bluebruce

That guy on the pitch gives me kittens. Uh looks another odd sub (Graham for JRC)...Arma going wide?

Weren't we 4 points off top 6 before today? Could do with other teams dropping points. Then again you never know which teams will end up there at the end. We may be 3 points ahead of whoever finishes 6th at the mo. Why am I letting myself dream again?

I think you've maybe forgotten how bad Brereton is? I think this is a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder. At least Gallagher has a little pace, a strong work ethic, a modicum of skill now and again, and is better in the air than Brereton. Absolutely shouldn't be playing on the wing either, but definitely better than BB.

Huh, I'm listening to Rovers commentary.

Someone said he was on 60k a week before his release. So probably well out of our league.

Disagree. Before the knocks it wasn't that bad. There were even a few brief passing moves where I thought the link up play was lovely. Flashes of what we showed against Sheff W and the first half of QPR. Ever since JRC went down the momentum died though and it has been utterly turgid.

That's a stretch. Looked like scoring a few times, so did they. A draw is the correct HT score. We were coming into the ascendancy until the JRC and Holtby knocks.

That's...no better. Fucking hell. Even at junior level if I was on the bench I had full kit and boots on. I wonder if that's why TM said fuck it, Bennett instead. Seems a daft sub. Could have just brought one of our three strikers on and put Arma in the hole. Instead we are shifting a few around?

I wouldn't mind but we already knew about the midfield injury crisis and that Holtby wasn't the most robust.

Did they just say Graham went down the tunnel to put his match boots on?? What kind of amateur hour shit is that? Or did I mishear?

Yeh it was skous who said nose bleeding.

Is it just his nose? Just saw a lot of blood on his hand. Bandage on his head. Last thing we need is another long term injury, especially for a young lad trying to make his way into the team. Looks like he will play on though.

Well...I guess I should add I would have considered putting Downing at LB, Davenport in CM, and/or replacing Gally with Chapman, but I understand his decisions and how it's risky to tinker too much with a winning lineup. I'm hoping TM has finally learnt that lesson too, but I've had that false dawn before...

You don't get credit just for not picking Bennett against all logic. Especially when he looked painfully lethargic last time out. Happy with the lineup though. I mean, except Bell, but we don't have an option, and Gallagher where we do have options but none Tony is going to use. He does need to persevere with his 5 million pound lad (not mocking, he really does after BBgate). Down to the lads now.

What's frustrating is we should be coming into this game in high spirits full of hope after a couple of welcome additions to the squad and a few points off the playoffs after two good wins in a row. Instead the game feels clad in a sense of futility knowing it's extremely unlikely we will now have enough in the tank to get over that finish line at season's end, even if we win today. Hopefully the players feel more resolve than many of us do though, and get the win today regardless. It's their job after all.

Or you could just not come back in if you don't want to read it, and let others discuss the outcome and repercussions of the window if you no longer have interest. Zero reason to close it yet.

Why not? It's not as if he is going to be fired. We have the manager we have, and we need to sign players under him as there are glaring weaknesses in our squad depth and even some of our first choices. That needs resolving. Incompetence is no excuse for inactivity. He could always strike lucky even if it was true he didn't have a clue what he was doing. This failure adds fuel to the fire which you seem to think we should just contentedly watch burn.

I've no idea why that confuses you.

Assuming Sharpe is right about that being the end of our so-called business, I'm not sure which part of it frustrates me the most. There are a few leading contenders... 1) That we just completely gave up the ghost at 5.30pm, with 5-and-a-half hours of the window remaining, despite being the only club in the league to sign absolutely nobody and despite an injury crisis in midfield. This one again depends on Sharpe's post at half 5 having been correct. But no checking around old targets to see if the 2) Having said for ages that left back and goalkeeper were our two priorities...I know the Dack injury changed the dynamic, but we then let a young left back and young goalie leave on loan. Admittedly they were low down the pecking order, but if our already poor keeper and LB get injured, we are going to be really scraping. 3) Mowbray's bizarre comments during the window, including announcing that he is a poor negotiator. 4) That our already difficult summer window is likely to now need epic efforts from a recruitment and negotiation team who have shown they aren't up to much. 5) We know wages are our issue. Despite this, we seem to have relied mostly (or at least near the end) on getting charity from Premier League clubs for their players who earn double or more what our highest paid earn. Even though for I think about 18 months now we've been hearing about this European scouting network coming in (even though we haven't yet hired the head scout for it). European clubs and lower league clubs are, as TM himself has pointed out, cheaper targets in terms of fees and wages. Yes we piddled about on the Pole and Curtis (whilst ignoring Maddison), but sounds like we offered 2 when the price was 3. In all honesty, what's offering another 500k or so, a million if needed, really going to matter to us for the right player? Instead we'd rather revert back to the 'lets loan someone we will have to replace again in the summer' model. 6) That Tony apparently never raises his offers (even though we have absolutely done so under him in the past, and even though every other club works that way and expects us to work that way). 7) That we have basically repeated the whole experience of last January, having learnt nothing from it. You all know it...sign nobody when on the cusp of the playoffs, leave some areas of the pitch perilously thin, talk in platitudes about who we 'nearly got' but 'prices were outrageous' while literally everybody else did business, and pray nobody gets injured. The only thing missing now is a critical injury happening imminently. In fact last year was actually better than this one, because we did sign Chapman...then failed to use him. 8- The fact that some fans seem to think all of this is actually fine and dandy. The same ones who are probably going to talk, with all sincerity, about our playoff hopes being good. No, a win tomorrow won't make them good. Overall though the winner really has to be being the only club in the whole league to not sign anyone, despite a pressing need to do so. Ultimately I suppose we now have to hope that either we do sign someone after all, or that this all turns out to be a blessing in disguise, that the youngsters get blooded and prove mostly up to it, reducing our task in the summer.

Even they only lost points which didn't affect their playoff or relegation prospects.

Any progress on this? Everybody seemed to agree it would be fine, but I just ran out of likes again.

We aren't playing cute around FFP though, that's the whole problem. Everyone else is, and we are just taking it on the chin. Hell it doesn't even kick in for us until summer 2021 - proper recruitment and we could be promoted by then!! I mean, in the however many years FFP has been running now, how many clubs have been punished by it? Some teams who gambled on the promotion successfully and received paltry fines. Birmingham with their points deduction that didn't tangibly harm them (and now they're spending again). Then that time that I think three of us (us, Forest and someone else) got embargoes but were still able to sign freebies and under certain conditions. An embargo doesn't even massively matter if you just spend the money wisely beforehand. We are one of a very small clutch of clubs who haven't succeeded in playing cute around FFP. We must be the only club who harp on about it to the extent we do. On your last point, why wait til summer to need to get 6 new players PLUS the ones we already need? We can't sign one player in a whole window, I hardly fancy our chances in the summer of signing the 9 that even permanently positive people like Chaddy think we need.

And yet I expect we are one of the clubs who needed to the most. With injuries to Dack, Evans and Rothwell, shocking at left back, paper thin resistance to injury problems in defence and a poor goalie. Not to mention the huge amount of contracts running out this summer. It's unconscionable to not pick anyone up this month.

Same. We pissed away a great opportunity to do this last season when we were the first club to mathematically have nothing to play for, though, so I dunno how committed TM is to that mantra regardless what he says. But if we have no signings, push may come to shove anyway. You can be sure Benno is ahead of every up and comer for first backup option in any position though.

There isn't. We have an option to extend it by 12 months. It's in our favour not the player's according to the LT.