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.

57 minutes ago, rigger said:

I think you are completly wrong about fitness coaches. You could go out and get any personal trainer to take pre season fitness training. In fact there are two at the gym I go to, who could surfice. I am not saying that is the best scenario, but it could be done.  

Jesus Christ.

8 minutes ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

I thought it was quite telling that neither Johnson nor Rothwell mentioned the manager in either of their goodbye posts.

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!!

43 minutes ago, patrickvalery said:

I feel like I'm in the minority thinking we'd have been much better just offering Mowbray a deal. Whether most agree or disagree that he's done a decent job, the general consensus outside the club is he has performed miracles and has some value. Yet we are letting him walk away and every name I have seen linked (possibly barring Farke) is hardly mouth watering. 

If there is a plan in place then I'd be amazed. Mowbray's warning today in the LT speaks volumes to me. Basically the club are about to get royally fucked and it's future back in the hands of the madhouse. Looks like I'm back to the sleepless nights we suffered years ago. Steady progress was fine for me. 

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.

17 minutes ago, booth said:

The frustration with Mowbray is how he initially set the team up. Although unspectacular, we didn't give them as much joy in the second half. Can we speculate that had TM got it right first half there'd have been more chance of a draw?

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.

1 minute ago, J*B said:

He’s a left wing back playing right wing…

Agreed.

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

1 hour ago, Paul Mani said:

I can and many I’ve spoken to a few colleagues and friends who are now rather envious of the youth based model we are using.

It will upset a few but I think we’ve turned a bit of a corner in general. Fingers crossed this continues!

The manager (who I would’ve replaced in the summer) has given more debuts to youth players than any manager in our history…

Serious question, IF Tony got us up AND kept us up could he be considered our greatest manager EVER? When you look in context at what he inherited in terms of players and culture and what his net spend has been…you’d be hard pushed not to give that consideration…

I mean, if he got us up to the PL he’d have to make our top 3 best managers EVER, right?

Would we end up telling our grandkids the story of woe and how Lemon drizzle Tony took us to the promise land!!? I’ll leave you with that one 😊

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.

4 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

wheres this foreign striker that was imminent?

This deadline day is ABSOLUTELY DEAD.

Someone make me happy and make up a rumour.

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.  

7 hours ago, K-Hod said:

We have no idea if he wants to leave or not to be fair. People have started convincing themselves that Nyambe isn’t that good, in anticipation of him leaving, to justify that stance from where I’m sitting….

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.

15 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Quite a social media campaign building up against Nyambe from either new posters or posters who have been members of the site for some time but who have hardly previously posted.

I wonder how many analysts the Club employs?

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.

16 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

There's no suggestion at all his particular situation is causing unrest in the camp. Unless he is an unpopular figure in the dressing room the others are more likely to be upset or unsettled if the Club wont sort anything out with him and he leaves.

I'm not sure either why the argument about Nyambe potentially taking his eye off the ball doesn't apply equally to the other two. The key for me is to have cover available for all of them in the unlikely event that did happen. Getting promoted would increase their worth several times over.

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.

18 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Agree with all that.

Unless a genuinely stupid bid came in for any of them and by that I mean £10m plus we'd be best served in holding firm until the end of the season, seeing if we can get promoted and then re-assessing if we are.

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. 

56 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

There are so many genuine, tangible ways in which the game has evolved. Information and knowledge on nutrition, recovery, injury, hydration etc have helped footballers to become proper athletes. There are also a number of other improvements but is adding buzzwords and phrases like a low block, transition, pivot etc making any genuine improvement on words that mean the same thing that already existed?

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!

2 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

it does`nt work like that though,you need to bring your own young players through and give them experience,some will make it,some won`t,doing it the current way just inhibits their progress,you only get better by playing with better players,if your good enough you`ll get games if you not then you`ll be released

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.

5 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

This loaning players in so we can loan our own players out is absolutely ludicrous.

The only people benefitting are agents taking their cut out of the deal.

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.