I find the hammering of the local journos pathetic. Everyone is frustrated with Rovers but aiming abuse at the journos really is low. It is absolutely not the job of the local journalist to hold people at a football club to account. Hold them to account yourself.

Jesus Christ.

Judging by Johnson’s comment on Rothwell’s Instagram post it looks as though Rothwell has his prem move in the bag.

I feel sorry for Edun. He’s clearly out of his depth to the point where he’s stressed and can’t make basic passes or tackles. Get in Ben!!

I must say I bounce between excitement of the potential of a new manager coming in with some pedigree and the horror that in a few years time we could find ourselves in league 2. Hopefully I’m wrong but I think there’s every chance that history will be much kinder to Mowbray than we’re being right now.

But can’t we say that about every manager in the league? Usually, the better team wins. Also, as frustrating as TM can be, I don’t know what a better set up might’ve been. I’ve wanted Gallagher (not a fan) and Rothwell (love him as a player but badly out of form) to be dropped so, even though we played better in the second half, it’d be hypocritical of me to say we should have played them from the off. Johnson was brought in to try and bring some muscle defensively. With Gallagher out, Giles was out on the right in the hope he could cut in and have shots rather than cross it in from the left to our small attackers. Makes sense to me. Today was all about us trying not to concede against a far superior team. We did via a couple of mistakes. If that hadn’t have happened the game might’ve panned out differently. I’m just not going to lose any sleep over it. Mentally, for me, our season starts now.

Over the last run of fixtures this has been the game I’ve been looking at thinking once it’s passed we can then try and crack on for the playoffs. Fulham are a level above so I can’t really be angry at the players or manager for today’s performance, especially with the injuries we have.

Agreed.

Giles has been anonymous. Need Buckley on to replace him at half time.

TM has to be admired for how he took on Rovers as a project rather than someone who focuses purely on what happens on the pitch. The club was in free fall. Now the investment in youth is producing good quality players that keeps us competitive whilst keeping wages relatively low. His net spend on transfers is very low. I've got these numbers from TransferMarkt - This season: +£14.7m (Armstrong, Edun, Markanday, Hedges) 20/21: -£1.63m (Pickering, Pears, Kaminski, Stergiakis) 19/20: -£2.84m (Gallagher, Raya) 18/19: -£9.18m (Diaz, Armstrong) 17/18: -£1.04 (Dack, Samuel, Bell, Steele) Those numbers are almost breaking even. I know there was a sell on clause in the Armstrong deal so we won't have got all that and I also don't believe we paid the full amount quoted for Diaz either. I find it quite astonishing that TM has managed to get us out of league one and fighting for automatic promotion to the premier league whilst barely having a net spend on transfers. Tactically, at times, TM has frustrated the hell out of me and there have been a couple of times when I thought his time was probably up. However, his management of the club in respect of youth, finance, community and navigating an unconventional ownership has been brilliant and I think it might only be after he's left that some people will reflect with clarity on the job he's done.

The stunt Joe Rothwell and TM pulled over the weekend was a genius move to unsettle the Bournemouth players. TM advised Parker that JR could play in any position but he's not as good a right-back as Gallagher. Every single Bournemouth player felt their position in the team was under threat and have now refused to play any further part in the league this season. Bournemouth are going about buying an entire new squad and their current players will happily take a wage drop to move to Rovers out of sheer spite. TM currently has his feet up at Brockhall with a lovely piece of lemon drizzle cake.

From where I’m sitting there are people who aren’t quite as outraged at the prospect of Nyambe leaving as others are and this is being exaggerated as a campaign against him. I find it strange, especially when it descends into name calling.

1) See it as a sign that people are starting to want to get back involved and care about the club again. 2) A campaign against Nyambe!? He wants to leave and some people have said is that he can leave with their blessing if we can get a replacement in. Hardly a campaign.

I could be wrong, but TM has spoken more specifically recently about Nyambe's situation to the press. Also, it absolutely does apply to the other two, except things seem slightly more positive in comparison to Nyambe in terms of them signing a new contract.

I agree with that for Lenihan and Rothwell. I'm not sure Nyambe is as critical as those two and his situation in particular seems to be causing some frustration in the camp. Purely from the tidbits of info that has come out over the last 18 months, it's sounded as though his mind has been made up on moving on. My worry is in a few months time we might be on the cusp of the automatic places or worse the playoffs and he then has an eye on his next contract. Mentally he might not give 100% or physically won't as he doesn't want to get injured. If we can sort a replacement and get offered £3mil I'd be very happy.

Ideally, for me, Nyambe will get his move to the prem this window and we sign a first team rb. I think Nyambe is solid, does ok, but has his limitations. Sometimes players want a move away, you can’t keep them all happy and that’s fine. However, TMs comments on him recently suggest there is a frustration creeping in now. Rothwell and Lenihan I still feel could be persuaded to stay so I’m not sure there is that frustration just yet. If Nyambe he is replaced with Zeefuik and he does ok I’ll be more than happy.

Some of the words and phrases mean the same thing, others are different so I’d say those are necessary (for instance I can’t think of what transition was called before. Maybe I’m just tired though so happy to be informed on that). The ones that are the same don’t necessarily have to be an improvement. Language changes. For instance, if Pep Guardiola wanted to start his attacks with his deep lying midfielder receiving the ball from the keeper and turn upfield. He might start calling that player the “turn”. Players, coaches and the media would use it and if I was that player I’d change my first name to “turn” too. The player is still a deep lying midfielder to everyone else, but the position of the turn means something different to the players in that team. It’s not a grand master plan by a young coach or data analyst to make up buzzwords, it organically happens.

I honestly can’t fathom how people have and issue with language and terminology changing in football. They will have changed in most industries over the last 30+ years. Football has changed incredibly quickly over those years so why would it be any different? To someone not doing my job day in day out, would some terminology changes in my industry seem redundant to them? Of course. Are they redundant to me? Absolutely not. I also don’t refuse to use them because I think someone who doesn’t do my job might not understand, find it pointless or disagree whether it’s progress. The level of training and analysis within the game is a million miles away from what it was. If there wasn’t new methods, terminology and positions in the game I’d want to know what the hell they’ve been working on at all the training grounds up and down the country for the last 30 years.

Poveda and Khadra on the wings could be exciting this year!

I understand and agree to a certain extent what you're saying. I think you can do that with a couple of younger players each season. However, with number of younger players we have that could claim to deserve a chance in the first team, it just isn't feasible for us to afford them that without severely harming the quality of the team.

Is it ludicrous though? I see it as we're loaning out League One standard players and loaning in Championship level players. Our players will come back after playing a load of games much better than they would be if they'd come off the bench for 10 minutes every few games.

I’m not sure what my answer would be to this question but if Rovers were offered £6-7m for Ben today, would you want Rovers to bite their hands off or want him to stay?

I entirely agree with Rev’s post. I do see a good, potentially great player in him. I’m just not sure he is a player we need in our starting lineup right now. Most games over the last couple of months I’ve found him to be one of our worst performers. I understand he’s young but we can’t afford to carry an underperforming player and provide excuses for him. Many games in the Championship are a battle and I don’t think Harvey physically has it in him to aid us in those games. Defensively he doesn’t offer us anything and if it’s a game where he isn’t afforded the time to put his foot on the ball then he disappears.