That'll be a good signing for Body Care's team. His stock must have really fallen though.

Thing is, I can't remember a time when the majority of this board lost faith in the manager, as has happened now, and that manager turned it around. It's always been a death knell it seems. When that sort of proportion of the board think the manager can't take us forward, we've always been proven right as far as I can think back. The closest I can recall is probably Mowbray himself. I don't remember whether we quite reached that point during the disastrous start to League One, but we were certainly pretty close in the 1 win in 11. He earned a stay of execution after following that with the run of wins, finally playing Rothwell and promising defenders. But the failure to shore up the defence yet again, followed by a defeat to an awful team which evidenced he was still making almost all the same mistakes as last season (only exception being no Evans or Smallwood) has tipped us thoroughly into the majority having no confidence. I'm not going to call for his head yet after just one game and with the window still open. It simply isn't my way (unless I'd said I wanted him gone all summer anyway). I see little point in giving a manager all summer, blowing the window opportunities somebody else could have had, to then only give them one or two games. But truthfully, it feels like the writing is on the wall and short of a shock success being made of the end of the window, I simply can't see how things will get better. I think he needs to turn this around rapidly or things could get sour with the fanbase at large rather than just the disgruntled lot here.

Sure sure, bang average shit, but not shit and bang average. Syntax is king.

You can't be both those things.

...we're in a room?

He's 35 in a few weeks. Rather not give him a 2-year deal.

Our scouting network probably doesn't extend to many of them...

He'd probably field that in reverse if he could. 9 strikers, 7 midfielders and 1 defender. "We'll have so much possession we'll never concede..."

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/rovers/news/17819746.contracts-competition-make-rovers-departures-unlikely/ This article confirms we did pay a loan fee for both Walton and Tosin.

That's the main basis of my assumption he has gone on to be better.

A wiki check tells me he is an Irish-capped LB/CB who used to play in the same Bristol City side as our Irish-capped LB/CB. But seems to be better, despite making less appearances there in the season before his move than Williams, who is 2 years younger, did that season. Funny how football works out sometimes.

Tell me you're simply sharing a horrible vision you had of an alternate dimension, and this isn't something you've heard.

I think that's the right move...IF we sign a CB. If we don't, then it will leave us dangerously short in not just quality, but depth too. With Wharton out on loan, our youth backups would realistically be down to Grayson (18?) and I think Platt is still knocking around but nowhere near this level at 22 I think? So that would give us Tosin, Lenihan, Mulgrew, Williams (currently injured). Not good enough options, but also if 3 of that mostly injury prone bunch get injured/suspended we are playing kids. Or Nyambe out of position. Not that Magloire isn't a kid, but he seems furthest ahead in the youth CB pecking order.

I suspect the issue may be that a CEO and manager with high stock in the game wouldn't take Venkys' shit.

The perfect time to play the relegated teams is the first game. The worst time to play the promoted teams is the first game. This is partly why I predicted a score draw in this one and warned everyone it wasn't going to be as easy as they thought. What frustrated me so much is it WAS easy and we still lost. Charlton were shite. Organised defensively but nothing else. Yet we let them swan through us with impunity on the rare occasions they ventured forward. The way Charlton played, we should have won, and failing to draw was simply unacceptable. The relegated teams are prone to an opening day shock as I said. Then they either bounce back or go on a bad run while they adjust. Fulham? Got a feeling it'll be bounce back. Especially with our defence to lend a hand.

Personally my gut feeling is we will get one more defender in, quite late, and not a 'that's definitely the guy we need' type. I think it'll be a bit of a panic buy no matter how the club dress it up. Doesn't mean it won't work out though. I feel like by the end of Wednesday we still won't have a signing, and that we're looking at deadline day. We'll also hear how we tried other deals for other positions (new signing will be presented as having always been top choice for his position) but 'couldn't get them over the line'. Hope to be wrong on nearly all these counts.

Would have been a better choice to offer to train with us than the likes of Butterfield was...

Aye, not rewriting history, don't worry. Just saying he wasn't the only one at fault. Clearly the main culprit though, and that even some of the positional problems of the others were partly his fault as I don't think anybody thought he was about to lose it there so they got caught out.

Max Clark, left back from Vitesse.

I know we've had a terrible game yesterday but it's curious that nobody is really talking about the Max Clarke link (which I think one of our ITKs mentioned earlier in the week?). If true, I think it's interesting (and promising) that we are looking at an LB. With (the dire) Bell and Williams here, and Hart being spoken of highly by the manager lately. I wonder if it could partly be a sign that Williams is done as a LB here and will only play centrally if possible, or has interest. Or perhaps just that he does want to loan Hart out before deciding if he is ready. Or it could be Tony's 'Collect a Midfielder' game has changed to 'Collect a Left Back'. In dreamland, we would definitely try to sign a good LB, RB and CB before the deadline. Plus a solid backup GK. In reality we will have to think ourselves highly lucky to get two of those.

We could have invested in two quality defenders with the Gallagher money and whatever is left in the kitty. Rather have done that than sell the player involved in most goals last season.

FFS! I don't need to read it again, I wrote it. Thanks for your concern. If you don't understand it, feel free to ask me to explain more clearly for you. Edit - your other posts seem to agree with me that Bennett is the main culprit by the way, so I'm not sure what you're arguing about. Maybe I've not come across clearly enough on that in this single post.

I think Walton is getting off a little easily on this one. That cross came in in slow motion and he didn't move. A lot of players ballsed up for it though. Some of them caught out a little by Benno unexpectedly gifting the ball to the opposition. As for the second goal, why don't we put men on the posts these days? That doesn't have a chance of going in with a man on the post.

I think we'd just be happy if you stopped telling us your predictions. I'm not a superstitious man, and yet I can't help but notice that every time I've seen you predict a win for us, it doesn't happen. At best. I don't actually think you're creating the results with your bets, that doesn't make any rational sense. But it's uncanny. Maybe you're just horrendous at betting on us, because you're too close and emotionally involved. I'm generally bad at betting on us too - so I stopped doing it.

I feel confident it would take us precisely one game to all be in agreement it isn't. We are bereft of good centre halves. It's a huge glaring weakness. It's bad enough we need to field two of them.