I don’t think he is Gav.

Not next season. That’s unless they’re in the bottom half.

Boro’s about right. He’s not at Prem level.

The rumours are WBA.

Not exactly a vote of confidence.

Shush, don’t tell everybody .

A steady defender but one who never overcame his main failing of being drawn to the ball too often. He was still playing like the midfield player he started out as at times. Centre halves have to stay with the player they’re marking as much as possible and not go firefighting in front of the defence. This was especially shown up when we played 4 at the back, with a 5 he could get away with it some of the time. Maybe Wilder will do what Mowbray couldn’t do and sort out that aspect of his game. He was also partial to a booking when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but I could say that about a few at Rovers. Maybe Wilder will sort that out as well. To be honest I expected more in the captaincy role. Leading by example doesn’t work all of the time. Some players need geeing up verbally. Maybe I’m really hard to please. Anyway good luck to the lad, he always gave Rovers 100% and you shouldn’t ask for more than that.

Yes you’re right. I’d forgotten about Foden. I’m still not convinced about him being a real playmaker for England though. I’m reminded of Tom Carney at Rovers. He never seemed to make it for us as a playmaker whenever he was given the chance.

We’ll live to regret that. Just what we are short of - a playmaker.

It’s not very often you see “ charismatic “ and “ Mowbray “ in the same sentence.

Yes, the everlasting “ added degree of difficulty “.

They get smaller gates than we do.

Put your CV in, the Chokers will snap you up.

Do you take “ The Sunday Observer “ ? There was a good review of that album in last Sundays edition. The music scene in Liverpool is still great. I remember going watching “ Faron’s Flamingoes “ in a pub during the Beatles weekend. The lead guitarist had got lost in the crowd and they were waiting for him to turn up. Eventually Faron said “ is there anybody here that can play lead guitar ? “ One young bloke in the audience said” Yeah, I can “. So he got up on stage and plugged in the guitar. Faron said to him “ Johnny B Goode in the key of whatever “ . And away they went. The real guitarist turned up after about 5 numbers.

Absolutely. I was in North Yorkshire last week. Gorgeous countryside. Plus it’s not full of wildlife that’s trying to kill you !

That’s were the focus has to be on signing established players who may have fallen by the wayside like Dack and Rothwell. The guys you can get for reasonable fees. This guy might have a good eye for a player, like Peter Taylor for Brian Clough or like Bowyers dad had at Rovers - allegedly of course. We’ll soon see.

Me too. Like any other appointment he’ll be judged on his signings. I can’t say that I’m too happy that the club appear to have chosen to put all their eggs into the youth development basket. That’s a recipe for more stagnation. In my opinion of course.

To have any chance of promotion you need to be hanging on to your better players for a while.

Yes but who is going to be scouting the Armstrongs and Brererton’s ? Neither of those came through our youth teams.

At the moment the youth side of the club is going well, as evidenced by the number of home grown players we’ve brought into the first team. It’s in finding the next Dack or the next Rothwell were the expertise was required.

That’s what worries me. As some one said earlier - is the plan to become the next Crewe Alex ? Develop young players and continually sell them on ? That policy got Crewe a good reputation but it didn’t get them very far league position wise.

What, in his usual cast of thousands ?

Nope, they do it every time.

Dack might not even be in our starting 11. He’s nowhere near were he was before the last cruciate injury yet.

I don’t see why Kane’s ability to reach the ball is an issue here. If you get tripped in the penalty area it should be a penalty. I remember a game on tv were the ball had been cleared out of the box and the centre half had a kick out at the striker, they’d been having a ding dong all the game. The ref gave a penalty.