bluebruce

Dunno if it's the best idea to be brutally honest. Will be 22 with no senior appearances by the time he is eligible again. Ligament injuries can make a player regress too. That said, probably won't cost enough to affect anything at all in the grand scheme of things. And suppose he could still come good. I do feel sorry for the lad with the timing.

How did you 'estimate' so precisely? Have you counted all the unavailable seats?

I'd honestly rather play Hilton. But, Pears has been on the bench under JDT so he's obviously next in line and will likely play tonight for better or worse.

No. Not one game. He had been shit before too. I forget the game/s and circumstances, but the season before last we had pretty much written him off as shite. Last season he seemed to have improved and had a series of acceptable performances (nowhere near as good as they were bigged up by some, the defence did most of the work but he performed solidly) before the Wigan clangers. But Wigan was by no means the first time he had looked like a shaky keeper.

Pears might need to play, but we certainly don't need Pears to play.

We do need our back and sides securing. Got to think what her teammates might think though, does she make the crew's cut? If not it could get hairy and bobble over. Course, I reckon they'd be happy enough if she scissored for them.

Yes, we don't have (reliable) evidence of an issue with Dack. I never said we did either. I know I'd be a little hacked off at not getting on the pitch in either game, even with a heavy lead in the second. Hartlepool should be when he gets his chance though, and I suspect he will have been kept on the bench in anticipation of playing midweek (don't see what difference 10 minutes would have made to that though).

Personally I didn't want hair (her) here at all, so I consider this a very close shave.

You have no idea what he would or wouldn't resort to. I imagine you've never even met the man. Just because it would be foolish doesn't mean someone won't do it. Everybody should know that by adulthood.

How do we know that? Cos he seems like a nice, bubbly lad in interviews? He has been top dog here for years, most players would come across cheery. The test of character is when someone is feeling adversity.

Just a question here Chaddy, and I'm not looking to provoke you or argue. And it's not about this quote specifically either. But I'm just curious, do you ever look at a Rovers transfer story from a journalist and think 'nah I don't really believe that'? I don't mean when another journalist denies it either.

Can't see JRC attracting a buyer tbh. Injury prone, probably only appealing to League One or lower, but after a couple of seasons around a Championship squad I bet he'd expect more wages than a lower league side will be willing to stump for an injury prone player. Depends partly on what he is on now I guess. But yeh I'd quite like to move him on. I'd take a fairly cheap deal with a decent sell on. Don't think he is much use to us, but if he gets better luck with injuries I could see him improving in the future.

That just isn't going to happen unfortunately. We couldn't keep two players who graduated from our own academy and another who didn't, who are good Championship players but no more than that for now. Why would we be able to convince a Chilean international star, coveted by numerous clubs, to sign on for far less money than he will get elsewhere and forego the fantastic signing on fee he will be eligible for next summer? Optimism is all well and good but it should be grounded in reality too. The only scenario I can see it happening is in the fairly unlikely one that we get promoted this season. Even then, it relies on him not signing a pre-contract with a foreign club in January. We know some are looking.

Hopefully they're all like that for most of the season!

Is this something he has actually said? The only young debuts he has given so far are Vale (first start anyway not first game) and the young lad on loan from Liverpool.

No no, it's not a question at all. It's as near to a fact as it's possible to get, that he wasn't.

No need for the 'blimey', I'm not saying sack the manager or anything, it's not a huge deal, just think it's the wrong judgement call. The chances of one of our keepers picking up an injury on the day, and then the other getting injured during the game in order for him to actually need to come on, are extremely, extremely slim. I see no reason he couldn't have played the game, and then driven down tomorrow for the unlikely eventuality of a keeper becoming unavailable at short notice.

Don't talk to Pep like that, it's disrespectful.

It makes sense, but not at the expense of him missing the u21s game. He won't even make the bench.

Doesn't make sense to me. They spend all week together. Making sure Hilton has match experience and sharpness, as well as helping the u21s get off to a good start, seems more important to me than some nebulous idea of keeping the team together for a day by keeping the third choice keeper loitering around.

As well as Pears? It's a full day before a match he has almost no chance of playing in, would have thought we'd keep him in shape with the u21s.

Who is Khan? One of our 11 million young keepers? If I remember rightly, Eastham and Goddard are out on loan...is Hilton?

Nah mate, Mowbray left months ago.

Aye I was only being facetious. You know how that is 😉

If he affected the team last season, he's something special. We only employed him this summer.