bluebruce

I think JRC spent pretty much two seasons out during his youth development, that's before his first team injury issues.

And what if only an offer of £1 million had been turned down? You don't just sell for the first offer that comes along if it's nowhere near what you think you'll be able to get. Where the club (or owners) erred is in miscalculating what they could get, and I would guess, in deterring further bids by being adamant it would take double/triple the bids received.

A few of us have been saying his head hasn't seemed right, and he's confirmed it now: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/23842990.dolan-opens-mental-struggles-blackburn-rovers/ Hopefully he's out of this funk now and his performances can improve. He's better than he's been showing, and whilst I know he has always had his detractors who will probably never rate him regardless, personally I think he can be a menace at his best.

Yep, we could definitely do with him having a break instead, given we play him as frequently as we can and he puts in a shift. I'm sure he'll be made up though, just hope it doesn't start getting in the way at club level like it did with Brereton (tbf that also supercharged him initially).

I thought, surely that's not true, so I checked their results, and it is. That's even including friendlies and cup games (1 of each, and of course we haven't played friendlies or cup games there). In fact, they've only earned one more point than us at Loftus Road, 7 to our 6. That's just shocking that. 1 win in 16 home games I make it.

Anybody know how he is getting on? I see 6 games, no goals or assists (not that that means much at this stage). I see they still haven't won, though they've drawn 2 of their 3 draws in the last 5 games, and he played in those (only as a sub in the last one though...in fact he's come on as a sub in their last 2 matches so I assume he hasn't impressed much).

I wouldn't even call it poor recruitment, we had a few other recruitment priorities that should have come above it, and we didn't have the budget for those either it seems. The poor judgement was in loaning out his competition, Bucko, a player who could have rotated with him to keep the pressure off and injuries less likely. Totally bizarre move.

Good good, more of that.

Who said class? It's clearly better than 'useless' though. There are only 10 players in the whole league with more, it's double the assists of our most creative CM, who he has also created the same number of chances as. Useless is very harsh.

Probably a worse one. We needed a better keeper than Pears anyway, and that's what I'm hoping he is. I suspect he's seen as true competition rather than a reserve, but Pears as the incumbent was always gonna get first crack at it. JDT doesn't tend to drop keepers without injury enforcing it. If he turns out to be worse than Pears in the fullness of time, I'll agree it was wasted money. Pears isn't very good, so 700k should definitely buy an upgrade.

Good to know our top league assist maker is useless on the ball. The stats show he has created as many chances as Wharton. I wonder how he managed that if he's useless on the ball.

No offence, but I'm sick of seeing this argument from people. For one thing, we'd currently be trotting out one of the kid goalies, who sound way off the required level, if we hadn't signed Wahlstedt. But moreover, we didn't 'spunk most of our budget on a reserve goalie', we traded to create any budget at all. 2.5 million in, 700k out. Selling Kaminski with no replacement would have been sheer idiocy. Even if Wahlstedt doesn't prove better than Pears (we should see that more clearly over the next couple of games, managers are forever giving players time to settle in, doesn't mean they're seen as second choice long term), it's madness to go through a season with one senior keeper unless you have a prodigy in the youth team. No, we didn't really spend the difference between the fees either, but you can be pretty sure without that money we wouldn't have brought in Moran or Hill either. And the way Buckley went out on loan...who knows who else we would have had to sell or loan to keep our heads above water. The criminals in this window are Venkys, it's plain and simple for me.

Good point actually, I hadn't noticed Pickering wasn't in. Although Carter could be at RB or something.

An AMC who I believe is third top scorer in the league? And scored from that position last match. JDT has been clear he doesn't think Telalovic has adjusted yet.

I think Szmodics has been easily our best player this season. Brittain has played well though since he came in. but it's a fact we've conceded more since then, by quite a lot I believe. Probably resulting in the team being stretched, or could be coincidence, but either way he is also no good to us if he gets injured due to playing too much. Not sure JRC and Wharton is the right combo in midfield either, or at least not to try for the first time when we're away, but we'll see.

Only thing that concerns me is JRC in midfield seemingly, with Wharton, whilst Brittain plays at RB again. We've struggled defensively since JRC stopped playing there. Plus Brittain is injury prone and it was probably a good time to rest him for a match. We also have Garrett and Tronstad more directly suited to replacing Travis.

He still has 2 assists in the league, there are only 6 players in the Championship with more assists (none of them play for us).

Apologies if already mentioned, but I believe this will be the first time two former Premiership champions have met in the second tier? (I meant precisely what I said, don't bother telling me English football existed before the Prem, I'm well aware)

I've never done the Fringe myself, for fear of exactly that kind of experience. Plus it generally costs quite a bit. I'm managing to make a very small living at the moment...I'd be a bit screwed if I didn't save up at a day job for 7 years first, but I'm confident I'll build up to enough to modestly live on within the year. Other jobs are easier in terms of career path, but I've tried that, hated it, and decided I need to pursue what I love. I don't feel too bad for footballers who don't make it because they're doing the same, pursuing a dream that I'm sure they'll have been told is hard to reach. It's a shame but not everyone can make it.

Yeh it's a harsh profession. I'm in a similarly unforgiving one - acting. Apparently 90% of us are unemployed at any given time and only 2% of us make a living from the profession. But much like with football, the rewards for truly making it can be huge. Happens to very few though.

Umm, maybe you...shouldn't?

Cardiff has a population of 360k, with a wider metro population of just under 1.1 million. They have zero competition of note, in fact in the whole of Wales (3 million people) there's only one other side to realistically compete with. Being generous and leaning more towards the 'just Cardiff' figure, it's the equivalent of us taking about 100 fans there. For which I expect we would be roundly mocked. However, it's a great effort from the ones who did go, perhaps that's all you meant? Slightly poor numbers for a city of their size though. Not that I'm one to cast much judgement on attendance figures anyway tbh, they are what they are and people have all sorts of reasons for going or not.

Well if Moran is better than them in that role, he'll break into the team there. Whether he is slow or not will be irrelevant if he's a better option there. If he isn't, he will be invaluable cover and rotation for Szmodics, who is very important to us right now and is bound to get injured and/or fatigued if we flog him playing every match.

Aye that's a terrible estimate. There is no precedent for it, and despite adding in pissing off BE fans (some of whom have confirmed on here they didn't go due to the end closure) and the website ballsing up for ticket sales, they were off by what's that, about 33% ? They don't have a clue.

There didn't look to be many Cardiff fans at all from the footage.