RS is Rich Sharpe. LT reporter.

That's a waste of nasal evolution. The rest of us can smell his bullshit from miles away.

How many times have we gone on to do better the next season though? I can't hark back past the 90s for personal experience, but the times since then have been very few and far between.

Was that not before the retained list came out?

Have there been journos saying we are keeping him on? We already said on our retained list he is leaving.

You can already play senior players in the u23s. If I'm remembering rightly, you can play up to 3 players who are over 23. We just seldom do it, except when someone is returning from a long injury layoff.

It is outstanding. As roversfan99 said, take out the penalties for all of them and he tops the league for goals scored from open play. How is that not outstanding? Whether he is a PL striker is irrelevant (though, he is for me...he won't notch 28 up there but he is an average or bottom half Prem level player for me) as we aren't in the PL. If you'd consider 10 mill for a player who just scored as many as he did a laughably great deal, I'm glad you're not in charge. And given who we have in charge, that's saying something. Properly contracted English players with pace and that many goals are worth closer to triple that. Thought Dolan did fine in that role but I don't think we can expect that every week from him yet and there are other places he can play. I compared those two because they are the alternatives and there is zero evidence they could hit even half those goals. Wide they may be, but Brereton fluffs more chances than Arma, and though Gally should be given a chance there when Arma is out (and actually has been on occasion), he is a very long way from proving he can do the business there. The point was simple, that we have no proven source of goals without him. Nobody honestly believes either of those could get close to his figures. That's a much bigger problem than Rothwell not being there to make 1 or 2 barnstorming runs a game on average, 90% of which lead to nothing.

Would be the right thing to do (from the owners) if it weren't for FFP. Sadly the owners have the convenient excuse of needing to cut our cloth accordingly because of it. What happened to Sheff Wednesday shows that trying to find a way around it is a risk these days.

I genuinely can't come close to understanding why that would be your sentiment. 24 year old who just bagged 28 goals, most since Shearer, or 26 year old who absolutely can turn it on but only notches about 5 goal contributions a season. It's the definition of a no brainer. Definitely won't find any clubs willing to part with 15 million for Rothwell. I like having him around but he isn't anywhere near as important as our main goal threat. I think Armstrong scored more with his weaker left foot this season (10) than Rothwell has total goals in all his time with us. He scored more with his left foot than Brereton or Gallagher, our only two other attackers, scored in total this season. Not far off as many with it as those two scored combined (13?) I believe.

Think he means the coaching fella we took from their youth system a few weeks ago. Personally I'm absolutely certain Dolan has it in him. Bags of talent. Some of the things he can do with the ball are just magical, he's very young and has the right attitude by all accounts. However, these are key development years and I just don't think TM is remotely the right manager for him, so we will see what happens. IMO he has already lost something like 6 months worth of development this season.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/blackburn-rovers-retained-list-contracts-20590738.amp This article suggests we are only talking to him and haven't even officially tabled a contract to him. And that an official decision is likely to be made in the coming weeks. Presumably he isn't being offered very much thankfully, or he would have snapped it up you'd think.

Ahh, but sadly, Tony 'human values' Mowbray would never put the financial and footballing wellbeing of the club before the financial wellbeing of one of his players. I'm sure he would happily tell us at length about how 'wrong' it would be to avoid playing someone just to avoid triggering an extension for a bloke who contributes little but nets in a week what some people earn in a year, whilst the club spirals into debt...

No no no, you have to be a central player to be played wide under Mowbray.

If true, that's merely all the more reason, if any were needed, that he shouldn't have been played as often as he was.

Still don't see what's to be gained by retaining Johnson. Starts brightly, fades for the rest of the season. Getting old, not cheap. Daft deal to do. Like I said before, I'd take one good CM over Evans, Downing and Johnson combined.

Not seen it posted, apologies if it was. Linked to Andre Dozzell at Ipswich. Son of Jason Dozzell. https://www.google.com/amp/s/footballleagueworld.co.uk/blackburn-rovers-transfer-round-up-ipswich-town-player-on-radar-sam-clucas-latest-player-confirms-departure/amp/

Stoke aren't better than us. They finished one place above us, which is much of a muchness. They've got a better manager, like every other club in the league, but I'm certainly not looking at their roster drooling. And if they want to pay what will undoubtedly be a disproportionate amount of wage for a middling, injury-prone CM then they're welcome to it. As ever of late with any player departures, the question marks are purely over our ability to fill the void due to our managerial and budgetary shortcomings.

Probably wary of us poaching again. Sounds like that hunting ground is off limits this summer.

Outside of his injury patches, which is of course not his fault, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen you say. Dack absolutely delivered in his first season in this league, and was delivering just fine in his second until injury hit. Maybe you're baiting on purpose here and I took it too easily, but it's hard to ignore how ludicrous what you said is. Obviously Toney has worked out better, but that's not the point and he also cost a lot more.

You seem to be really against people giving their opinions. I'm not sure public message boards are for you. It's kind of the only thing that happens on them.

....yes. We had two. It would be foolish to go through the season with one.

I'm a bit surprised at Bell as the LT seemed to think he was being offered one, but clearly they got it wrong. I suppose this means we are either intending to offer Douglas a contract which I hope not, or we are dipping into the market for another LB.

Agree, think a bad move to retain Johnson, not much use most games, a liability in some, and a handful only in a handful. Not young, won't improve, could deteriorate even further and will definitely be on north of 10k p/w, probably pushing 15k. For the money I'm sure we can do better in the market. I'd rather one good, consistent midfielder in there than Evans, Johnson and Downing put together, and their wages could cover it. I bet that's 40k p/w to cover a 1 mill ish fee and a 20k p/w wage for someone.

I think it will be a bit more than that. A lot of the fans who are fed up will still attend. This forum isn't wholly representative of the fan base at large. First game of the season usually gets a bit of a bump, and there will probably be more new players than usual to assess. But I agree it will be embarrassingly low. Exactly how low probably depends on Waggot's pricing policy.

This post has made me realise. When season tickets are inevitably well down on pre-covid levels, Waggot won't admit it's because of the club taking the piss by sticking with this manager, instead he will be trotting out this line: "Well you know, people have found other ways to spend their time during the pandemic, that buzz of live matches hasn't been there and so coming back down to the ground every couple of weeks is a hard habit to get back into." Meanwhile, pretty much everyone else's season ticket sales will be fine.