bluebruce

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.

It's eke. But it certainly felt like eek...

Those stats...we had something like 63 percent possession but Barnsley had 23 shots to our 7! Just glad we won though. We can't afford too many first half like that given how bad we are at coming from behind and how often we win when scoring first.

Pretty sure it didnt deflect and just curled.

What a strike! Terrific technique. Whisper it quietly but, Gally is looking like he has had a BB-esque transformation...

If we were playing right now, that would probably have been the moment a Barnsley shot flew in from 50 yards. Don't tempt fate, it's a bitch.

Lord knows where you got that from, he was pants except for one nice shimmy that started a move. The only player who was decent that half was Kaminski.

Please don't say such things.

Ref started with a policy of 'if someone goes to the deck and somebody has even remotely touched them in any way, it's a foul'. Somewhere around the 30 minute mark he added an addendum - 'unless they're wearing blue and white, in which case even if they were fouled they can bugger off'.

Wow, thoroughly undeserved lead! Barnstorming run from Nyambe and perfect cutback, finished with aplomb by Arma. A lot of players would have given up on that, but not Ryno.

Excellent pass from Brereton

Softest ref in the world. If BB gets in the box with the ball and anyone so much as breathes on him, he needs to go down, ref will give it.

We have had about 70 percent possession and lost games before. I'm not going to get too happy about the 75 percent possession, as high as it is. But the 3-0 is highly welcome.

For clarity (for others...you probably realised yourself) those remarks were imaginary Alex Neil interview quotes. I read the thread...think the Preston lot had a decent sense of humour about it, though also some righteous indignation at their ineptitude tonight and recently. I didn't see any of the billy big bollocks talk I've come to associate with their fans in recent years which has made me start to dislike them (though I do wonder if they appreciate how much they're punching above their weight based on current resources). Mind you, it's hard to talk like billy big bollocks when your bollocks have just been snipped.