15 minutes ago, Ladyboys of Bank Top said:

Reading the Oxford forum it seems he's been played out wide and as a  no.10. Injury prone, inconsistent but technically gifted and very good on his day seems the general consensus. We shall see.

Welcome to Rovers. 

Hopefully they're wrong. We already have an inconsistent, injury prone centre mid called Evans. Good luck Joe!

Weren't we linked to Rothwell earlier this summer? I'm sure even the LT talked about our interest. So not completely out of the blue, just had gone quiet for a while.

5 hours ago, scotchrover said:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/football/every-championship-transfer-confirmed-done-1674585.amp

This is every transfer so far in the Championship -up to and including Thursday. It’s not just us that’s moving slow chaps! 

Umm, we don't seem to be on that list. Or Rotherham. I guess only Wigan got promoted, ah well! (Might be the list is only showing clubs who have at least had an outgoing, and that just being released doesn't count?)

I think we are going to regret letting Ohztuner sign for Bolton for free. Good deal for them. Would have been the best backup for Dack we could expect, and given the option of moving Dack back a little if we were short in centre mid at any point.

1 hour ago, AJW said:

I am of the opinion that whilst not every great player has won the World Cup and equally you don't have to be a great player to win the World Cup , the greatest players have won the World Cup, that's why , Imo Pele Maradona and Zidane will always trump Cruyff Platini Ronaldo and Messi etc

I can't see the logic in this line of argument though. If Pele, Maradona, or Zidane had come from Azerbaijan, do you think they would have lifted a World Cup? They would have been the exact same player. I fail to see how any player's career comes down to whether his TEAM managed to win one, very infrequently held tournament. It certainly helps, especially if they've been the driving force in such a win, but it isn't the be all and end all.

I used to have what I feel was a very similar argument with my Arsenal-supporting friends. They reckoned Lehmann was a far better goalkeeper than Friedel, because of what he had won and how Friedel had won nothing. Would you agree with them? Perhaps you would, but at that time, with Lehmann dropping gaffs despite having less shots against him than Friedel, I thought they were mad to not want Friedel instead.

David May won far more medals than Colin Hendry. Who was the better defender? You can never boil everything down to just trophies, because it's a team sport.

5 hours ago, JAL said:

Taking rubbish ? every Rovers fan I, meet says hes crap, he's not scored since the beginning of last December in League one chaddy for your information.  He's lazy, poor in the air, lazy at tracking back, can't beat a player, doesn't have any tricks in his locker.   ....... Samuel is a fraud of a footballer get him out.

Your footballing IQ is sadly lacking, its no wonder we've fallen way behind Burnley.

 

We've fallen way behind Burnley because of Chaddy's footballing IQ?! 

DAMN YOU CHADDY!!! Why did you have to go and sack Allardyce, hire Kean, marginalise John Williams and the board, sign Murphy and Etuhu, sell our best players for peanuts, keep Bowyer in charge for too long, fail to find a way around FFP and hire that charlatan Owen Coyle!?! You and your useless footballing IQ!

29 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Where have these defensive capabilities of Conway's come from? In his better years I never had him down as a winger who particularly relished in the defensive side of his game. He has a high work rate but he's hardly a player renowned for his tenacity in the tackle. It's almost as if a benefit of him being here has snowballed into this idea that Conway is suddenly a player we can rely on against the big teams to defend from the front. I don't think that's the case at all.

Bennett alluded to his influence in the dressing room. I'd argue that's a bigger trait than any of his supposed defensive qualities.

I imagine this idea comes more from his workrate and positional understanding than from any crunching tackles. His workrate isn't quite as beneficial as it used to be since his legs are going though. Personally I'm fine with having him as a squad fringe player as long as his new deal is hugely reduced. He isn't the fantastic player he was though, and I didn't expect us to offer him another contract. But if it's a far cheaper one year deal, and he isn't seen as anything more than backup, I'm ok with it.

55 minutes ago, AdamRochina said:

Personally think that's some rovers tinted glasses mate but I hope your right.  I feel we will just scrape survival ..depending on how we do in this window IL say 18th-20th

Possibly, but I doubt it. I wouldn't have predicted us to go down if I was too far on the optimistic side I'd suggest! You did just admit to being pessimistic yourself, so maybe I look too optimistic as a result of that? I'm not generally known for my boundless optimism lol, I've been accused of being a negative person many, many times in my life. But I just call it how I see it. Not too worried about this season. I expect we might spend some little patches hovering around the relegation zone, but I do expect a roughly mid-table finish by the end.

19 minutes ago, AdamRochina said:

Forrest just smashed there transfer record .. we have to get this window right otherwise we are going straight back down.. this season the champs at its strongest .. you look at all the teams in it and wonder who we will finish above this season.  Im feeling confident we can finish above Rotherham that's about it at the minute

Funny how differently people can see things. Obviously the transfer window has yet to pan out and will be key, but at the moment I'm expecting us to end the season somewhere around mid-table. If we assume we get at least Armstrong back, and make just a couple of decent signings, that is. The squad we finished the season with was far better than the one which got relegated, in my view. That, combined with the positive momentum at the club right now to hopefully get us off to a good start, and the fact that in our relegation season we had a thoroughly disenchanted fanbase, a horrendous manager for most of it and were still very unfortunate to go down, and I'm feeling fairly confident for the season. I've had a pretty good record predicting our seasons before they start lately...I predicted we would get relegated the season we got relegated, and my summer prediction for last season was 2nd place!

Hopefully I get it right again...I also have a feeling we might surprise many and push in or around the playoffs, at least in patches, but that will largely depend on how stellar our business this summer is.

2 hours ago, blueboy3333 said:

Ireland is not Mulgrew,. I can't imagine Mulgrew inventing his Granny has died and then having a dead rat glued to his head so it doesn't fly off when he's got the roof open on his pink 4x4.

It's about character as much as ability. The current squad have it in abundance, we don't want any overpaid dollopers rocking the boat.

Wasn't saying he is, just that people were asking for an older player to disprove that they're all Murphys and Etuhus, and Mulgrew is a prime example. Most of us were hesitant about Mulgrew at the time.

Sadly, Whittingham hasn't been up to much despite appearing an exciting signing for League One. Transfers can always go either way, even the ones which appear shocking or fantastic at first.

But no, I wouldn't want Ireland anymore either.

15 hours ago, JacknOry said:

Good player in his prime but signing like this just make me hark back to the days of Murhpy et al. id love for us to sign an older player and it work out for us so that I can stem the dread whenever we are linked to any.

Mulgrew

6 hours ago, Tom said:

I thought it was the guy that presents Pointless, kind of disappointed to learn it's not.

If he turns out to be a pointless signing, will that appease you?

1 hour ago, Phil T said:

If Lowe ends up at Bolton, something tells me he'll do well there. Unappreciated by his hometown club, and released on a free. What better way to redeem yourself than move to a local rival with a point to prove?

Watch this space... 

There's a reason he wasn't appreciated at his 'hometown' club (he's from Wigan actually though). Go on, I'll let you figure it out. Take your time.

On 15/07/2017 at 21:13, 47er said:

Yes, we could start with Luther's cautious move away from a literal interpretation of the Mass, move on to Zwingi's more radical theory of consubstantiation and then on to the Calvinist belief that Communion is merely an act of remembrance or commemoration of the Last Supper.

Of course this would only be necessary for those on the MB not as intelligent or informed as you and I.

Don't worry, you also won't need to elucidate for those who are as intelligent and informed as you, but who do not believe in mystical celestial divinities - rendering the whole thing moot to them.

On Friday, June 23, 2017 at 14:49, chaddyrovers said:

no we don't.

we have 5 centre half at the club already. Lenihan, Mulgrew, Ward, Wharton and Platt. Plus Nyambe and Williams can fill in there

we have 4 centre midfielders in Whittingham, Smallwood, Evans and Tomlinson

Who the hell is Platt? We need to stop including untested youth players in our summations, especially in positions where experience is essential like centre half. Ward is injury prone. Mulgrew is too. Lenihan and Mulgrew are actually natural midfielders, though both do play very well at CH. I'd consider those two the most likely candidates for last minute departures if that happens. I want to see us blood some youth in this league, but I also want to see us promoted!

On 2017-6-21 at 16:44, funny-old-game said:

Plus this = ?

He just wanted us to become crap enough that we would need him is all. Long term plan to become a Rover. True fan. 

I will cost Chinese clubs a fortune (cookie)

You're not very good then if that's all you sell for with all this money flying about.

In fairness to the bloke he appears to be a very good coach, with a far wider range of coaching experience than Bowyer has, I'm not saying I would appoint him as manager but he would be a good addition in some coaching or even scouting capacity. I think the problems most people have with him is that he has Indian heritage and the Venky's are Indian, if he did not come from an Indian background I highly doubt that anyone on here would bat an eyelid at him possibly coming into the club.

Jesus, what are you even blathering about? He's only been coaching a few years and has purely trained kids for such footballing luminaries as St Kitts and Nevis, Latvia, and Taiwan!! Bowyer has coached our youth, been reserve manager, caretaker manager, and then full manager of Rovers. He also saved our pathetic hide last season.

I can't tell if you're on the wind up, are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that somebody who has what, three years experience of coaching, none of it in the English game or even in any remotely top level league (or any league, it's all been international youth setups) is somebody that none of us would mind being appointed purely if he wasn't Indian? Besides, the talk isn't really about him being a youth coach, the rumour seems to be in a far more senior capacity.

Who do you think?

He doesn't seem to be getting any game time for Palace. Looking at skysports, it seems like their strikers have been subbed off for other strikers, but not Goodwillie. One sub appearance to date.

Disgraceful if true. Utterly unacceptable. It's handy and all, that Etuhu can cover at CB, but that leaves us relying on lowe to shield our shakey defence (Petrovic is listed), which was the biggest on-field reason we went down. Why are we signing nine million midfielders, where we already had sufficient numbers, instead of addressing this? It's sheer stupidity or worse, there is no excuse. Still contemplating a youth player on loan in midfield though, what the hell?

If we don't sign a single defender, I say this window has been a disaster.

Overall Webb wasn't overly pro united I thought, scholes should have been booked but it was never a foul, he also didn't book hoilett for kicking the ball away and had a small chance of giving them a penalty, he doesn't normally pass those up

There was a foul Scholes made earlier than that that he should DEFINITELY have been booked for at least.

Can't agree- that goal was offside and never crossed the line, and those are the linesman's job to spot, but there was also a foul or two, and a handball, and the ref didn't spot those either. Whoever was responsible, that is the single most illegal goal I ever saw.

there is no point in bringing him on if we are getting beat, we must start him for us to try to gain any goal lead over everton on sat. I can see it now we are getting beat 2 or 3 nil on Sat kean brings him on for 20 mins or so, he scores and we are playing miles better and he is creating chances for our team and all the fans will be thinking "why the F did he not start him?"

So on that note he is a must to start on sat in my eyes, if he is out of his depth he can then take him off

Odd logic. Alternative scenario for you- we start him, he bottles it and plays crap, his Rovers career never takes off, Kean gets slated. You have to be careful introducing new, and young, players. Just because he's looked good in the ressies does not make him our new messiah. Starting him (probably on his own up front, too) would be madness.

Chalk up Ashby at Ewood Park, 1994 vs Manchester United. Berg wins the ball from Sharp, and amazingly is given a penalty against him and sent off. Crazy.

That's happened to numerous players over the years. The way I recall it, what made that particular one so ludicrous was that if anything, Berg was fouled by Sharp. Or at least that it was a 50-50.

All time Rovers refereeing cockup for me is -that- West Ham goal that never was. I forget the year. But disallowable on about 5 or 6 counts, yet both the ref and linesman missed them all. What are the odds?

In light of today's sad news, I'm wondering if there is any chance that anybody has got any footage from the days of Ronnie Clayton? I know it's a bit unlikely, but it's an era of the club I'd love to see a glimpse of.