19 hours ago, Miller11 said:

His latest line is telling us to “look at St George’s Park”

OK Steve, this is from the “about” section on the FA website...

Built in 2012 and set in 330-acres of stunning Staffordshire countryside, St. George's Park is the home of England’s national football teams. With 13 outdoor pitches, including a replica of the Wembley surface, a full-size indoor 3G pitch, a suite of rehabilitation and sports science areas, and an indoor futsal arena, St. George’s Park provides world-class facilities for the England teams ahead of international fixtures.

I’d add about another 8 storeys to your proposed training Centre Steve. And I await your proposals detailing how you intend to defy the laws of physics to give us enough pitches with baited breath.

The higher ups at Gillingham and Southend got rid of Waggott very quickly from roles where he was supposedly overseeing ground moves (neither of which have come to fruition I might add). Hopefully this will just be another in the long list of his failed redevelopment schemes, and he goes away soon.

I've been to St George's Park to watch our Under-23's.  There is no way you could have a development the size of St. George's Park on the present Academy site.  The indoor pitch at St. George's Park would cover the present car park and academy building on its own.

If you put the present Senior Training Ground complex and the Academy together you might come close to having something approaching the size of St George's Park but not as large. 

St George's Park is a stunning complex - with a huge Hilton hotel in the middle of it - whilst I suspect whatever Waggott and co are planning will be strictly bargain basement.

7 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

If we going to become hard to beat keeping the ball down the far end is the first requirement. Didn't Big Sam bring in Diouf to do that out wide ?

Absolutely correct.  Diouf was excellent at holding the ball and winning free-kicks to run down the clock.  This is what Graham could do and Armstrong can't.  We've badly needed that type of player all season to give some variety to the attack and relieve the pressure on a paper thin defence.

Looks a decent appointment by Sheffield Wednesday.  Even if he can't keep them up this season - and it looks a tough ask - he looks the right man to take them back up should they get relegated. 

Notice Lambert has left Ipswich.  Not really surprising in view of the failure to get back into the Championship.  Once again his vision and that of the owners were apparently different.  It will be interesting to see where he turns up next.  It's been several years since he last achieved anything as a manager but, as we know only too well, that doesn't seem to matter these days at some clubs.

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

I stand to be corrected but some of the clubs who have given up Academy status only play friendlies. Huddersfield downgraded their Academy for financial reasons and this could well be us in the near future. I have a recollection of the Academy costing £3m each season but that was a figure from a few years ago.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/huddersfield-town-set-overhaul-academy-13629038

That's the model that Brentford follow with their 'Brentford B' setup.  However, I had a quick look at how they operate pre-Covid and their 'B' team was involved in friendly matches right across Europe.  Here they played friendlies against a mixture of League and Non-League clubs and some of the larger Scottish clubs.  However, they were visiting Europe two or three times a month to play friendly fixtures.  Somehow, I can't see Rovers wanting to go to that expense.

Brentford also look at players released from other London academies and pick up foreign players because of their excellent scouting operation.  Something we haven't got.

With the way we picked up Dolan and Nolan from academy football and have borrowed three Premier League academy lads I do wonder if something is afoot with regard to the academy.

48 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Was neither the current JTC or STC site in use in any capacity 30 years ago? Very odd thing for them to say otherwise.

The reason they say these things Joe is because none of them were here 30 years ago to know what went on.  But when Dalglish arrived we certainly weren't training at Brockhall.  Jack persuaded Kenny and Ray that he would build excellent facilities for them.  Which he did.  The present academy was actually the first team training ground and that was built first.  What is now the Senior Training ground was originally the Academy and that was built later as Jack wanted a state of the art Academy set up.  It was Mark Hughes who swapped them around.

Whilst I wouldn't expect you to know this, because I suspect you are rather too young, it's sad that the club can't actually get the facts right.

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Firstly, Thanks for the first comment. 

I guess I just not comfortable with people posting football's girlfriends comments on here. But we have to agree to disagree on this if we could please

We have to disagree on Gallagher. 

Nyambe isn't a wing back so cant play that role. Maybe could be on the bench I guess

Well the lad from City proved last night that he was hopeless as a wing-back and had a part in both of Barnsley's goals.  I somehow doubt that Mowbray will publicly have a go at him.  Same with the centre-half who looks increasingly out of his depth in terms of decision making at this level.

7 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Shock result at t'Turf tonight. I would have put my house on the dingles beating the Southern Softies 1-0 at the Dingledome. 

They put out a weak side and I suspect are only too happy to get out of the competition.  It's a sad state that football has got itself into when Premier League money is far more important than the FA Cup to the majority of Premier League sides.  Sadly, the cups are just not that important to clubs anymore.

47 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Surely the less games played at Ewood the better considering the state of that pitch!

I think the plan is to cover home games at Leyland and stream them live.

A good win but a huge slice of luck with regard to the Branthwaite incident.  It should have been a penalty and a red card for dangerous play for me.  But, having said that, we've had numerous decisions go against us in the past.  Bottom line is the standard of refereeing in the EFL is appalling at times. 

Our goal was well worked and fair play to Mowbray, the substitutions he made afterwards ensured we controlled the game from that point on.

I thought both sides looked pretty average to be honest.  The fact that both are being talked about as potential play-off candidates illustrates the poor standard of the Championship.  It may be an exciting division in terms of everyone is capable of beating everyone on their day but in terms of footballing quality its pretty poor.  No wonder teams that get promoted usually pay only a flying visit to the Premier League before returning from whence they came. 

1 hour ago, Stonesrick said:

Sorry if this is a bit off thread but has anyone knowledge of the latest publication of Mick Jackman's book. I am hoping to purchase a copy but most seem to have been published 2009.

Thanks

2009 is the last edition of the Complete Record.

6 hours ago, Stuart said:

Thanks for correcting me. Surely TM shouldn’t need anyone to tell him the number of chances we had - particularly when it was such a low number.

I was thinking about you the other day though as you haven’t posted for a while. Good to see you are well.

Thanks Stuart.  I read the forums but have taken a break from posting.  I watch the games on i-follow but, to be honest, I've lost much of my enthusiasm for the game in general over the past nine months.  I don't think football in general has covered itself in glory during this pandemic.  Greed, as always, has come to the fore whilst the loyalty of supporters continues to be exploited.

On the subject of analysts, I first came across their involvement when Mark Hughes was manager although I suspect it went on before.  I remember being near the dressing room area in Finland at half-time in one of our UEFA games.  Whilst the players were inside, Hughes and his coaching staff were studying the data on laptops and then went in to deliver their half-time team talk, presumably based on what the stats had shown them.  

18 hours ago, Stuart said:

To be fair he has something in his ear that needed fishing out or dozed off. Maybe both.

I bet Johnno is delighted to be referred to as “Mowbray’s Analyst”.

I think you'll find that Rachel Hindle is the first team analyst not Damien Johnson.  The team of analysts are at every game - home and away - and producing the stats via their computer programmes for half-time team talks as well as full-time.

40 minutes ago, only2garners said:

Even if somehow the football authorities could find vaccines on what is currently a non-existent market, you can’t seriously think they would arrange for hugely overpaid young men to be vaccinated ahead of vulnerable grannies, just for a few games of football?

I think if that happened that would finish me with football for good.  One thing the past nine months has shown is that football - even Blackburn Rovers - isn't all that important compared with the really important things in life.

7 hours ago, arbitro said:

I have little sympathy with Mowbray about the injury situation. Last night we had two of the clubs most expensive signings in history playing as strikers who didn't manage a shot on target between them and contrived to both miss on a cross that a Blackburn Combination striker would have scored. And both of these were signed by Mowbray. 

 

I must admit that I do have some sympathy with regard to the injury situation.  I think it's a result of so many games in such a short space of time and can understand why the likes of Pep etc wanted the extra substitutes rule to stay for this season.  I suspect we will have any number of players from all clubs going down with muscle injuries throughout the season.  Add that the whole business of self-isolating and I suspect we are going to see numerous make-shift sides selected.

Where I do agree with you is the point about our non-striking strikers.  Gallagher and Brereton have cost a huge amount of money, particularly given our financial position, and neither one looks anywhere near good enough for a team wanting to make a serious challenge for the top six.  The buck for that stops at the manager's door.

That chance last night was one that any natural goalscorer would have gratefully snapped up.  Sadly, these two are always that fraction of a second too late because they are usually on their heels and don't read the game in the way an instinctive goalscorer would.  You don't need to be a £5 or £6 million pound striker to score those short of chances - the likes of Tony Field and Simon Garner built careers on snapping up those type of chances.  Brereton has scored 1 goal in 10 games and that is when he is supposedly showing good form.  Gallagher too is a one goal striker so far, although admittedly he has been sidelined by injury but nothing he has done here in the past suggests he is going to be a 15 or 18 goals a season man.

I was looking back at Kendall's side earlier today and I thought last night's game was a game we would have nicked 1-0.  Crawford would have done nothing for 89 minutes, snapped up that chance and the defence would have held out for the win.  Sadly, I really don't see us getting the 1-0 wins that ensure a successful season at the moment.

In view of the players available this was not a bad result.  I thought the young 'keeper did well all things considered.  I thought we were better once Evans came on in midfield but without Armstrong there is no cutting edge.  Neither Brereton or Gallagher look like goalscorers which puts a huge amount of pressure on Armstrong.  Elliott looks the real deal but Dolan needs to play a bit in the Under-23's for me.

Listening to Mowbray after the game I'm amazed that we haven't got more players in self isolation with so many of the backroom staff having to self isolate.  Hopefully, we'll get more players back after the international break.  

Sensible move by Mowbray under the circumstances.  This season is going to see far more players ruled out by injury because of the congested fixture programme.  Add the problems with Covid-19 and the isolating issues and I don't think you can have enough players to be honest.  I thought Downing did a decent job last season and his versatility will be extremely valuable this season.