Win, lose or draw today we need a performance. A repeat of Preston and Wigan will not be tolerated. Having said that can't see the prospective team doing much. There are players in that team that weren't good enough last season at a lower level. Come on Rovers, come out fighting and put a smile on our faces.

Playing the buying very young English players is a risky game. That's why I thought the Brereton deal was a gamble we didn't need to take. Two or three seasons back the " Brereton " was Zac Clough at Bolton. Loads of big clubs were casting an eye over him but Forest pulled the trigger and signed him for a substantial fee. He can't get a game on loan at Rochdale at the moment.

He's just as injury prone. As my mum would say " He's out grown his strength ".

I agree that we can't really discuss Mowbray's career in a logical fashion. He could lose the next ten games, this board could be on fire, yet there could be no reaction from the Chicken Chokers. We still aren't living in the real World.

Looking at that prospective line up is depressing. What happened to our recruitment in the close season ?

You make him sound like a statue !

Bloody hell, that's brilliant for a left back ! Sign him up. Has he got more than Henderson ?

I'd be surprised if he's still here in 2022. Just saying.

That's the problem, we're 1/3rd of the way through the season and 20 blokes on here can come up with 20 different formations. Barring injuries we should know our best 11 and our best way of playing by now. It's ridiculous that we're still struggling to put out a coherent team.

I don't know the figures regarding the respective categories so I can't help you there.

As I've said earlier I'm not overly ambitious regarding league placings at the end of the season, I'd be quite content just to be in this league next season. What does concern me is our recent recruitment policy. Without going over old ground again, It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. For an experienced manager he hasn't half signed more than his share of players who haven't had a positive impact on the team. That is a big worry, nice bloke or not.

I don't know the answer to that but looking at the number of BAME players in the game these days 8 seems a bit low.

Regarding skin colour Viv Anderson is generally accepted as being the first black player to play for England. However I think if Paul Reaney of Leeds were playing today he would have been in the BAME category. He was no lighter skinned that Curle or Powell If my memory serves me well. I didn't mean to quote myself ! Bloody Laptop, it's time I got a new one !

According to today's " Guardian " the BAME managers are Chris Hughton, Nuno Santo ( Wolves ), Darren Moore, Jos Luhukay ( Sheff Wed ), Chris Powell ( Southend ), Dino Maamria ( Stevenage ), Keith Curle ( Northampton ) and now Campbell. I don't think 8 out of 92 represents the number of BAME players that have been in the game in say the last 20 years.

Got to agree with that. We've 3 left backs on the books and none of them deserves to wear the shirt at the moment.

Thanks for that Tony, reading it was bad enough, it makes me feel sorry for the poor fans actually went !

I was reading an article at the weekend about the wages the top clubs are paying their players. The wages the Yanks are paying are right up there with the best so he'll have been on big bucks.

Relegation is only " unthinkable " when you get to 50 points in my book. I've seen plenty of teams go down who were " safe " 3/4 of the way through the season. Staying up this season would do me fine. The Play offs are a distant dream unless something dramatic happens in January.

What are we running here Tom ? A football club or an investment bank ?

That's how you build teams. You may start off with average players but you gradually replace them with good players. Then you replace the good players with excellent players. if you have the dosh you eventually replace the excellent players with the cream of the game. You have to be constantly evolving, your two least effective players have to be replaced every close season. I don't mean bringing in players that might be as good, I mean players who are in a definite class above and are the first names on the team sheet. As far as I can see we haven't done that, we're still playing the team that we had last season with the exception of Reed. We made the same mistake of thinking everything was rosy when we won the Prem. We should have gone out to get a top class centre half to replace Peace and a top class left winger to replace Wilcox. I'd have been considering along term replacement for Sherwood also but two at a time is enough, For one thing it stops the rest getting complacent ! City will probably walk the Prem again this season but you can bet your life they'll strengthen their squad again in Summer.

I agree. If only we had £7million to spend on rest of the team.

I've been reading about Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea in todays paper. After they lost their FIRST competitive match of the season he had all the players in on an individual basis, 10 minutes at a time, to find out what went wrong. He said -" I had to think about everything because we played very badly, a match without determination. That's not normal. We have to understand why, especially from the mental point of view. It's difficult for me to understand why we played without determination in such an important match. If you don't have determination, you have no motivation, maybe you don't have clear targets in mind." Maybe our lot don't have clear targets in mind.

One of the best left backs I've ever seen. He could keep Ronaldo quiet, not many can say that.

Football is a simple game. One thing I was taught we seem to have forgotten - " When you have the ball make the pitch as big as you can, when the opposition have the ball make the pitch as small as you can ". That means working hard off and on the ball, press like your life depends on it, always show for the bloke in possession of the ball. in other words do the bloody basics and play like you actually want to be out there.

It's not the losing that should be bothering us. It's the manner of the losing. I never bought into the " pushing for promotion " story and I predicted a finish of around 6th from the bottom. I'd be delighted with a mid table finish this season.