Obviously nobody made him a better offer than we did. Just looks like Mowbray looking after another pal to me. At the same time as the club have been pleading poverty to the fans and can't afford to keep the stadium clean. Maybe he'll be going around with the litter picker and a green sack ?

If he's that useful why has nobody else come in for him ?

That's a pointless signing for me if it does happen. It's great to have all these new players coming in but I'm a bit concerned about keeping them all happy and having a settled team and a coherent, consistent way of playing in the immediate future. We all know Tony like to meddle. We'll soon see.

Two that even draughtsmen used to get wrong all the time - Guage ( Gauge ) and Gaurd ( Guard ).

There's no way we would have got relegated under Big Sam. The first thing I did when I heard he'd been fired was to look at the league table to see how many points we needed to get to safety. I knew we were in trouble from that point.

That's my concern as well. We need Gallagher or Brererton to discover where the goals are.

That Richard Brown attempted tackle was so late it was nearly from the match before !

Me too, jn fact I like Southgate as a bloke, he appears to be a very decent guy. He was also a decent player back in the day. However I just don't think he's a Trophy winning manager.

Chaddy, we lost that game, remember ?

You're talking like that semi final was a success story. It wasn't. We were well beaten by a team that was well beaten by the eventual winners. We made really hard work of getting to the semis in the bargain. Southgate's not the answer, I'm sure of that. I'm not even sure there is an answer. We're breeding under achievers in English football at the moment I'm afraid.

Well whoever it's going to be next I'd start looking for him now. Southgate, nice guy that he is, isn't ever going to be a winner. To be honest I don't think we have the players in enough of the crucial positions to win things at the top level. Having said that we shouldn't be losing at home to the likes of Denmark so badly.

Or way of playing, system etc. There's a lot of it about in football as we know at Rovers.

Don't forget Paul Downing.

That's what I heard as well .

I only saw that Thomas play in a game at the end of last season. He looked a very handy player to me. Definitely a future regular top level player. But that was only off one game. Magloire looked equally good in that friendly against Leicester. Any player can get injured at any time, even the ones with no previous history. Having said that I'd rather we didn't sign players who have already had their share of time laid on the treatment table. I can't say I'd be overjoyed if we signed Cunningham, too much of a risk for me. We'll already have Dack and Travis coming back from pretty bad injuries.

Exactly, I live facing a big common. It can get full of wind blown rubbish. Every week or so Mrs Shoelaces and myself spend 3/4hr walking over it picking up bottles, can's, chip papers etc. Sometimes another bloke does it. The council provided us with strong rubbish sacks and a plastic hoop to hold the sacks open. When we've done we leave the sacks by a council rubbish bin and council workmen take them away. How hard is it, especially nowadays when we've got time on our hands ?

Did I hear that right that Trippier is now suspended because of allegations of betting ?

I see Robbie Savage and Paul Dickov are involved with the " new " Macclesfield team.

Me and my pal Alec queued up all night for tickets for that game. We nearly froze to death.

Great chest control from Speedie, put it right were he wanted it for a right foot shot.

In my paper today - " It's the equivalent of giving a drowning man a lifejacket in exchange for his right to vote ".

I remember that game well, we lost 2-1 to Bury. Two things stick in my mind, their centre forward Steve Johnson ? got two really good goals. Also the pitch was really dusty and it was a very swirlingly windy day. As a consequence the referee had to keep stopping the game to get his hankie out to remove grit from the players eyes. The game at Bury a day or two earlier was the real celebration. The promotion celebration match under Gordon Lee was a 0-0 draw with Wrexham, not the greatest game I ever went to !

Before anybody accuse me of being a glory hunter I get loads of pleasure from the little snippets that Herbie posts. I still enjoy watching Rovers from that era. I suppose we're back in the same position now but we weren't £200 million in debt then. Even when we hadn't got a pot to pee in I never lost faith that we would be back in the big time. There was something about Rovers then that has been almost completely lost in my opinion. Sorry about the font, my lap top fancied a change. Yesterday it came out with a new one, when I was editing a post it just started deleting the letter in front of the one I was correcting ! Try writing when that happens !

If we've now got a more commanding aerial presence in Ayala we could always play Nyambe in central defence. I can't think of a quicker centre half at our level apart from maybe Magloire. He's got pace and he can tackle etc, it's just his lack of heading ability that goes against him.

I find it really difficult to watch film of Rovers back in our recent heyday. It just reminds me of how far we've fallen.The Chicken Chokers have robbed me of that pleasure.