What?! Disagree!! Their biggest mistake was jettisoning Big Sam after 5 minutes in charge & replacing him with K**n, keeping him as long as they did, then following that with Berg then Appleton in the space of 3 months!! Anyway, I digress....

Or a sensational return for MGP!!

Fallen for a Galway Girl, perhaps??

Talking of which...

See above re Ohashi, I thought he looked decent. Bucko & Markanday didn't get on, JE only made the 2 subs at HT (Ohashi & Siggy for Gueye & Hedges).

It wasn't vintage but I saw enough to consider that Gueye & Ohashi will not look out of place. Gueye is a unit, and plays like it. Held the ball up well, brought others into play, could turn his man & shows good drive to get into the box. Maybe should've done better with a couple of shots, but on another day would likely have scored 2 or 3. Ohashi a completely different type of player, but no less effective. Has a good physique, looks reasonably strong, loves to press, looks alert & lively to turning his man. Had less clear cut chances than Gueye, the shots he did have were blocked at source. Nothing much else to report really. Defence was solid, & Brittain got forward well to support JRC. Pears only had one save to make (and did so well). JRC looked lively, Hedges too. Travis was his usual busy, pesky self w/o doing anything spectacular, nice to see him back though. Dolan missed a sitter and failed to get a shot away a couple of times, but put the penalty away nicely. Tronstad pulled up right at the end, wincing, but hopefully not serious. All in all, a comfortable win. 3-0 wouldn't have flattered us. Interesting that they had Dwight Gayle as one of their 4 trialists, didn't get much of a look-in though.

From my Bristol City supporting mate re Weimann: "He runs all day. Great player, with a lot of goals in hin and still solid technically. He got kicked out as he was on too much money. So let his contract run down and I get sense he wanted to move North. He still gets in the Austrian squad. He is a great person too. I was gutted he went. Arguably one of the best players ever at the gate. Pure gentleman who has some bite on the pitch." Surprised money was an issue given our stinginess in that dept nowadays... but ko suggestion that his legs had gone, which is positive.

What a difference 2 days makes! If Eustace & Park et al only have peanuts to spend, I'm not sure they could be doing more than what they've done this week by bringing in a mix of youth, experience, leadership & a generous helping of exotic surprise packages. Gueye has the potential to be an upgrade on Gallagher in the scoring & hold-up stakes (not hard i know); if he has Gally's workrate & isn't made of glass, it's a yes from me. Ohashi looks like he has speed & workrate. If he can cope with the physicality of English football (which many of his compatriots have elsewhere), then he could be a solid buy at a v low risk price wise. McFadz turned out to be exactly what we needed last season, albeit most of us were underwhelmed initially to say the least. He brought experience & leadership when our young, thin squad looked totally rudderless & was solid in our best shutouts in the last few games. Happy to have him back & don't expect him to play more than 30 games. Batth is solid too, having played at the top end of this division most of his career. There is a pace risk if we ever have him, McFadz & Hyam in a 3 (hopefully not, if Carter stays), but I imagine we will play in that formation in the horribly-named low block so there won't be much space for pacey opponents to exploit. Weimann could be massive. Again, brings huge experience & leadership at this level, scores goals from all positions, can take a decent set piece i think too. Mafoumbi could do a Dolan, and prove himself worthy of being part of the first team squad early doors. Definitely one for the future, and appears to have strong potential if his scoring stats are anything to go by. So far so good imo; we need more of course, keeper, LB / LWB, RW & CM. But I'm quite pleased with how things have suddenly progressed. As for Gally leaving, it makes sense for all concerned. I think I was one of his bigger fans on here, but he never quite hit the heights he ought to have & goes with my good wishes.

To be fair Den, 30 years ago Sherwood/Atkins or Sherwood/Batty were hardly the sort you'd call creative, but they did the ugly stuff well, knew how to distribute the ball simply, got it out to the wingers, who took their men on & crossed well for strikers to score. If Eustace wants to revert to that style of play, can get the personnel, and can get results from it, that's fine by me. Big ifs, I appreciate that, but a laudable aim imo.

Done

That's behind closed doors at Tranmere on Tuesday, so good luck with that!! 🤞

Hope he stays fit, he could be massive this season.

Is that link safe Chaddy??? It looks a bit dodgy....

He does have 4000 holes to fill....

What a load of tosh, it means absolutely nothing.

Bought mine online today. Phoned up to do it to save the hassle of the online process, but the lady on the phone was v helpful & took me through the online process to save me the tenner. Fair enough. I was in a queue to, but there were only 2 in front of me. I presume they had no more than 2 lines open.

Disagree, there was some quality football in that game, goal of the tournament contenders, commitment, pace, skill, brilliant defending. All in horrendous conditions.

That was tremendous, an unexpected blood & thunder smasher! Like a 3rd round fa cup replay in January!!

Last Saturday I took my 2 daughters (13 & 6) to Macdonalds for tea, then for 2 games of bowling at the place next door. All in all about two hours of entertainment. It cost me about £60. Go out for a decent meal at a family pub (Greene King) with the wife & kids, nothing special (no steaks, lobster, no starters) and it costs up to £70 for 4 mains, a couple of desserts & a drink each. A family trip to the cinema on a Sat afternoon would be about £40, plus popcorn or whatever. In that context, is £350 really that much for 1 adult to attend 23 matches?? Just sayin'...

Folk being way too harsh on Dolan imo. He's not the finished article or anything but he's still only v young & time is on his side to continue to progress. Hell, look at Szmodics as someone who shows you don't have to be defined as the finished article at 22. He has far more senior apps to his name now than Adam Wharton will do once AW reaches the same age. Dolan suffers from being a regular starter for us when he should be a a bit more on the fringes. Not his fault that he is called on more than he should be.

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but here's an interesting piece of analysis that underlines the danger of relying on data analysis & the fact that not all statistics can be relied upon for giving a rounded view of overall performance (i.e. "lies, damn lies & statistics"). https://football-observatory.com/WeeklyPost465?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR32zDyj8N_ZFQms6y1S-Kw-KWnWFBPCCwQCHnT79f73WD9dmctqkMJWDqo_aem_AWoIIujalYiSQGgt81R6DHSzGMzrV6v7RVfM0vv-EStK_UqgFeKKWsY300yHKCicUC86VHE-CQlJf7uJVuQ5UwUW "The 464th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks almost 800 clubs from 59 leagues around the world according to a continuity index that considers the stability of the squad, its age structure and the contract policy*. This allows us revealing the teams that are both the most stable and the best prepared to maintain a good level of stability in the seasons to come." According to this, Rovers are the 25th most stable club in world football!! 😲 I don't know what you're all moaning about...

If that's the case then for that reason alone we should be pretty highly thought of & in a good position Compton our peers. In the last 24 months we've had Rothwell, BBD, Kaminski, Phillips, Wharton, probably soon-to-be Szmodics, all leave us for PL (or equivalent) clubs; over a slightly longer period there's Raya; whilst over an extended time we've given really good loan periods to the likes of Elliot, Van Hecke, Tosin, Read, who can all credit their loan spells here as crucial to the progress of their careers. I'm sure that's a record that stands up against anyone else's in our position. I don't want us to be a stepping stone for the likes of Luton, Brentford etc. for too long of course, but at least we can offer that carrot of short term individual betterment to prospective players, whether that's with us or as a next move. If we can attract enough, then maybe even we can develop as a club alongside of them as we.... Oops, sorry, getting carried away a bit there...

Also, note they were all strikers / forwards, and his many of those goals were penalties.

Sad if true imo. Been (yet another) victim of false promises throughout his tenure & not really the opportunity to properly shine. He's far less culpable for the issues at the club than the owners, Waggott & Co. What happens now then? A replacement, or another visit back to the drawing board??

I personally think he's become the Fall Guy for the many faults elsewhere in the backroom staff. As I understand it, his 6 areas of responsibility as DoF do not include club secretarial /admin oversight, which is where the 2 January window cock ups emanated from. Yes he publicly took the flak, but that's likely because the real culprits were too cowardly. For those errors, it's Waggott who ought to have fronted up; especially so for the first one where he was jollying it up in Brum when we were trying to sign a Premier League player. As to last summer, well that's a combination of poor decisions before he got here (i.e. not selling BBD when we had the chance, or extending his contract) & having the rug pulled out from under his feet on late June, meaning his early doors free transfers of Siggy & Tronstad actually became our "marquee" signings, and he had no more money to play with. He & JDT were also overuled on some signings (e.g. Batth) by his non-football overlords. Same in January, due to the uncertainty of the court case preventing funds being made available, & the very late (and likely premature) sale of Wharton preventing a proper replacement being sourced. As to his signings contributing very little positivity, yes he's got a mixed bag (like most DoF's) but it's not as bad as that. Szmodics is the obvious successful recruit, Tronstad another, Hyam (I admit this season he's regressed, but he'll be back to form imo), Brittain, Hill Sigurdsson; they're all good to decent quality Championship players imo. Other recruits have been failures of course but low risk financially (Wahlstedt (to date), Telalovic, Ennis, Mola, Koumetio the standouts) - plus Hirst, but he's gone on to be crucial to Ipswich being promoted of course, so arguably not a bad signing per se just didn't get the luck. GB's had barely 2 pennies to rub together to recruit new players with; in the context of everything above, I think he's done OK has very much had to work with very little financial & moral support. I struggle to believe that anyone else could have done much better with the shambolic structure around him. This summer might be a chance for him to show his worth, if (big if) he is given reasonable funds.