When are we going to sort our pitch out? It's condition played a part in the Wigan defender doing his knee. Its not acceptable and tough to take for the guy. The same will happen to some of our players eventually. Its a ticking time bomb.

JDT I'm sure can't just 'walk' at the end of the season, he has a contract. It's definitely not ideal though. We don't want an unhappy manager. Broughton will be very aware that the heat has been turned up now. Looking at Brereton-Diaz tonight it's madness we've not sold him. I can't imagine we'll have much money to spend in the summer and we are desperate for a striker. It needs to be sorted. The situation with JdT will become untenable if its not.

JDT on O'brien. "We had two players going out. Hirst is a forward player, Markanday is a forward player, O'brien is a midfield player." Clearly unhappy.

Going to start with the positives. Thomas was very good. Excellent to see an old fashioned winger getting balls into the box. I was almost advocating for him leaving us at some point over the last 12 months but to me Carter is looking solid and I've more confidence in him than Wharton these days. Travis was good driving forwards rather than sitting in front of the back 4. JRC again was very good. Especially when Vale ran past him in the area. He telegraphed it. Fantastic defending. I also thought we got into good areas and needed someone on the end of one of those chances. The bad.... Brereton-Diaz, that was abysmal. His worst performance since pre-covid. Absolutely terrible. As poor as Gallagher can be, Vale can't keep starting. He's so soft and is not ready for mens football in the slightest. Our options off the bench showed how weak our squad is. Thomas looked like he was cramping up so I understand why he went off but it killed every bit of momentum we had. It's clear as day the lack of someone who can finish is going to cost us, especially if Brereton puts in shockers like that until the end of the season. All in all, quite predictable.

We've had some good play. For about 20 minutes we were well on top, but we've got too many passengers. Vale has been awful, weak and slow barring one nice bit of play towards the end. Worst I've seen Brereton play since he became Diaz. Between him and Vale for the worst player on the pitch. Wharton. How many times does he over commit and get caught out of position, way up the pitch. Looks like he's learnt from Lenihan but misses out more than Lenihan did. Apart from that the rest of them have been OK. We look like we've got more overall quality than Wigan but they've got some strong runners all across the pitch.

Has Dacky played against Wigan since that thug Morley did his knee in 2 years back. (Yes I know it was just a nudge) If not I can imagine him being very up for this one.

Hopefully if he gets a chance he'll put it away. My biggest worry of Vale is he provides no physical presence and the ball doesn't stick if he's muscled out of it. I'd be quite happy with us persisting with him if he added that to his game.

If we went up this season I'd hope we'd be wise with the riches that come. Sign some of the best players from Championship level and one or two promising players from abroad. It'd be an almighty scrap to stay up but the Norwich method isn't a bad shout. Position yourself to bounce back at first time of asking if relegated. The trouble with Norwich is they never progressed and became a yoyo club. Promotion should always be the aim, whether the current set of players are well equipped for the step up or not. We struggle to compete at this level as it is. Suddenly we might have a fighting chance. All hypothetical as its highly unlikely to happen anyway.

I'd like to see this. We now have genuine options out wide. Get Brereton central, closer to the goal and also closer to our other main threat in Dack. We need a player who can occupy centre backs. Brereton is a hard worker. I'd rather see him hassling opposition centre backs than tracking his full back to our own penalty area.

If I'm too look for positives (and that's not to discount the mess of deadline day) then Dack being back to his best is like having a new player. Sorba offers something different, Jrc has been performing well. Buckley is back from suspension too. Once Hyam is back the squad will be looking a little less stretched. I do think one of our big losses is Brereton being bang out of form. I do think we've the quality in the squad to pick up wins, though my gut says we'll fall short. If Brereton and Dack were both firing with Sorba offering a different kind of threat then I see potential for us. Hopefully this starts with a good victory tonight and we can have a good second half of the season.

Feel like this is a huge game for us with the mess of a transfer window and the bad taste it's left. We need a win desperately. A bad run of form could see a real negativity Sweep through the club. That's never good regardless of its justification. The squad needed strengthening, it feels unlikely that it's capable of the playoffs, but we're still in a strong league position. To quote Souness, you can only wee with the willy you're given, so hopefully we can get a win and a bit of momentum.

Spot on

Looks like we could have hit 7 or 8 with better finishing.

With the amount of money Chelsea have spent they will expect success. If they continue not delivering Potter will be gone. The only exception which proves the rule is Rovers under Mowbray.

Not the time for any kind of protest. If you'd asked me what my demands were of the club at the back end of last season, it would have been the type of structure we are putting in place with someone like Broughton at the helm. The transfer window was a farce. But we simply do not know all the facts right now. Nixon has released info as to what happened. I'm aware these could be half truths to take control of the narrative, but if true then I can't beat the club too hard with what has happened. Any criticism which I would level at the club, Broughton has stated we will learn from and I appreciate his honesty. More information needs to come to light for fans to have the full picture of what happened this January. Anything prior to this is a knee jerk reaction.

With the amount of deals potentially going through close to the deadline and everything being submitted and possibly returned in real time the EFL must have a team of people manning the operation. The relegation clause is such an arbitrary thing to pick up on and dependent on the wording, legally speaking something which would have needed no clarification. It is also such a stupid request that you can guarantee there would be no consistency between those registering the deal. There is a clear argument that had this ridiculous request not been made there would have been plenty time for the correction of the misspelled name. If these are all the facts surrounding the O'brien deal then the EFL don't have a leg to stand on. Lawyer up Rovers.

Working on the assumption that Nicko has given all the reasons and its not a half truth with spin from the club I wonder if Rovers could threaten the EFL with legal action should they reject the appeal. It's hitting the nuclear button, but if true they need to understand they are in charge of a billion pound industry and thus need to be held accountable when making random decisions / requests. I assume the clause we had entered stated if Rovers are promoted we pay £10 million, not if Rovers are no longer in the championship next season. Legally that wording is clear and there grounds for it to be sent back.

Pretty obvious that the club is leaking news to Nixon as a means of trying to strengthen their chances during the appeal. Those reasons for the deals being rejected are ridiculous. Make the reasons public and expose the EFL for the unfit organisation that they are. If they reject appeals out of fear of a backlash from other clubs having this information in the public domain is a last chance attempt at getting them to see sense.

Wow. Just, wow. If this is true then I agree that we need to be more careful and diligent with our paperwork. But how petty is this? The EFL aren't fit to govern. If paperwork is sent back for a reason plucked out of thin air. Surely if there is clarification needed on these sorts of things then the initial timestamp of the submitted paperwork should be honoured.

Forest were notified immediately once the deal was in jeopardy and easily could have had him in their sqaud, especially since Cooper said it was a tough decision allowing him to go out on loan. Basically we're shit and have cocked up massively, but he can't preach about treating players respectfully.

We were never going to clear out all the incompetent people and processes in one clean sweep. I think it's a reasonable assumption for Broughton to make that admin wise our current set up would be able to get the correct paperwork done, since they have been doing that for years. It's an assumption he'll be gravely regretting right now and one I'm sure he will put right. He's been let down big time. He could easily point the finger at our incompetent process. But credit to him that even though it wasn't his specific task to complete, in my eyes he has owned up to the fact he's made an assumption that the person in place was competent in their role. He has said we'll learn from it and I've every faith that we will.

Agreed. I think Broughton hits on most of the points made on here. An apology, admitting communication has been poor and is as honest and transparent as he can possibly be whilst the appeal process is ongoing. I also appreciate his honesty around having little hope the appeal will be successful. It's clear to me that somebody in the process (Silvester) has let him down. If he were to point the finger directly at him, people would level the same criticism at him that we are at Waggot and many others. That he's all about self preservation and trying to shift the blame. Broughton taking full responsibility at this moment doesn't excuse what has happened, however its the right thing to do. Personally I have faith that he will ensure this doesn't happen again. Calling for him to step down is calling for the only open/honest bunch of the lot to step aside.

It was stated, clear as day when Broughton was brought in that Waggot looks after the commercial side and Broughton looks after the footballing side. There was absolutely no need for Waggot to be in Birmingham. Sure player transfers creates a grey area around whether it's commercial or footballing side, however the fact is only two people at the club have authority to sign off on paper work. Waggot and Silvester. So what on earth was he doing in Birmingham. Either he just fancied it and doesn't take his responsibilities seriously. (Does he attends every Rovers game, specifically away games. If not, why this one.) Or he knew there was potential for this to go wrong (or wanted it to go wrong) so travelled to Birmingham to take himself out the firing line. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but the fact it's been leaked that he was in Birmingham is suspicious. It's either that he knew something was afoot or that his main priorities in the aftermath of this mess is self-preservation, rather than engagement with the fans and fixing this mess.

Why are we talking for for multiple pages about attendances? Threads get derailed but could this not be discussed on its own thread. With the mess we've made of this transfer window it's not as though there is nothing on topic which we can discuss.

Regardless of whether this does or does not go through, when the club finally decide to communicate we need a proper break down of exactly what has happened. I don't like hanging people out to dry but if GB wants to retain any respect, names are needed, exactly what they didn't do and some kind of evidence this will be learned from. I don't necessarily want to see heads roll, but accountability is the bare minimum.