With reference to Ivan Toney, the naivety shown by some footballers is truly staggering.

For those that haven't seen it, here's a still off the BBC website. THB is a very lucky boy, Koroma will surely receive a retrospective ban as Gavin Ward didn't even give a free kick.

Are we talking about football, or Scrabble?! 😁 Assuming it's football, I get what you're saying to a point but there's only 10 countries in the whole confederation, 4 of which definitely qualify, & quite probably a 5th, which is half the continent!!

I'm guessing that, in the context of a low block meaning defending deep, then a vertical pass is a forwards one into midfield or the forwards, with progressor meaning carrying the ball forwards. Maybe.

That was 3 or 4 years ago, after Wilder had been at Sheff Utd for 2 or 3 seasons & made them into a well oiled machine. The circumstances are barely comparable to tomorrow. Boro are on a decent run, have a decent manager & some good players at this level. They'll be tough opponents, but they're not all that imo, we should be confident of a win if we approach it right.

I didn't know the FA Cup had gone European. Anotther nail in the coffin of the oldest cup competition in the world. Bloody UEFA.

On the plus side, I heard WBA's Dike went off with a hammy injury after an hour today. I would guess that if he's out for any length of time, that'll be more damaging to them than the loss of Markanday is to us.

100%. I will admit that we were far from at our best again & started slowly, but all teams MUST be able to rely on officials being competent. Every key decision went against us; the none penalty & red card (which totally changes the game after what, 25 mins?), shortly followed by the clearance by their last man who shouldn't have been on the pitch. Then their 2nd goal where TK was clearly fouled. There was another time too, the corner when they hit the post, that Eaves shoved Wharton (or Van Hecke) into Kaminski, putting them both out of the game for the corner, not seen or given. I'm fuming, absolutely fuming.

It's fair comment that the "possession game" is less important than it was made out to be last season, but the "build from the back" aspect still applies. For example yesterday, the goal came from a couple of passes at the back & between DL & JR before DL played a Tosin-like sliderule pass up to Khadra who laid it off for the onrushing Rothwell. Against Brum, TK threw out to Dl, who brought it out of defence then played in Khadra to round the keeper & finish. Building from the back is good, so long as it us done sensibly & is one tactic amongst many.

This is all sounding very positive. What's telling to me is that all 3 signings (assuming Markanday is confirmed) are all off-the-wall in different ways, and generally kept under wraps until more or less done. No mean feat these days, and shows some creative thinking with an eye to the future, whether promoted or not. Let's hope the likes of Elliot, Kaminski, Pickering, Van Hecke & Khadra are good indicators of the type of match-ready player we're signing, as they've all worked pretty well for us from varied sources.

3-0, Wood again on 46 mins. Maybe we could sell him to Newcastle for £25m?

U18s currently 2 up in youth Cup match, & well deserved according to the Stoke Sentinel's correspondent whose feed I'm following! Harrison Wood & Harry Leonard the scorers.

Of course, I meant Dembele!! 🤣

I've just had a quick squint at transfermarkt; I think it's quite accurate re player contract expiries, even if other aspects are off the mark (eg it gives BBD'S market value as £9m). Anyway, it says there are 212 championship players whose contracts expire this summer. Across 24 clubs, that's nearly 9 players per club. Included amongst those for Rovers are BBD & TK (both of whom appear to have 12 month options in the club's favour), plus some of our U23s (McGloire etc). And there are some decent names on that list too (David Brookes, Nick Powell, Jonathan Swift, Debbie etc.). So are we unusual in having so many players with contracts expiring this summer? The stats suggest not; it seems to be across the whole league, and to be fair if one assumes the average contract is 3 years long (?) then that's potentially 27 players OOC every 3 year cycle. I suspect / speculate this year's divisional figure is higher than in previous years due to covid, with club finances being unforeseeably stretched as a result, leading to a mismatch between player expectations & club resources (assuming we did start negotiations with them 18 months ago, as stated). Where we are unlucky / stand out from the rest, is that 3 of our "rebels" are all very suddenly considered very important due to this successful 5-3-2 formation that they all fit right into, whereas 5 months ago a significant cross section of fans (me included) wouldn't have been too despondent to see any one of them leave. That puts the club in an unforeseen difficult situation that I'd think would be hard to navigate currently. FWIW, I think we should push the boat out (without rocking it too much!) to keep Lenihan as he's been huge recently; and likewise Rothwell, who has some rather unique ability that I think is irreplaceable, and who's also now found some consistency to go with it. Re Nyambe, I'm really torn; he's obviously a good egg, an academy product & in a 4 he's absolutely solid; but in a 5 he lacks ability offensively & just hasn't developed as far as I'd hoped he would; plus he does have injury issues. Of the 3, imo he's been the least influential & most replaceable overall. That doesn't mean I want to see him leave, and he certainly deserves an improved deal, but clearly the club don't value him as much as he / his advisors do. If the difference is down to the funding of his academy (as SW has seemingly suggested; sorry if I've got that wrong), why should the club pay him more just so that he can continue to fund it, without a say in its operation at least? It's up to him how he spends his money (and I applaud his intentions wholeheartedly), but is that Rovers' responsibility, without benefit? Absolutely not. None of us have any idea how far apart each offer is from the players' bottom line. Traditionally, forwards get paid more than defenders, signings from other clubs get paid more than Academy graduates (at least in their younger years); I'm not sure there's much different to that pattern here? Ideally all 3 renew, perhaps with bonus & further improved standard terms if promoted. If not, then we just have to take the risk of them leaving for a small amount this month (but absolutely not to a promotion rival) or for free in summer. Tbf to all of them & much to their credit, whatever their reasons for not re-signing, none of them have letvthe uncertainty affect their performances, or indeed look like they're hankering after a move. Hopefully that continues if they're still here on Feb 3rd.

It's only sensible to make a prediction once we've seen the teams, otherwise it's a total lottery!

I doubt there's nothing that hits the spirits of a team more than going down 0-7 at home in the league, then 1 nil down in the first two minutes of the next game 3 days later!. They dealt with that OK, so a defeat for a team containing a few fringe players at a top L1 team ought to be water off a duck's back in comparison... I agree that use of fringe players is the way to go at Wigan, to give them game time & most first teamers a rest. Yes we had less games in December than expected, but 2 of those were leggy affairs on a sodden pitch, & all the prep (training, travel etc) was done for the Hull game, which is now an extra game in January that we will have to deal with. Cup is great, & let's not throw it away, but the league MUST be prioritised.

To be fair to jny, whilst as fans we are rightly proud of our rich & silvery history, in current terms we are very much punching above our weight currently. We're currently 2nd with a decent gap to 7th, in a season when even the most optimistic of us would've been happy with just a top half finish in August having lost Arma and signed no replacement + a few loans none of us knew anything of! In that context, in the here & now, our squad is punching above its weight.

Sorry to remind everyone of Jason Lowe in the transfer thread, but he's a perfect example of that not necessarily being true...

Good spot; now corrected!

They signed Ronaldo because if they hadn't done, he would've signed for their noisy neighbours (who did / do have need of a striker), which they just could not have allowed for face-saving reasons. They literally had no choice in reality.

It's a delicate balancing act that's for sure. On term of the contract "rebels", ourr current form makes it both easier to persuade them to sign up (I.e they'd be mad to go elsewhere given our position & their first team action, & if we do go up we may be shopping for bigger fish when they'reout of contract) but also increases their bargaining power too because they've all been so key to us being where we are. I just hope common sense prevails & all parties to staying as their best option, and tbf none of them look desperately unhappy, which must count for something. BBD is different of course; for me he stays the rest of the season, no matter what offer comes in.

A guy on their forum has posted today saying he was at Ewood today to buy tickets and the queue was "all the way up the big hill". I presume he means Livesey Branch Rd, not Cravens Brow! But whichever, that suggests there's good demand for tickets 24 hours pre k/o.

Spot on.

It's worth noting with Gallagher that another goal would put him in amongst the top 20 scorers in the division, not bad for someone who has only started half the matches and even then only as a wide forward with significant defensive responsibility. Give him a traditional no9 role and he will easily be a 15-20 goals a season man at this level if he plays the majority of the season there. Therefore well worth keeping on imo, given that BBD will almost certainly leave this summer if we miss promotion.

I was with TM until the 2nd half of last season, I felt he'd done well up to then, & was scuppered by injuries to key players the season before. But I would've been happy to see him leave in summer, as Feb - April was a disaster, no doubt about it. But clearly he still had the players on his side, so whatever he was doing with them behind the scenes was working, whatever else it might have looked like to us as outsiders. Imo he deserves all the credit that comes his way for galvanising this squad into what it has become, much against the odds; let's hope this ride can continue, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.