Exiled in Toronto Mk2

It’s never occurred to me in all these years but the flat stretch of land between the hill up to the railway and the one up Liberty Branch Road looks a lot like an old flood plain, which doesn’t leave much scope for drainage. Once the raging River Darwen rises above that pipe, its head pressure must be many times that of the water coming down the pipe, which perhaps is why the pitch seems to just stop draining.

Not even in goal? Pears played 40 games!

I’m mildly optimistic, not least because by far the biggest upgrade in my eyes is the defence. Credit to VI who didn’t fanny about on dumping Pears, there’s 10 soft goals not conceded straight away. But equally important is how much Pears’s indecision with the ball stunted our play. Add in, hopefully, a season of Carter and Wharton (I don’t buy the “made of glass” mantra, they have 300+ appearances between them) a beast of a RB and an extra half season of Ribeiro vs Pickering and I think we are miles better at the back. As to all these thousands of championship appearances we sold, not one of them achieved anything. Cantwell’s experience at this level is far more valuable imo. Not all 10 signings will succeed, they never do, but finding out will at least be more interesting than another season of highly predictable nothingness.

The BRFCS Law of Entropy: every thread, over time, descends into posters arguing with Chaddy. While the budget has clearly been cut, I’m struggling to believe that our road to the promised land was going to be paved with improved 4-year contracts for Travis, Dolan and Hyam, plus Ba’ath and Weiman creaking another season out.

I’ll take that back 5 over last season’s every time. Toth - huge upgrade on Calamity Alebiosu - Love child of Nyambe and Brittain Carter - great to see him back. Helped by not once getting dragged out of position to cover an AWOL RB Wharton - best I’ve can remember from him. Easily MoM. Ribeiro - better than Picks Tavares - I’m not as down on him as most: missed pre-season, new country, living out of a suitcase. I’m in the JDT camp on Travis. Sonny - more solid than Trav Morishita - good debut. Cool finish and his crossbar rattler reminded me of Simon Garner. Cantwell - really is like a new signing. Hedges - LWB might be his best option Yuki - gonna have to up his game. His assist was assisted by a deflection but good idea to try it. Gudjonnsan - best opening cameo from a forward I can recall. Him and Cantwell could be a top pairing.

And yet we won the game.

Trondstad signalled he needed to come off

Despite selling all our good players, replacing them with cheap foreign nobodies making us certainties for consecutive relegations to League 2, we had the better of that half.

Average is somewhat meaningless in a division so heavily skewed by a handful of clubs on parachute payments paying whopping salaries. Vs median would be a better measure.

C’mon, no-one should answer that, it’s like saying which of your kids you prefer! Like it or not, the views prevalent on here are not held by the majority of Rovers fans: the Facebook crowd are at the other end of the spectrum and the majority are neither, but they are all Rovers fans. Following live commentary on an Indian court case can hardly be described as mainstream. The questions were always going to be middle of the road.

I think it crucial as part of a tier 1 academy to be able to demonstrate that we are good for everyone’s career that signs for us, no matter what turns out to be their ultimate potential.

The thing with an academy is, at best we can hope for one player a year coming through into the first team, but that one player still needed 16 teammates around him who aren’t going to make it. The task with them is to get them to their potential and move them on. It’s not the Adam Wharton’s or Hayden Carter’s going to Chorley, it’s the other 16. Great contributions to this thread btw.

Kean out! Senior out! Shagnew out! Shebby out! Mogadon out! Gregghead out! Swag out! I have no doubt that we just need to get Rudi out! and all will be well.

I certainly don’t think the difference between Hyam and whoever fills his slot will be the difference between relegation or not - the difference-making will be at the other end of the pitch. He looked like he never wanted to be here from the off. Given he wanted to go, keeping an even more demotivated Hyam wouldn’t have ended well. I’m far more upset we are relying on one young Icelandic striker.

Leaving aside everything we know of the last 15 years, the absence of any interest/desire of the owners, the revolving door of nonentities in the C-suite, the parade of managers, the most notable feature of the window for me is the number of established players who wanted to go elsewhere. The Lemon Drizzle club atmosphere is now clearly a thing of the past (it’s demise being initiated by a demanding JDT) I am perhaps in a small minority in not seeing the loss of Dom Fucking Hyam as a catastrophe (or at least as a bigger one than anything that preceded it). The Preston og, the shrinking violet needing his dad alongside him, the Turf Moor 0-3 pussy, the “calm down”. I’ll not miss him no matter who has to fill in for him.