Mattyblue

Exactly! So who cares if folk write him off? There will be some other mediocre loanee to take his place next season, and the one after and the…

Obviously the 99% were proved wrong. However, mitigating factors when BB was getting stick was that he had a big price tag around his neck. So high expectations, the need for what was a big, big money signing for modern day BRFC to come good. But he had time to turn it round as he was 19 to 21 years old in his poor spell and was obviously our player. Whereas this lad is nearly 24, still being farmed out on loan and looks off the standard required. No real angst about it, he’s just a loanee that thus far doesn’t look much cop. C’est la vie, we’ve had plenty of those this past decade, and I imagine many more to follow! ‘Next!’

So Pearce is that good at his job he should just be promoted? And ergo better than other potential DofF out there? How do you have such an insight into the inner workings of West Bromwich Albion?

It’s a squad game, who knew!

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/october/14/ticket-news--rovers-v-huddersfield-town/ £18.75 for the 147th anniversary against Huddersfield, it was £14.60 for last year’s anniversary game against Sheff Utd… that pesky inflation gets everywhere!

Careful now, you’ll be getting put on ignore by the resident statto (like me) 😁

We have won just two night matches away from home since 2012.

You could be right. This clean cut young chap would walk in to the side.

Has to be, if we were playing a settled XI and system, you could say ‘we’ll that’s his method and he just doesn’t fit into it. Whereas at the moment we are constantly chopping and changing players and set up, sending players to the U21s, then bringing them back to start first team games… apart from one senior pro.

‘But, but the High Press’…

Plenty did!

Players always, always say that in public. Even to the bitter end with Ke*n. Which is fair enough, but ultimately the manager carries the can.

Nah, cup ties are exempt. So 3-0 win over there it is.

Just shows the emperor’s new clothes world of ‘data’ that even a top forward in his day like JDT seemingly can’t see the wood for the trees. Will the ‘stats’ show Dack running and/or pressing (not that I’m seeing much of either from any of them at the minute) as much as a Dolan or a Szmodics? No, but is running like a headless chicken going to break down a well drilled defence or unlock one with a pass ‘through the lines’ (to use a modern parlance) that no other bugger in the squad would even spot? And does running about a lot mean you also have that knack of finding that little bit of space in the box? We are throwing the baby out with the bath water here…

Imagine when we first had him on loan (where I thought he did a decent enough job as 6 foot plus young centre forward in a horror season), if someone had seen into the future and said ‘he’ll come back for £5million, BUT he will play as a wide man season after season. 🤷‍♂️

We never take many to Boro and we certainly won’t this time with our away form and £31 tickets.

How does passing the ball around in a laboured fashion ‘improve the value of the squad’? Is ‘data analysis’ honestly being interpreted in such a basic way that having a ‘90% pass completion rate’ or whatever, even if it’s largely ineffectual passing in your own half, is somehow ‘increasing value’ of players?!

Well I’m sure it would be pretty obvious

Why should Ian Pearce get more of a role in recruitment, and even the DofF job?

And on social media it happens with every struggling player at every club. It’s pathetic, it’s uncalled for, but unfortunately it won’t ever change, that’s what the internet has created. However, there is no question that match going Rovers fans are some of the most patient around and surely that’s what matters over trying to tar a fanbase with the brush of a minority of sad acts online.

Same with Jason Wilcox, think he went straight to Man City’s Academy whilst penning a LT column next to our Rev…

Of course, but West Brom currently have that whiff of a spiralling club, and as the likes of Sunderland (and us) showed it is bloody hard to turn around in the short term.

He also can afford to be choosy, his reputation as a top manager is finite, he makes the wrong decision with his next job, I.e going to a Championship club on a downward spiral and that hard earned reputation quickly dissipates.

You reckon the Beeb will move Strictly? I mean they won’t want to be competing with a game like that…

What do you expect him to say? ‘Yeah, just cracking on until me and my agent can coin it in next summer’ 😁