bluebruce

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.

He won't balance the books if his value drops drastically due to not playing in an average Championship side.

No. Who do you think his audience is when he says things in public? Us. The public. The fans. If he doesn't want the things he says in public to be analysed, he should stop saying so much in public. Or better yet, think more carefully about what he does say. It's out there to be analysed.

Supposedly he really rates Ajayi. Surely that was a deal which could have been done early in the window at a fair price before WBA showed their hand if we'd had a bit of conviction. So I don't want to hear about the right players not being available at the right price.

Something relatively minor is confusing me. With this new passing based system the manager wants to play, why was our first kick off a case of pass it to our CB (the one with the least passing ability too) and lump it upfield? Especially when we seem to want to fanny about with it at the back when we have a goal kick. Odd. You start with the ball in the middle of the pitch, but lump it mindlessly, but when you start with it at the back you try tippy tappy?

Christ it really wasn't all that. Any keeper would have gotten pilloried if that had gone in. I agree he isn't the culprit today though. But he doesn't look comfortable yet. Happy to give him time to click. Mulgrew and Bennett have had plenty of time to find a better level than this though. Are they both under contract until summer 2021? That'd scare me.

Did they lose to probably the worst team in the league who had a key striker out? What I do know is Sheff U actually had good centre halves. We don't. Mulgrew and Bennett had better not be lining up against Fulham. Even if he is going to insist on Bennett and say Tosin isn't ready yet, put bloody Nyambe in ahead of Mulgrew if he's so convinced the lad is a CB option like he's stated. I'd happily have Nyambe at RB and Magloire instead of Mulgrew, just to shunt those two out. Magloire isn't ready, but at least he might be in time. Mulgrew is done. I'd put a raw JRC at RB before Bennett. Just anyone to rid us of those two at this point. This is all assuming Tosin isn't ready, a new CB isn't ready, Williams isn't fit...honestly, just any of our other options now. Hard to see it happening except maybe Tosin coming in, as neither Mulgrew nor Bennett made way today despite being the worst two players on the pitch by a long way.

If I were Nyambe I'd knock on TM's door. If Tony's first words weren't: "You'll be starting next week" then mine would be "I'd like to leave in the next week". Lad can't dislodge the dire Bennett and his brand new contract was a pathetic two year one. He clearly isn't rated here, very unfairly, and should move on for the good of his career.