We have way too much of our squad concentrated there. We have no defence to speak of. We have no goalies at all. We have nobody who can actually play this wide striker thing TM insists on well (or if we do, putting him there leaves us with zero consistently good strikers). We have no real budget. We shouldn't be looking at CMs unless we can clear some out. Which we should try to do if at all possible. Even if we shifted Johnson I'd still see CM as the last position for us to look to. One consistently good CM is more than most areas of the pitch have.

You can guarantee the players are on that list who could be obtained for the right wages and more than adequately plug our gaps and help us kick on to promotion. It's just about picking the right ones and selling it to them. That's the hard part, and that's where I see us falling down. Then again I see us falling down even if we have a decent budget, we have before.

Christ I just thought about how much money that would save us. Probably 50-60k a week*. Up to 3 million a year. Enough to pay Whiteman's fee and wages just in the first year with money to spare. And Johnson is a liability (cracking maybe 20 percent of the time, useless or worse the other 80). Downing has started to fade and may get worse over the next year. Evans has done well when played this season but has shown inconsistency in the past and injury-proneness in the always. If Whiteman is as good as Sparks says, or we got another player who is, I wouldn't say we would really miss them. We also still have a whole batch of others who can or do play there, in reserve. * Unless SD's new deal is on far far less than the last one

Ah that's different. Then I would only slap him with Waggott's severed hand.

I'd hunt Mowbray down and hit him with Waggott's decapitated head if they sold Travis for a couple of million.

Hmm don't know him but CV looks a bit Sam Hart ish. 24 years old, 25 in November, with only 3 appearances at Championship or above, and the rest in League One or League Two as loans. He actually has less career games than Hart, at a year older. But like I say, don't know him. Presumably would be very cheap, and I'll take someone who is actually an RB as cover over Bennett, assuming that thought even enters TM's mind. The Hart deal actually makes me think this might be the type of thing TM would look at if the budget is low.

Apologies if already posted, but here's a list of the Prem players out of contract, who the article thinks might be available to Championship clubs. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lancs.live/sport/football/transfer-news/premier-league-out-contract-players-18656870.amp I don't watch any Prem anymore really with us not being in it, so a lot of the names are either unfamiliar to me or pretty old. One caught my eye when I was glancing just now though, Jordon Ibe. Still only 24, sold for 15 million four years ago. Probably a big wage job, but in this climate, could be interesting? Doesn't seem to have played much last season. Not that I don't consider the defence and GK the absolute main priority.

Obviously not in the referee's, but that makes zero difference to whether it was. As if we haven't all seen these refs making glaring mistakes on a weekly basis in this league. He had made the mistake in terms of not passing it off straight away to the defender nearby, yes, but someone was charging them down so he looked to the pass out wide instead. It was the wrong decision, but he might have managed it if the guy hadn't quite clearly bundled him over. I don't personally get where anyone is coming from with the notion it wasn't a foul. He was kicking the ball, and then he wasn't, because the guy clattered into him and sent him over. It's not the 90s anymore. But you're entitled to your opinion, I don't fancy going over it again. I was going to say though, if you want to blame him for a goal blame him for the Reading one, that was piss poor. Been a long season for Trav though, and he had that little ligament injury recently. I don't think he should even have been risked and clearly wasn't fully at the races. As I and others have said, it's about trends of quality and mistakes with these players. We get angrier cos they've been crap for a while, or we cut them slack cos they've been great. Armstrong has been in hot form, so most of the fans have forgiven his occasional wayward shots, or striking when a pass was possibly better, etc. And he didn't come through our academy. I don't see much criticism of Dack's mistakes when he's in form either. Like I said, some people do extra bum the Academy lads a little (Jason Lowe certainly got too much credit with some) but for the most part it's about how good the player has been over a recent patch of form and in the past. Bell and Bennett are just not up to scratch and we are sick of seeing it. So of course it's worse than one of our best players making the odd mistake and being human. To err is human, to err all the fucking time is Bennett.

I know it's not addressed at me, but personally I don't even think about the fact that Nyambe, Lenihan and Travis are from our academy most of the time. Only when we talk about players coming from our academy. They're undeniably three of our best players, consistent most of the time, and that's why they get more slack for their mistakes than Bell, Rothwell, Bennett. (Rothwell is a bit of a funny one, as he blows hot and cold for now. I only tire of his mistakes when they're happening in a bad patch, the rest of the time it's just the risk you take with that kind of player). They make a lot less, so we are more patient when they make them. I think that's fair. With Bell or Bennett it's just 'oh ffs not again'. I'm sure the academy angle comes into it with some fans, but it doesn't with me, and I appear to hold similar views on these players and their mistakes. There are some people who seem to give Rothwell full rein with his mistakes btw, and that'll be because he's exciting and has the potential to change a game. Travis was NOT completely at fault for Leeds' first goal, he was completely fouled for Leeds' first goal. I don't feel like going over that again but it was clear as day for me. Even the Leeds fan at work agreed with me. Lenihan was caught out aerially for Reading's goal, yep. But that's unlike him, so I can see why he didn't catch a ton of flak for it. Plus we won. The stats show we are a lot stronger with him at the back. There have been a TON of posts on here about Nyambe's weakness with crossing. Bell doesnt just have similar flaws. He has similar flaws and is ALSO horrible at the back, which Nyambe isn't. He shows less application, doesn't charge us halfway up the pitch all the time (which as I've said before often creates attacks even if he isn't the one with the final ball), and is a general accident waiting to happen. He is a little better at the final product part of things, albeit inconsistent with it, but not sufficiently better to compensate for his numerous other shortcomings. At best he is backup and a first choice needs to come in. Nyambe is fine as first choice and just needs competition. If you honestly think the two of them are of a similar level then I don't know what else to tell you.

This one really pisses me off when it pops up. Who gives a shit how many medals he has? I bet David May, in fact most of that United team of the 90s, have more medals than Shearer. But Fergie would have given his left bollock to have had Shearer. How many keepers have more medals than Friedel but aren't half the goalie? Le Tissier doesn't have any. It's a bollocks way to measure individual players because it's a team game. You compare teams of a given era by their trophies, not players.

Wtf? Ridiculous thing for Parkes to say. Greatest ever Rovers side, Barry Ferguson?!? His name wouldn't even come up. I wouldn't even name him in my top 20 Rovers midfielders. Those with older memories probably wouldn't name him in their top 50. The very fact he is saying we never saw his best is reason enough to have him nowhere near our greatest ever side. Are you sure he picked him for that and these aren't just unrelated comments? It seems like a fair appraisal until the verdict is that he's one of our greatest ever! ?

Glad they went with the later date proposed...gives us more time to not be lining up with a youth keeper in goal, etc.

And not on the same money or even close. Has to be on somewhere around 20k. I'd be having talks at a little under the 10k mark, and I expect he wouldn't take it but not sure where he gets much more in the UK at this age and in this climate. Purse strings look tight and we can't be paying big bucks to someone whose legs could go any minute and we are starting to see small signs of it already.

That doesn't cut the mustard for legend for me. A little under 1 goal every 3 games, with a good chunk of them in the second tier. That's just a 'good striker rate'. Legends (as strikers) are closer to 1 in 2, or at least somewhere inbetween the two. Of course these kinds of things are subjective and I don't mean to discredit Jansen, who I was a big fan of. Had a touch of magic about him, and was one of the trifecta with Duff and Dunn who helped us return to the Prem and show we could punch above our weight without the huge cash influxes of the past.

We still lost our most bankable players from time to time. Duff and Dunn in one summer, and later, even still being in and around those European nights, Bentley, Friedel, Warnock, Roque, Bellamy....

For me, Friedel and Tugay definitely. Jansen, no. Could potentially have been without the accident, but wasn't. Not even particularly close. Fondly remembered though.

Why, is Rudd not very good?

Jesus christ, no it's not 'being used as gospel', it's just all I had to go on for now. I'm aware of the limitations of that site. What's with the dramatic judgements on this board all the time? Can't have a discussion without it being assumed you've made your mind up and will hound a new player mercilessly for it.

Well this has garnered surprisingly little attention compared to DG being misallocated the term 'legend'. The profile you linked for Harthez shortly after doesn't look massively promising, but not a player I know. 'Aerial duels' and 'tackling' listed as his weaknesses. Well those are two of the main things I want from a LB. I don't care how good he is on the overlap if we remain porous at the back. It does say he is also a LW though. Plying his trade in the second tier in Germany at 27 isn't super promising either, but doesn't mean he isnt currently good enough. Ripley seems an upgrade on Leuts and that'll do for now.

Only one I saw, sent their guy clean through on goal and luckily he wasn't good enough to take advantage. Very poor that. I saw him do a few decent things personally. But I think he looked good against Reading, vulnerable against Luton. A bit like Magloire's two appearances last season - one highly promising, then one highly concerning. Young lads, especially in defence, generally need to learn on the job. I'm just not presently too comfortable with him doing that at Rovers. I'm with you really, a loan out for Carter (but I'm far from writing him off after two games), use Wharton as the 'young centre half coming through, being used as backup'. He has the most experience which makes him the smallest liability, in a position where experience and not making mistakes is crucial. Just a shame we only got him yet another League Two loan or we would have a clearer picture. We should try to find Magloire a loan again too, and I've no idea why Platt is still in the building.

And the crappy miskick which gave Luton their clearest chance of the game apart from the penalty?

Bennett costs us significantly more goals than he creates, annihilating the benefit. Nyambe every day, of every week, in every year, over Bennett. The stats also can't show the times Nyambe vaulted us up the pitch. That might not directly create a goal often, but it allows us to put pressure on and I'm certain has led to a few goals from moves he essentially created.

And C - that our plan is to throw the budget at the wrong area of the pitch as usual.

Any money saved is going to be needed in more important areas (right now) than an umpteenth CM. It may even just be needed to cover losses if some of the more pessimistic projections on this board are right. That's also two strikers gone. The lad from Donny may be on less than 10% of that, but I bet he will be asking for in the region of 20% of that. Then there's his fee. Maybe they'll take a cut price with the situation but maybe not. Like I said I see this as a typically mystifying Mowbray move, but the logic around it being feasible right now and even Mowbray making it his first priority given everything else, seems too hazy.

Although going straight for a central midfielder who costs money when we have tons of them, making it the last priority in the squad, and sorely need to fix our defence and GK on what could be a limited budget sounds like the absolute most Mowbray thing that could happen...I don't buy the latest Whiteman story. It seems pretty clear TM has little idea of the budget. He has outright said it in fact. Sparks said he is pulling our todger, but...to what end? Is he pulling the out of contract players todgers too? They'll figure it out pretty quickly when they see Whiteman in the building. It won't convince Donny or Whiteman, as we are actively bidding and negotiating, which you don't do without a sense of budget. I just don't see what him lying about it would accomplish.