bluebruce

There is sound on the stream on the Blackburn Rovers youtube channel.

Sorry if I've missed it, but why on earth are Rovers fans not allowed to attend? Do NEC have thug fans that can't be trusted to behave if we are there? Edit - Nevermind, I had only read the first page, now I see they do indeed have thuggish fans.

I wish them the best of luck in their careers.

If a new RW is playing on the LW, that means Hedges is starting at RW. A sobering thought.

I'm worried about us losing Brittain's crosses, giving Gueye in particular no supply, but perhaps Miller's long throws will compensate.

And we could bring Tyjon through only for him to fuck off for well under value at the end of the season. Until he signs that contract I have absolutely zero interest in potentially sacrificing our season to develop him.

Fair enough, I was oblivious to this. Although I'm not sure the u21s could be expected to provide one. It's a bit hard to say it's a senior league when it's not even senior football.

I was really hoping today's thread would be a battle over whether or not someone got the exciting scoop on a preseason friendly the other week.

Is this a thing? Exchanging pennants at kickoff in friendlies?

And I do like the idea of an athletic, quick team that can harass the opposition and break with pace. But I also worry about how many soft tissue injuries we will pick up. Given we already get quite a few with our not particularly fast team, I think this approach may necessitate more depth than we will accrue.

It feels a bit like we could be swapping having one excellent FB on each flank before Jan last season (Beck and Brittain) for having two dependable FBs on each flank (Ribeiro and Pickering, albeit the latter was already here, and Miller and Alebiosu). Of course, the fullness of time will bear out whether that's an accurate assessment, but I wonder how to feel about that if it is. Ideally you'd have quality and depth like we did at LB all season really. At RB though we got a little lucky that Brittain stayed fitter than the season before, as none of the backup options was particularly palatable. And maybe one of the new lads will prove to be quality, but it's hard to see either being immediately as good as Brittain was. The video I found of a younger Miller suggests he moves a bit like Brittain, but I didn't see much evidence of the high quality delivery Callum has. But if he has learnt since then and can defend better than CB there might not be much in it.

That seems strange, as going off the video I posted (admittedly 3 years old) he is quick with good feet, and can even shift direction quickly for a big lad. Perhaps he has other attributes but it feels like playing him at RCB wastes some of his best attributes.

I've been wondering if the holdup on further activity was the Brittain sale and seeing if we could get Baradji for a sufficiently low guaranteed fee. But then I keep remembering that outgoing transfers have no impact on our budget according to Gestede (a stance I find hard to believe, as surely without all these sales we would be spending even less).

Lewis Miller...24 year old (25 before end of August) 6 ft 2 inches right back with 14 caps for Australia, as well as 2 international goals. They're not what they used to be the Socceroos, but we don't have a lot of internationals. Spent 3 seasons at Hibs, out of contract next season. Played in the A-League in Australia before that. Wiki has him down as 144 career club appearances and 6 goals (5 of them at Hibs in his 85 games for them, all in the last 2 seasons and 3 of them in the league). Struggling to find much in the way of highlights reels, none from his time at Hibs, this one being the most ecent... And that's SMI, not to be confused with SEM of SEM and Kentaro infamy, in case anybody else made the same mistake as I did for a moment.

That would be the best exit of all.

So so weird...I have YouTube on as I'm scrolling down here, and an ad was playing as I got to this...a Fosters ad!

If you watch it on fullscreen on a laptop (and maybe zoom in), you can see him scoring a belter from just past the halfway line. Keeper wasn't even that far off his line, and probably should have done better tbf, but there are some top players who've failed to hit the target from that distance their whole careers. Kane has tried it a lot and I think only scored one or two. What amused me was the complete lack of reaction from the coaches on the sideline. I think it's the opposition's coaches, but still, you'd think nothing had happened at all.

I was about to post this. To summarise, Brittain on the way out, Drameh not likely to be in our budget, and basically nobody we have been linked with lately looks like coming. Another CB only seen as a 'maybe', whereas personally I consider it a must, as we were already looking for one before we did the Batth out McCloughlin in move, and before Carter's fresh injury. Doesn't make for joyous reading.

What does that achieve? Does it not make the balance sheet look weaker to banks for loans, with less assets relative to debts? Or is it designed to create a 'loss' and reduce tax bills?

Exactly what I had been thinking, or loan out Leonard meanwhile and perhaps swap the loanee roles in Jan if Tabor didn't work out and Leonard's loan did. At the low investment it would have been worth a punt methinks. Surprised with our budget we weren't sniffing. Ah well. Be interesting to see if his career kicks on from here.

Just noticed that Swindon have signed non-league goalscoring phenomenon Jake Tabor, and feel a bit like an opportunity may have been missed (by a lot of teams tbf). Yes he's been playing in the 9th tier I believe, but if he manages even half as many goals (127 goals in his last 91 games) he's probably costing upwards of a million by the end of the season, as he's just turning 22. Swindon have probably paid buttons. He apparently also broke the record on Holloway's fitness test he's been using all his managerial career, whilst on trial, having been using non league facilities til now. Could be the next Jamie Vardy type. In fact from what I can tell it's considerably more goals than Vardy was scoring at the same age just one or two tiers higher. With a nominal fee, surely would have been a better bet than targeting no striker at all. Even if it didn't work out by January a decent loan wouldn't have been too hard to secure.

If Manure weren't bribing the refs we would have won the league in 93-94 too.

I do assume it's bullshit, as it doesn't add up with previous reports. Allegedly Arsenal had already had a 1 mill bid turned down, quite widely reported. Why would they then turn their attention to a kid costing 200k, presumably not outbid Liverpool's 200k for him despite having been willing to spend a mill on a youngster with that sort of profile, and then turn their attention back to the kid who will cost upwards of 1 mill?

This comment seems to have gone unnoticed. Where is the link from?

I don't think the Dolan (who was 18 not 17) scenario is the intention with signing such young players. The intent is to see if they can develop (and sometimes just to fill spaces at youth level or let someone else go on loan).