Wrong thread Phil but Buckley was terrible. Not his fault, not where he plays and he has none of the attributes for the role, but in no way was he outstanding.

It would be harsh if I was telling him. I'm not writing him off per se, anyway, I'm just not holding out a great deal of hope he will be able to beat his injury issues. He looks an exciting player, I'm just not going to expect anything as that looks very likely to lead to disappointment. I think he has had something else minor in between (but you will after a long layoff, see Dack), but the fact it's mostly been his back makes it less likely, not more, that he will move past it. Very troublesome area like Tyrone says. Best of luck to him though and it will be great if I'm wrong.

Millwall goal was a rocket, and not where you would expect him to have aimed it. No fault on TK for me on that one. My concern with him remains his love of punching or clawing the ball when he could just catch it. I think his handling might be a little suspect and he knows it, so he opts for moving it away instead. Good points raised by some about how with his sweeper keeper style he is susceptible to a lobbing from a good technical player who snatches the ball unexpectedly. But overall he has been great and a terrific calming influence for our defence. His distribution may have been affected for the same reasons even the likes of Holtby were - those bastard green and white shirts! Even more difficult to pick your man over long distances (although more time to look in his position). You're right, total disgrace to have suffered poor keepers since coming down (Raya apart, for me, though I'd have liked a reliable experienced competition for his more eccentric spells). Especially when it tends to be the cheapest, most underrated position on the pitch. Always thought the market values them totally wrong. Friedel was worth his weight in gold.

I'd stop worrying yourself about Butterworth. Sadly I suspect he simply isn't going to make it here. Not through any fault of his or lack of talent, just because his injury problems unfortunately seem to be endless. Best of luck to him and I very much hope I'm wrong, but to have had as many injury woes as he has, at his age, it doesn't look good.

I recently started playing again, 7 a side. Played a couple of times before lockdown, the lads just come in whatever shirts they want and we randomly pick sides. Both times, nearly everyone has come wearing black (not me, I sport my Rovers shirt). First time we got away with it because we got bibs from the sports centre. Idiotically, everyone came in black again the second time but this time no bibs. Every time I got the ball I just felt like I was surrounded. I don't even know most of the lads that well yet so it was nearly impossible for me to pick a pass quickly enough. The first game with bibs, I played well and my passing and reading of the game was a big part of it. Without the bibs I was fucking awful (some other factors too but definitely exacerbated by not knowing at a glance who and where my teammates and the opposition were). I was so pissed off I went and bought some bibs for next time we play. Watching Rovers last night quickly reminded me of that game. I can imagine that even our professionals had a similar experience. It's fucking hard work in a game that relies on reading everybody's position and movement quickly. Not sure it can have helped Millwall either tbf.

' The manager again fucked us tonight with his negative defensive bollox! ' I'm confused. Haven't they played like that for, oh, about 20 years?

I don't understand your sarcasm. I thought it was superb, personally, when Mowbray's shot deflected massively off that Millwall guy into the net.

How do you get 4 minutes of injury time from 45 minutes of football, where you actually have a guy down injured for a while who gets walked off, then in the next 4 minutes of football, with no injuries, you build up another 2? FUCK OFF REF! Delighted to nab it though. And fuck Millwall and their penalty appeal 2 minutes after the game should have been over. (Even if they probably should have had two penalties earlier in the game)

He almost seems surprised to find himself in so much space and not quite sure what to do with it.

If it helps, which it won't, it's just under 3 years. Across 4 seasons though.

Only just seen that Tony Parkes cutout in the ground

Bell needs to stop leaving Romeo in acres of space unattended. No idea why the commentator just said he has done a good job on him.

More open than I expected tbh.

Struggling to understand why Kaminski palms that out instead of catching it. Giving them an unnecessary chance.

I can't for the life of me understand why a possession based team boots the ball to absolutely nowhere from kickoffs.

The rumours, true or not, of us going for Bamford and Celina and not being able to agree wages, don't change a single thing about what I posted. That's just examples of us going for possibly more expensive players overall and failing. I never said anything about us spending above budget, I merely said it was a huge gamble to put so much of our budget into one young, far less tested player given our situation at the time. Someone, you I think, made a good point that maybe we weren't ready to step up to a promotion level at that point or the season after anyway, which could be true. Impossible to say given what a bit of momentum from winning a few more games with a seasoned player can do, but still a good point. Thankfully we have finally patched our defence together it seems, or else even BB playing as well as he is now wouldn't have saved this one as having a chance of being a good signing. Hopefully it all comes together this year and we can go up, before the potential exodus due to the contract situation, FFP, and having various saleable assets.

It makes no sense to compare what top (financially) Champ clubs spend to what we spend. Most of them have parachute money- much like we did when we spent a ton firing managers. The others will probably fail FFP if they don't go up soon, or have been sneaky around the restrictions in a way we clearly aren't willing to be. 7 million was very much a talismanic figure for the newly promoted, natural cash flow deprived, FFP-beholden Blackburn Rovers of 2018 to spend on a single 19-year old striker with 9 goals to his name, and to think otherwise is to ignore reality. It was a serious statement of intent, and a huge gamble, and nothing subsequent to it happening will ever change that. There isn't a sane Rovers fan who isn't delighted the gamble is finally paying dividends.

I raised, a very long time ago, that Brexit would likely cause problems for our new European scouting network. Nobody seemed interested. Think this could signal the start of the end for the Prem being the world's foremost league (in terms of finance and viewership anyway). Never thought the work permit system was fair in football anyway, it was never really an issue for big clubs throwing loads of money at top prospects, but got in the way of smaller clubs trying to source cost effective improvements. This system sounds like it will be in the same vein. Clubs like ourselves will likely then have even more reliance on loaning the top youngsters the top clubs sweep up. Game is fixed. Didn't Tugay or Friedel initially fail a work permit once and had to appeal? Or am I remembering that wrong?

License to print money.

And I suppose you didn't read the part where I said 'the lower the better'.

Certainly. But no guarantees lol. They'll have their best player in this time I expect, and we will just be coming out of a torturous December schedule. And the third round is usually the only time you get the chance to play against a much lower level side. I always want a League Two or even non-league side so some of the fringe and youth players can get a run out and so we have the best chance of progression. Always the risk of being embarrassed though of course...but that applies against League One too.

Tedious draw. Not because of the level they're at, the lower the better, but because it's the exact same fucking draw we got for the other cup!

It's because he is actually about positively accepting our current mediocrity.

It's been well reported that he clattered into the cock of a teammate during a game and left him needing stitches in it (I like to refer to him as cock-killing keeper Kaminski). Along with one or two other errors in a short span this saw him lose favour quickly at Gent, who sold him for probably a lot less than they would have a few months earlier. We had him well scouted, so we nipped in quickly.

I'm not convinced by him yet either. But I think it was down to a lot more than that, several players were demonstrably off their game. I wonder how much was tired legs. We may need to rotate very shrewdly during this run.