London blue

I can't believe there are people out there happy to defend the contract strategy that has led to the current situation. Do you honestly believe it's the right thing to do, or are you just willing to back whatever the club does? On the second point, as always, no-one is allowed to form opinion until such time you deem it sensible. His record, to me, isn't good enough and this season so far (and I'm going to count the loss to Bradford, thanks VI) is very bad.

You'd want to make a couple of changes heading into this, I think. But who? Pickering? Maybe but doesn't offer much difference to Ribeiro. Miller? Not over Alebiosu going on last game. Foreshaw, Buckley? Absolutely not. Montgomery? I'd rather play Foreshaw. Axel? Nope, not yet. Gueye? Not if we fancy scoring. No real injuries of note and we're already scraping the barrel. When we've got 2 games a week and a few injuries the dearth of talent available is going to be really apparent. Can't see past a Hull (transfer embargo, remember) win.

If the choice was to sign a decent striker and not register Buckley for the upcoming season, or just register Buckley and go without, what option would you go for? Also, I don't want to seem callous but Buckley having a decent career from here on is of little concern to me. He owes Rovers for the past 15 years, not the other way round.

Read the post you quoted again.

Based on what I've seen so far, this is what I think we would need to maintain 7th spot from last year. Backup GK, assuming Pears goes Starting CB Replacement for Trav. 2nd string CM Starting RW Striker (and not some £200k pickup) If we actually fancied improving the squad, you can add a LW and another striker to that. We're led to believe the club expects one (1) more new recruit, and to replace Trav. What should happen and what will happen are so far apart, that I question the judgement of anyone who tries to assert we're anywhere near the strength of last season. Unless the above signings are completed I'm pretty confident we'll be battling Wednesday for bottom of the pack.

Well, now even if we're winning going into the final 5 mins teams will believe there's a way back, and we'll be fearful of losing. This is going to be a fucker of a season.

The party line for any manager in that situation is "things happen quickly in football, he's out player right now" or something to that effect. There was no need to state Trav wants to leave or Derby are offering to double his money... unless you've been asked to.

Fair enough fella, a point we don't agree on.

Fair, and I'm not going to suggest that individualism and selfishness isn't more prevalent in football. I don't think it's the main factor at play here, though.

He's been pushed, mate. We shipped him on loan and declined to put a contract Infront of him.

Translate it to any other industry and I think you'd have very similar results.

Some of them, yeah. His closest mates have left, a good few players have just arrived. I just don't think it was an answer that was helpful to anyone but those that are trying to push Trav out.

I understand that sentiment but there are other factors at play - you have to consider the impact of the answer on the team and squad. And honestly, expecting a player - or anyone for that matter - to risk their income on spilling the beans for little to no benefit is not realistic.

I'm seeing a lot of people espouse complete honesty with no tact as implicitly positive. It's the same in politics; "he says what he feels, he's just so honest." Imo VI either didn't think about the impact of his answer to the question on Trav or has been briefed to push him out. Trav is our captain. The impact on the squad - the majority of which he won't have confided in that he wants to leave - to hear the club captain and cultural leader wants out could be cataclysmic. We all know how important momentum is in this league and we've turned in two insipid performances. If morale is destroyed among the newer players within a month of joining they don't have a fucking chance. VI has thrown a grenade and I'm not sure whether it was a slip of the tongue or preordained.

Travis will not be in the squad.

Quite how you can summise we're paying players more than the going rate given what we know about Venkys is honestly, astounding.

Yeah I thought Kargbo was the only one who didn't stink. The entire front line played awfully, apart from him imo.

Glenn and a few others have mentioned how poor morale is at the club at the moment, I'm not surprised.

I understand wanting to find a silver lining but I couldn't care less.

I don't know where to start with this shit show. Rotating so heavily was foolish in the extreme. It was patently obvious Bradford would be right up for this. What the fuck was Montgomery doing starting at RB? Individual performances across the board really, really poor. I could pick out maybe one or two that didn't disgrace themselves but I'd be grasping at straws. This is Bradford, playing in league two last year and don't let the possession stats fool you, we barely laid a glove on them. The good news? Our captain will very likely be sold this week and we get to welcome Big Club and 7000 cocky Brummies to Ewood this weekend. Fuck off.

Ey up

Yeah, hesitated. Classic GK overplaying it.

Oh lads

Weird how our right back was non existent. Fucking stupid.

We've bought two right backs and are starting a (fairly) promising midfielder there. Stupid team selection makes a change from stupid transfer and contract policy, I guess.