That's both games that we've seen Rovers keep a clean sheet and play out the last few minutes calmly,virtually without incident. 

Can't help thinking that losing Lenihan might well be a factor. 

1 hour ago, Don Said said:

Very early days, but credit to JDT and Broughton on Szmodics and Brittain our two permanent signings so far. Initial viewing says they suit the way we are playing very well, promising starts to their careers here.

No plodders, no gap fillers, no jobs for the boys.

Just efficient, purposeful business.

 

As Broughton and Tomasson eluded to when they first came in, they've inherited a young, hungry, talented squad which just needs a bit of fine tuning. 

JDT isn't daft, he wouldn't have taken over just anywhere, the foundations are in place. 

Cracking start to the season, the whole squad looks young and hungry. Another 2 or 3 hand picked, quality signingsand keep Brereton and Tomasson will be licking his lips. 

Hedges with another man of the match performance for me, to go with last week's. 

The Edun substitution worked to perfection. 

As far as I can see, Erik Pieters is still without a club. As a free agent, he'd be a strong, experienced addition. 

22 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I suspect the two Clubs are still currently a long way apart in terms of asking price unless Brighton have a massive rethink.

Genuinely asking, do we know if Rovers are actually trying to sign him? 

If we do get anywhere near £20 million for Brereton, I hope it finally puts paid to the ridiculous notion that Mowbray has left the club in a weaker position than when he came. 

We now have a young squad on supposedly manageable wages, many with a potential to be sold for good money. 

That definitely wasn't the case when he came in. 

Prediction for this game, I'll stick my neck out say that if we win, we'll have 18k plus on against West Brom. 

Thought the most discernable difference to last season, if there was one, was the way we played out the last 10 minutes. 

At 1 goal up over the last few seasons, the usual would be to pump it forward and see it coming back straight away. 

I can hardly remember a hopeless hoof out yesterday, each player stuck to keeping the ball down and passing the match out, and it made for a much calmer finish. 

1 hour ago, Displaced Rover said:

“Crap heavy metal” 🤦

You mean Thunderstruck by AC/DC….

Best track to be played at Ewood for many a year. 

If I never hear The Final Countdown ever again, I'll be happy. 

1 hour ago, Exiled_Rover said:

He's athletic, works hard and is technically competent, but his end product is generally underwhelming.

I think he's a very good squad player at this level - someone you can bring on for 20 mins to inject some energy into your side in that 3 (of the 4-2-3-1), but he's not a starter. He just doesn't do enough on the ball. 

Far and away Hedges was our best player going forward, particularly first half. 

One ball round the corner to Brereton first half was superb. 

I do think people sometimes make their mind up before they go. 

6 minutes ago, Wing Wizard Windy Miller said:

Rothwell cost circa 400k and we got zero for him. 

Szmodics is potentially 7 times more expensive as a direct replacement.  In that light - he's overpriced.

The guy was also clearly second fiddle in terms of ability to Dembele - who left for a million less.  

 

However, as you say, if he fits with what the new management want - you sometimes have to overpay to get what you want.  

This is where things blur with the new dof/coach structure.  

Has JDT said 'Szmodics is the guy I want' 

Or is he simply the best that Broughton feels he can recruit...

 

Either way, £2.5 million is overpriced at this point of time.  

 

But if he fits the style JDT wants and has a good season, then in hindsight it won't be. 

Such is how managers and signings are judged. 

 

I was going off being offered £3 million for Rothwell with 6 months left on his contract and scoring 3 goals last season. 

Rothwell hadn't played a Championship game when Rovers bought him, Szmodics scored twice as many goals as Rothwell in the Championship last season and has plenty experience at Championship level. 

If we're saying Szmodics is a replacement for Rothwell, as a direct comparison, I don't see how he's being seen as overpriced. 

I also don't see the point in screaming for a change in management, then questioning one of the first things that they do. 

It's the club's money and they'll spend it as they see fit. As always,at the end of the day, they will be judged by their results. 

23 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

Granted he cannot be fully blamed for players not signing and moving on but under his tenure the club has been commercially regressing year after year. Season tickets being a prime example of this. Maybe it wouldn't add up to player sales but at the end of the day more is still more.

The fact people are even comparing us to Preston shows how far we have fallen and we are always towards the bottom of the table when it comes to revenue. 

He is running the place into the ground and needs to be gotten rid of and replaced with someone who has a rudimentary understanding of how the capitalist system works.

I'm not going to disagree with you on that, but the conversation was regarding contracts and players not signing them. 

5 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

If the club made more money then we'd be able to raise the cap and compete with other clubs. 

The absolutely pathetic amount of revenue the club generates is definitely in a large part down to Waggott

And how long would it take to raise the £3 million they lost because Venkys wouldn't sell Rothwell? 

It's a drop in the ocean compared to potential money raised from player sales. 

I'm far from a Waggott apologist, but the stick he gets over contracts is way over the top when he must be more frustrated than anyone. 

If the club has set a salary cap/wage structure or whatever you want to call it and it's broken every time someone wants more, then the club doesn't have a salary cap. 

Whether it's set at the right level is a different argument,that's a matter for the owners, but some of the stick levelled at Waggott is just ridiculous. 

Put yourself in his position,counting the pennies, then losing players for nothing which are worth millions.

It's been 10 years and it still hasn't sunk in with some that Blackburn Rovers isn't a normal football club. 

I'm expecting Hedges to be involved. 

15 minutes ago, longsiders1882 said:

So you have a manager with zero experience in the league, have lost players, will lose your main striker and have no top level experience but will be top 6 but we will be 15th even though we have already made signings, currently have a lot of top level experience. You may well be right but I think your view is based on little more than what you hope will happen - knowing it’s a no lose scenario. Guess right you can claim brilliant insight, wrong and it’s passed off with a shrug.

I have not a clue where we - or you - will be. In fact beyond expecting Norwich and Watford to be there or there abouts I have no idea who will do well and who not so well.

If you gave me a million quid(please), and I had to put it on anyone to go up, it would 100% go on West Brom. 

Felt Bruce was getting them playing towards the end of the season and the signing of Wallace is massive. 

I can't imagine anyone coming in with an acceptable bid for Brereton, I think he'll still be here in January. If he has a decent first half of the season, that's when Prem teams in the lower reaches will take the plunge.

I'd say we would probably then hold more of the aces, even though he'd be closer to the end of his contract, as teams in fear of relegation have to gamble. 

On signings, I'd hope for another 2 quality buys in the Styles mould. The Morton loan looks like a good move, if we can secure a player who's played 9 times for Liverpool, it has to be done. 

Don't think we'd be far off there, with maybe another couple of clever loans if Broughton can pull a couple of rabbits out of the hat. 

1 hour ago, Galz said:

Dolan has trick but don’t think he has that genuine electric pace. Not seen enough of Vale but seemed a bit similar to Gally pace wise at Celtic. Might be wrong but time will tell. I don’t believe we have that electric pace in the first team squad at the moment. 

This conversation about pace reminds me of Tommy Doc. He said to Leighton James, you're very deceptive Leighton, you're slower than you look. 

Wouldn't mind if we had a look at Erik Pieters, haven't heard he's gone anywhere,he never let the Dingles down. 

Bags of experience to utilise for a year or two. 

I'm not convinced at all that Broughton even tried to keep Nyambe after their meeting. 

To me, the most likely scenario is that Broughton thought he could do better for the money. 

With our potential first transfer being a full back, this only backs up what I was thinking. 

41 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Doesn't that make it even worse?

It's one thing losing players through some self-enforced wage ceiling or (unlikely as Wigan are showing) FFP constraints, but to lose them through not offering more than Wigan even though we could?

I mean Broughton said his first job was to speak to Nyambe - looks like he's failed on that front - and now we are losing a valuable asset through deciding not to offer him a wage he wants to accept? And now have no RB on the eve of the new season.

We don't know if Wigan have offered more or less though do we? 

We don't know if the Rovers offer was still on the table, Broughton may well have withdrawn it leaving Nyambe with only one option. He may feel that the offer to Nyambe was a good one and feels he can get better for the money. 

There's a lot of assumption that Wigan have paid higher wages than Rovers without any evidence whatsoever. 

Even if they have, it doesn't mean Rovers couldn't beat their offer, it could well be that they chose not to. 

On putting out a team from the current squad, why change a winning team? I'd go with the one which won at Birmingham, played so well and scored 2 of the best goals you'll see. 

Current squad wise, purely on numbers of our own players, we've lost 5. We've gained 2 in Carter and Magloire, and arguably another 3 in Dack, JRC and Markanday. The relative quality can be questioned, but I'd say the numbers are equal, maybe even one to the good if Ayala is fit. 

I keep hearing we've lost Van Hecke and Khadra, but we never had them,they weren't ours. The loan market is available for the new management team to hopefully improve on them. I would have Poveda back in a breath, looked a real player when he got going. 

Signings wise,it would be easy to just sign anybody, but hopefully the apparent lack of activity means we're looking at quality, rather than quantity. 

I'm quite hopeful for this season, 3 maybe 4 good additions to that young, hungry squad and we'll be in good shape. We finished 8th last season, no reason to believe we can't at least match it. 

Looking forward to tomorrow.