought he did decently but to read your posts you'd think South America was witnessing the new Maradona.

Can they? Of the returning loanees Vale barely featured for a Rochdale side that got relegated to League 2, Chapman is most likely going to leave, Hilton is of on loan again according to reports, Magloire isn't good enough, the likes of Lyons, White, Mulgrew and Grayson have all been released. About the only one the only returning loanee who has shown he might be up to it and deserves a chance is Carter. As for the other under 23's players if the manager isn't willing to even put them on the bench for dead rubbers at the end of the season then he isn't going to use them from the beginning of the new season. Also it is a massive jump from under 23's football to Championship football and putting so many players into the team at once isn't going to benefit them or the team.

You just named a few above. Allan Campbell and Ryan Woods are easily as good as anything we have in midfield. Matty Pearson is as good as anything we have at centre back. Rhodes and Collins both score goals something that outside of Armstrong none of our other players do consistently. It isn't going to take much to improve the squad as it stands, we finished 15th last season and have lost 11 players from that squad. We need to get real at the moment all our squad is good enough for is a relegation battle. Just to have a season of mid table mediocrity like last season we probably need 8 players and the season start in just 6 weeks time.

There would have been no complaints from me if we'd signed Rhodes or Collins as strikers both at this level are well ahead of Gallagher and Brereton. Allan Campbell was a player I advocated signing earlier in the window getting him on a free is very good business by Luton. But there was no chance of us doing that as the club seems to shut down for a month or so once the season is finished. When did we last get a good Bosman in early in a window? This is the problem when you are so slow in the transfer market and leave it late, all the good Bosman's are gone so you end up with crocks like Holtby and Ayala. Ryan Woods is easily as good as anything we have in midfield and Pearson is also easily as good as anything we have at centre back. We need to get real instead of snobbily looking down our nose at players. We are a bottom half club, with a weak squad, with a poor manager who isn't going to attract anyone and we are in for a struggle in the upcoming season. Anderlecht haven't been finishing consistently at the top of the Belgian League for a few years now.

That's a very outdated stereotypical view of the English game. And Jason Lowe captained England Under 20's at a World Cup.

The most stupid with Downing was that of the few games he started last season one was at Barnsley where rather than playing how we usually did (which would have actually suited Downing), we played 5 at the back and bypassed the midfield all evening by playing long balls from back to front.

If Brereton does stay in the Chile team then he is going to be playing a lot of football next season. Chile have 12 world cup qualifiers still to play and they have to be played by the end of March. Then he could potentially have 2 more in June.

Surely not from Mr Holier Than Thou.

I'm sure you would but you aren't going to get that in the current climate for a player who won't cost a fee in 12 months time

The evidence is the last decade. When in the last decade have we operated like a normal business/football club?

Waggott has been CEO for 3 and a half years now and he still appears to be as out of touch now as he did the day he came into the club.

Not before time he should have been gone years ago. The fact that he has been kept around so long as well as being club captain sums up the charitable mentality of Mowbray.

I popped down the club house at my local club tonight (step 4 of non league). Work is being done on the ground and pitch ahead of the new season. The manager was down there and I was chatting to him about the new season and he's got a few new players in already, pre season has been sorted and season tickets were put on sale this week. This is a club mainly run by volunteers. At Rovers we have a CEO on £300K a year yet every summer the club practically shuts down for a month or so after the season has finished. The season starts in 7 weeks and we have a very weak squad, we don't know if we are going to be under an embargo, no sign of a new shirt yet (plenty of other club's already have theirs out) and no news on season tickets (nearly every other club has theirs already on sale). We are just so far behind other club in how we operate it really is an embarrassment we are always behind the curve. There never seems to be any urgency from those running the club be it to get the accounts in on time to avoid an embargo, be it to get season tickets on sale which (Waggott claims is a big part of our income) or be it to get assets tied down on contract's so that we don't lose them for free. Whatever it is they just seem to be asleep at the wheel all the time.

A great moment from the lad that I'm sure he will never forget and a good job he didn't take the same attitude as some on here and throw his toys out the pram after spending 2 games on the bench. He did ok when he came on for a quarter of an hour or so in what wasn't an easy game to get into as like most Chile games in was a very bitty game. I also though that it was interesting that after watching him train for 2 weeks Lasarte played him through the middle whereas Mowbray in 3 years has barely played him there at all.

Thrope isn't batting coach anymore. Trescothick is the batting coach but I don't know what he's doing for this game as he was down Taunton watching Somerset on Friday evening. He hasn't even been a regular keeper until this season. There are a lot of better keepers in county cricket than him. The reason given is because they played in the IPL but so did Boult and he has also been back to New Zealand, quarantined back there and travelled from NZ to the UK and he is playing this game. The simple fact is England don't put any value on test cricket they are only interested in White Ball Cricket. If you are playing first class cricket mainly in April, May & September then you aren't going to get good quality wickets. At the peak of the summer when the weather is dry and the wickets are at their best it is practically all White Ball Cricket in this country because that is all the ECB are interested in. They have no interest in First Class Cricket which is why it is cast to the fringes of the season. And now we have the ECB bringing in another format of the game that doesn't even resemble cricket. Sibley came through the system at Surrey What's wrong with preparing pitches that turn? This is the problem in this country if a pitch turns early then we hear plenty of moaning about it (whereas not a word if it seams) and then when we go to the Sub Continent and look like Rabbit's in the headlights (like in India this winter) people seem surprised.

Curran isn't selected because he went to the IPL. As for lacking a quality spinner like Shane Warne so is every single country in test match cricket. You are talking about one of the games greatest ever players. Also we don't promote spin bowling in this country if a side prepares turning wickets the ECB sanction them and then they wonder why we don't produce spinners and consistently struggle in the sub continent.

I can't understand the logic of not picking a front line spinner on a pitch that is offering turn already and what I understand even less is going with an all seam attack and deciding to bat first. It seems like very muddled thinking from England which is what we've seen all year when it comes to selection. Silverwood was out of his depth solely as a coach he is even further out of it now as the main selector.

I'm talking about the Liverpool fans who as you put it 'Keep going on about Hillsborough'. Those who simply wanted justice for the unlawful killings of their friends & family who your rag had falsely smeared before they were even in the ground.

What Bastards those Liverpool fans are hey? Trying to get justice for 96 people who were unlawfully killed. To this day it is simply unimaginable to me (having attended football matches for over 6 decades) that you can walk out of your home to go to watch a game and never return. Your rag rather than report the truth of the horrific events sought to smear the dead when their bodies were barely cold. But the smear wasn't just against those Liverpool fans at the game it was against all football fans because the view of football fans in this country was already low before it. So rather than doing a proper job they went after the easy targets (the football fans) and by lying and smearing them they damaged the reputation of all football fans even further as well as besmirching the dead.

I can't see him getting many minutes as that is a strong squad which Chile have selected. But it will still be a great experience for the lad to be part of a major international tournament.

Just this week it has happened to Vinicius Jr, Felipe & Renan Lodi for Brazil. For Argentina this week it happened to Domínguez, Buendia (who didn't even make the bench), Pezzella, Musso, Joaquin Correa, Guido Rodriguez & Alejandro Gomez & Aguero. For Uruguay it happened to Arajuo and Coates. For Colombia it happened to Cuesta & Perez. And for Bolivia it happened to Jaume Cuéllar. Also bare in mind the Copa America starts this weekend and the squads will be named for that this week and given the fact that Brereton has been in the squad it suggests that if he has impressed enough in training he will be part of a major international tournament which even just a few weeks ago would have been beyond his wildest dreams.

The games were World Cup qualifiers not charity matches. The manager in hugely important games is hardly going to say 'you've travelled a long way so I'll give you a few minutes'.

It really is staggering that you can spend over £200 Million in just over a decade and take a club from mid table top flight regulars to bottom half of the second tier via League 1. If you'd have given that money to 99% of posters on this forum I'd be confident that you'd have seen better results. I just don't understand what they are getting out of this you'd have thought that by now they'd have thought we are losing millions a year here let's bring someone in who can get the club looking something like a conventional club.