On 26/01/2022 at 11:18, PotterLog said:

Caught out playing from the back last night for the only goal of the game. Fans not very happy. He's been alright so far but has made at least two or three sloppy errors which have led to goals or good chances. Coupled with our awful form and inexorable drift towards a standard anonymous mid-table finish, it's been a pretty inauspicious start. I think he's a good player, hope he can sharpen up and do well but it's only a half-season loan so it needs to be soon...

Much better the last few games. Very comfortable tonight in a 2 with Jagielka, who I think is helping him along a lot.

Caught out playing from the back last night for the only goal of the game. Fans not very happy. He's been alright so far but has made at least two or three sloppy errors which have led to goals or good chances. Coupled with our awful form and inexorable drift towards a standard anonymous mid-table finish, it's been a pretty inauspicious start. I think he's a good player, hope he can sharpen up and do well but it's only a half-season loan so it needs to be soon...

Well he’s finally signed. Sounds like just what we need, but good to read some moderating opinions there as well so we don’t get too carried away... Seems like he'll slot in on the left of our three, which unfortunately still leaves us with big bad Batth in the middle. But still a definite improvement.

Cheers for the feedback, I’ll let you know how he gets on.

33 minutes ago, J*B said:

Strong defender but more impressive moving forwards with the ball and picking a pass. Played in both a back 4 and 3. I think he suited the 3 more. Good player on loan. 

Sounds perfect. Where in the 3 did he play?

9 minutes ago, only2garners said:

I think I would have Harwood-Bellis as a better footballer than Van Hecke, although the latter has more old-fashioned blood and thunder defender about him. Thinking about it Harwood-Bellis might be a bit too sophisticated for your lot PotterLog!

Roverite - PotterLog is brfcs' special Chile based correspondent for Diaz updates.

Haha, cheeky swine. The Pulis reputation tends to stick with us, although as it happens one of the most fun memories from that era was making a sport of regularly battering Mowbray's self-styled Brazil-esque WBA team, leaving him most sour about it. 😉

A ball-player is exactly what we need tbh, we started the season with a very young back 3 of Souttar, Ostigard and Wilmot, all of whom are modern ball-playing defenders, and we played decent football out from the back, which is O'Neill's preference all things being equal. Then we got hit by injuries and form fluctuations and had to revert back to the errm.. "traditional" style of defending Danny Batth generally inspires. Sounds like THB should help us get back to a bit more dynamism coming from the back, lord knows we need it.

Hello Rovers, I hope this is ok for a new thread, I had a good search round and couldn't find one on him.

Appears he's signing on loan for Stoke today, we're very thin on the ground for centre-halves, Harry Souttar being long-term injured and us having slightly mysteriously cut Ostigard's loan from Brighton short. And we were supposedly in for John Souttar along with yourselves, although that seems to have gone a bit cold. Just thought I'd ask for a bit of insight on Taylor.. he seemed to be well-liked here, any particular strengths to look forward to or weaknesses to be aware of? Did he play in a 3 or a 4 with you?

Cheers 😀

2 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Hey, I’ve got a man bag. I wouldn’t hold that against him. 

I don’t think he’d need you to, it’s got a shoulder strap

8 hours ago, LordBaltimore said:

It was a great uncle whom i saw on tv.  Ben's grandfather's brother.  It was his grandfather who went to the UK with Ben's mom in tow to study ceramic manufacturing.

Ben caused a stir a few months ago by declaring his family's support for Colo Colo, which is of course a divisive issue since it is one of the big teams in Chile.

Dead to me since then 😉

41 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Thanks for the reply.

Bursik is your first choice keeper and wasn't he on loan previously at Accrington Stanley in a previous season? 

Souttar, Powell and Allen are big misses and I guess Surridge not available also limits your up front options. 

Yeah he’s had loans at various lower league clubs over the last couple of seasons. Still a bit rough round the edges but he’s young, and well established in the England setup. He’s certainly got the attributes to have a top career, shame for him to get injured now.

5 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Thanks for reply. 

Think O'Neill is good manager. 

Who are you missing who would have started today? 

Do you think you will strengthen in January?

Missed this before sorry. First-teamers missing today were Bursik, Souttar, Powell, Allen.. then Thompson and Clucas who would have been in with a shout of starting but also have knocks. The midfield was really threadbare.

I expect we'll add in January - ideally an extra centre half and a strong DM, plus we have the return of Tom Edwards from a loan.. with that, and players coming back from injury, hopefully we can still have a tilt at it. But today was pretty abject and didn’t give much hope.

1 hour ago, oldjamfan1 said:

He wasn’t making that point at all. Get it right up youse 

Well given how it ended up he was making it whether he wanted to or not 🙂

46 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

What do you think of your manager Michael O'Neill and his tactics? 

What your view on Sawyers?

MON still has credit in the bank but he’s frustrating, on the one hand cautious and reluctant to change things but also won’t add any steel in the midfield for some bizarre reason. Today wasn’t a good day to judge our tactics because of the injuries we have, we played some super quick passing football earlier in the season and scored some lovely goals from it.

Sawyers is talented but so flaky. Waste of a shirt today, I think the fact he got MoM from our corporates has to have been someone on a wind-up.

2 minutes ago, JacknOry said:

Infuriated me when he said that at the time. Thats the 'fan'coming out when he is meant to be a professional commentator. We were 1 pointbehind them at start, so how does that make us not a good side but Stoke a good side?

I think exactly the point he was making was that Stoke aren't a good side either

I’m the end we went with:

Davies 

Wilmot
Batth 
Chester 

Smith
Sawyers
Tymon 
Vrancic
Fox 

Campbell
Brown

Nice to see Campbell back in the starting XI but very worried about BBD getting at Chester and Fox, as well as our midfield.

On 25/11/2021 at 17:38, PotterLog said:

Bit hard to pick a lineup before press conference news but it will probably be something like

Davies
Ostigard Batth Chester
Smith Sawyers Vrancic Tymon (or Thompson or Clucas depending on who's fit) Doughty
Brown Fletcher
 

BBD talks about his boyhood heroes Fuller and Delap

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19745609.ben-brereton-relishing-hometown-return-blackburn-rovers/

Hoping his Stokie blood compels him to “accidentally” sky all his chances today 😉

6 hours ago, LeftWinger said:

When was Bale the worst left back in the country?

There's a now-infamous old thread on our (Stoke's) board about us signing Bale from Spurs. It's full of absolute catastrophising about how garbage he is, not a footballer, shows how little ambition we have, going down if this is the level of player we're going for etc etc etc etc. Always worth a giggle to review now.

20 minutes ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

Neither did I, but I had a quick scan on their forum and they're really struggling in midfield. They have Vrancic and Sawyers, so they have decent quality there, but you wouldn't describe either of them as ball winners. After that it seems as though they have literally nobody. Didn't realise how unpopular Joe Allen is over there, but there are plenty saying that he'll be missed just as someone to fill a shirt.

 

Having said all that they were still bang unlucky not to get something from Bristol City away, so they've obviously still got the players to be dangerous, but if I were Rothwell I'd be licking my lips at this game. 

That’s about the size of it.. Allen suspended, Powell injured, don’t think Thompson or Clucas will be fit. Our wing back Tymon may have to fill in, which he’s done before to reasonably good effect to be fair. Crossing fingers but if you’ve got any steel and guile in there you’ll play through us piss easy.

Wouldn't know about ticket sales but someone on our board said you'd sold 2k.. could be bad info.

I wouldn't normally with a home game but I'd be quite tempted to take a point tbh

 

On 20/11/2021 at 15:52, LordBaltimore said:

Bréreton Díaz 2nd half vs Bristol Shitty.

 

Nice finish. That rifled near post shot seems a bit of a signature goal for him

30 minutes ago, LordBaltimore said:

What does that mean?  "Duck"?

As in "t'owrate duck, ast thee ad thy eowtkeeks yet this meowneen?"




PM for private dialect lessons, good rates

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

Stoke, isn't that where everyone is 'duck' ?

Odd place but oakcakes are nice.

That’s the place. I’ll not argue with your summary either 😄

19 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

I know you have Potter in your name, but I lived around Stoke myself for about 7 years and I wouldn't call that a thick Stoke accent. I'd say it's a bit of a mix, about 80% Stokie maybe but something else underlying it (which I'd assume is a dash of Chilean, but it doesn't really sound Chilean because of the mix...she almost sounded Geordie in a few brief moments!).

That said, despite the fact I can do a lot of accents and lived down there for 7 years, I was never able to do a Stokie accent properly myself. It's a bit of a hodge podge of a few other accents, I could never figure out the 'rules'. Sometimes it sounds scouse, sometimes brummy, sometimes northern...

Maybe “thick” was the wrong word but considering it’s her second language it’s still totally recognisable as Stoke (in words like “received” and “open arms” and “eet”. Actually more or less everything really).