See what you mean, but I was thinking Travis, Davenport and this guy as the three we'll end up playing most often (again, if it comes off). I agree, I think Rothwell more likely to go than stay.

That's Buckley not getting a game, if it happens.

Looking at the most recent minutes, it’s all very softball. Absolutely no probing. Strikes me that the fans’ forum is more interested in being able to ask questions than asking questions of any consequence. Maybe that’s seen as the safer tactic, but I can’t say I see any point in a fans’ forum if it’s not applying pressure at a time like this. Correct me if I’m wrong, of course, but with a Twitter presence as it is and no working website, are they even trying?

Some bleak reading in the last few pages, but I find it very easy to believe. Owners aren’t so much asleep at the wheel as curled up on the backseat with a brick on the accelerator. A genuine tragedy if the legacy of Jack Walker was dismantled to save face of a trio of spoilt, bratty siblings on the other side of the world. I have nothing but ill will towards them. The type of things I wish for them are possibly incriminating to share publicly, but I do hope they get what’s coming to them. Having said that, Jack himself would say that no one person (or group of people) defines the club. Players, managers, owners - even fans! - all come and go. The colours, the crest, the history, the town are what last, what defines us. I think a part of me has always held onto the shred of possibility that we could be a top-flight team again, that we could go up, grind out and stay up. Before the 90s, we hadn’t been one for a while, so I suppose older posters on here can point to that as the norm for us. Is it so bad? Well, it’d be awful while these owners and the litany of chancers they’ve employed were still involved with us, no doubt. I don’t spend money with the club anymore, where I can help it. Occasionally I’ll buy a match pass to watch when I’ve the time to sit down and watch. The new kits have definitely piqued my interest. But the thing I understand about business is that - while the average consumer has very little bearing on management’s KPI’s - mass desertion (while maybe not a huge effect on top/bottom line) - works. When you have absolutely no customer base, it’s impossible to ignore. One way or another - whether the owners are still at the helm or whether they drop us in some way - it feels like administration is pretty nailed-on. There’s no way anyone buys us outright in our existing state and the owners have been unresponsive to offers, if memory serves me right. Tragic, genuinely awful. It will be absolutely heartbreaking, it will feel like a bereavement. Part of the reason I don’t spend money with the club where I can help it is I’m essentially ashamed. I love every pre-Venky’s memory, I absolutely cherish it. But I’m embarrassed to be a fan of a plaything of some of the most two-bit amateur-hour morons that have ever been involved in football, Waggott included. When it comes, administration will be mercy, essentially. And with that, comes the opportunity to move on. Agency. An opportunity to learn, an opportunity to reminisce, to bond, to share. If there are enough of us feeling that way, there will be a way to build out of it, there will be something to be proud of again. We’re all masochists for still following the club, maybe out of duty, compulsion, compassion or delusion. It’s going to be a painful watch, at times, but at least we’re all still watching, at least we all still care (to whatever extent!) and maybe we’ll one day have something to be proud of, of our own making.

I’m really not one for quoting or getting into disagreements on here but I’ve read two or three of your posts and I just fundamentally disagree with your assessments. Magloire made at least two runs into the opposition half from the back and Nyambe is a very effective forward player. If the expectation is that he’s constantly getting balls in from out wide, then you need to broaden the scope of understanding what an effective wide player is. Overlaps, underlaps and his stamina are crucial for how this kind of system would work and he does all three well enough to be effective. Not got world class delivery as an end product, but more than effective. I just don’t see how you came to your conclusions at all.

A good watch. Vale looks some way off troubling the first team. Cirino looks really promising. Pretty solid, but additions seem essential. Leeds commentators insufferable.

Have that, you nasty Yorkshire b*stards.

Very greedy play from Armstrong this half. Brereton seems to be in good shape/form.

Nice to see the likes of Nyambe, Buckley and Magloire having good games so far. Away kit looks excellent. Sock design is suprisingly effective in making it look very good. Pickering doesn’t look comfortable, but Raphinha is a pretty tough assignment. I’m genuinely enjoying this. I’ll stop short of optimism, because let’s be realistic. But so far, not a waste of 40 mins or so.

Fair credit to Magloire on his forward runs, he’s doing good work there and looks an energetic defender.

edit: immediate feelings of total familiarity that nothing happened in the end. I enjoyed the fantasy, the comedown was a bit harsh, but I’ve survived it and I’m here. In summary: keep feeding me the gossip.

If I am, they’re in no rush to tell me.

This is off-topic but it’s probably worth acknowledging that under the current guidance at C-suite and playing staff management, the fat lady is warming her vocal cords. This has happened before in football and it happens a huge amount in business. People really do run businesses into the ground and take a whacking great salary doing it. It’s never truly clear if they know they’re doing it but the result is always the same. None of us can blame the playing squad so much, really. They’re a target of ire and that’s part and parcel of their jobs, but on an operational level, their responsibilities only go so far. To an extent, none of us can even blame the manager or the executives, because their salaries are easy money. You keep dancing until the music stops and all the grown ups (if you can even call them that) have gone home. Call it what it is; we were bought by novices as a vanity project, from a family of trustafarians desperate to cash out their inheritance, allowed to descend into ‘basket case’ status and the end has all been prolonged by a seemingly endless stream of face-saving cash from owners who don’t know when to fold. It’s nice to fantasise about how things might change (I really leaned into the positive start at the beginning of the year and ate my humble pie a while ago) because we all fundamentally care so much about the club. It’s deep for us, it’s always going to be different for us. Pretty much all of us would have resigned before now if we were in Mowbray’s position, but we’re not. It’s different for us because our investment isn’t contingent on however many thousands of pounds a week land in our bank accounts. We’re all paying out for the privilege of following the team. But speaking objectively, the cracks are being papered over with money from the owners and you’ve got to wonder how low that pile will be allowed to go before the cracks are instead allowed to grow and they abandon it. In that case - if I’m right in thinking - the holding company goes into administration and therefore the club. Brockhall sale will be worth some money, hence the likely need to get it moving quickly. Goes to paying off any preferred creditors, maybe even in advance. I think Ewood isn’t that desirable as an asset, given the entire of the surrounding area’s infrastructure is basically built around it, so it probably “stays” somehow. All of this is to say that in that case, someone swoops in on a pennies-to-the-pound basis and this particular nightmare is over, although whoever picks up a former basket case club in administration better be in it for the genuine love of that particular club and with money they would otherwise have actually set fire to, because it might be a devil we don’t want to get to know. Anyway, I play the Euromillions, so if I win I promise I’ll be the total idiot who swoops in and wastes it all on this particularly cruel mistress.

Ten years and £200m is a very long game to play for assets that probably don’t scrape 10% of the outlay. It’s tempting to look at ulterior motives because it seems to make no sense, but Ockham’s Razor tells us that they’re just in way over their heads and too proud to acknowledge it.

I remember appealing for us to enjoy the relative success of the bright start. There was very little to enjoy about that. Their keeper had a good night and maybe on a different day that all feels very different, but we looked - as we have for a few games - like we'd run out of ideas.

This kind of mistake should be behind him.

Yeah, you're bang-on with the positioning. It's made worse because he's not alive to it either, somehow.

Gotta look to the break for any success now, which suits us, generally, but we look very rattled. It was a foul, it was a penalty, it was probably a yellow and all of it was unnecessary. Lenihan gets a small grab of his own shirt and then goes in much harder, he's been tricked, but that's how strikers are entitled to play. It's not befitting of a captain to get sucked in there, it's poor, poor play.

Jesus H Christ, it’s a toxic environment in there. Somewhat living for the tactical over-analysis of the match. A lot of Sunday league sideline spectators having a crack at elite football analysis. Credit where it’s due; they put together a formidable insult, at times.

I’ve seen this camerawork/directorial style before, I think I actually invented it while I was p*ssed.

Really interesting first half so far. JRC and Elliott on the right are essential for sides playing deep, can see it's just a little bit freer down there. Elliott is finding a lot of space well, but can see he's not quite up to speed with Championship football just yet, with first touch and speed of thought, but still encouraging. You'd hope it will come within a few games. Concerning we haven't finished as well as we ought and a penalty is always a little fortunate, although Brereton has done enough to have at least earned that. Lacking a bit of coordination in the back four and the ambition of Lenighan pinging ten yard passes is admirable, but perhaps a little unnecessary. Williams looks comfortable bringing the ball forward and depp-lying Cov are allowing him to showcase that. Question for any tactic buffs; are we technically playing a classic gegenpress at the minute, albeit without the jazzy centrebacks? Giles on their left hand side looks a spirited and efficient footballer, could be a handful with JRC breaking forward and has been already.

Did more than enough there to win that, but it’s difficult to be encouraged by stats alone. Dominating a side that’s just come down at “home” (does it even count anymore?) isn’t something a side like ours does very often. When it happens, you have to take the chance, there can be no excuses if you’re seriously looking at playoffs and promotion. Mentality has a lot to do with it, I suspect and it’s difficult to see a collective winning mentality in that squad. Watford were a little fortunate here and there and Foster had an objectively fantastic game, but they made it happen and we didn’t. They’re 3rd and we’re 11 places and six points behind. That’s how it works. Or doesn’t work, for a team like us, at least. Plenty didn’t tonight, but Evans really stood out at as an abject embarrassment. Farcical that he gets near the squad. What happens in training that he doesn’t bring to the pitch?

Thanks Revidge, I appreciate that. I’m a returning poster, although having binned off more email addresses than I can remember, Bundesburn posts no more, hence the rejoin. Anyway, from memory of BRFCS, there’s a certain point on here when it all gets a bit Judaean People’s Front, which I recognise as when people start to argue about who started the argument, but you usually see it coming when someone gets annoyed at chaddy (shoutout to chaddy, fastest googler in the land!) Look, the ever-present, protracted death rattle of the club is a particularly difficult thing to ignore, agreed and the type of fan base we are - let alone size - means we’re not a reliable revenue source when the world shuts down. Sh*t creek without a paddle is a couple of stops away. I have no direct knowledge of the CEO (I’ve been busy the last couple of years) but if Shebby, Kean (wondering if the swear filter still works for that one), Shaw et al are a measure of corporate recruitment by Venkys, I don’t find it difficult to believe he’s not much use. The Ewood Park thread was a sad sight to behold, as much for the analogue as anything. I suppose it is the seeming inevitability of the that makes “being positive” (conscious of invoking partisans) the preferred choice. We didn’t know how lucky we were in the 90s (I was born in the late 80s, first memory is 93/94 season). We didn’t know how lucky we were in the 00s, even. We thought we were gonna get lucky in the 2010s and here we are now. If the prospect is something akin to, let’s say, no renewals of key contracts, no more funding of the deficit by Venkys, no prospect of promotion, we’re potentially looking into a much deeper abyss than 10 years of Championship football. Indeed, we may be looking at the 2010s and saying we didn’t know how lucky we were having a club to argue with each other about. Suffice it to say, I’m happy with the immediate short term, because for whatever reason, watching the news out of the club didn’t fill me with an overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread, which was the first time in a while. Promotion to the Championship was more relief than joy and I guess a start like the one we’ve had - however fleeting it turns out to be - is one to enjoy, whatever comes of it. And when we consider that a drop down the table is the least of our worries, all the more reason to enjoy it when it happens. I’d probably enjoy being able to follow a Phoenix club, but I’m also the type of hipster kn*bhead that goes/went to see Dulwich Hamlet 10 times a year, so it may not be a widely-shared opinion.

It’s a bit tetchy in here, lads. Been lurking the last few weeks on this thread and some of the matchdays. While I can see where the tangents started, gotta say that it’s incredibly impressive how far off course the transfer thread will go each window. Contributing further to that, with all understanding of the irony in doing so, I feel it’s prudent to point out that we’re 6th and have the highest goal difference in the league. Four games in, you say? Aye, maybe there’s something in that. But I’ll reserve judgment ‘til ten games. Then 15. 20 games and so on. It’s the surprising signings that we’ll only be able to hold out for and predictions are somewhat moot at this stage. Dolan was a surprise, in that he became an immediate first team player. Maybe McBride makes the leap. Maybe Butterworth builds on his promise after injury. Maybe the Norwegian left back joins. Maybe the defence gels and finds its feet. The point is, we don’t know. And when you don’t know and - crucially - you can’t do anything about it, there comes a point where you need to accept it. There’s always room for healthy debate but it becomes a much nicer place to spend time when the forum is just that little bit less dramatic and hostile. You’ll all have a much better time embracing the short term enjoyment than agonising over the long term unknowns. For now, we’ve signed a handful of development prospects that could turn into more than that, are seeing our youngsters kick on a bit and could potentially have solved two major weak points by mid October. By the end of October we could be nearer the promotion spots. There’s plenty to be concerned about if that’s your bag, but I reckon you’ll have a better time looking up rather than down.