Jesus! What a win! To think most of us would have had this as a real test with our best 11, but then throw in finishing the game with a patched up defence of Buckley - Ayala - Pickering - Edun!! Its friggin mental!! JDT's blue and white army!!!

In fairness I assume he is up against Jed Wallace who would give most left backs a torrid time. I would hope this has been identified before the match and that he is getting support

Love the starting X1. Our squad is still paper thin with some real tough games coming up, so wrap them all in cotton wool (double helpings for Ayala) and give them the night off. Give all the young lads (and I include Markanday in this) a chance for a good competitive outing against a hardened lower league team. Would hope that JDT's message is to show him what he's got and give him a selection problem on Saturday. Also loving that Dack is back in as captain, it underlines his importance still in this squad and the indication that he still has a part to play in the first team if he gets back fully fit and gains full match sharpness.

We're talking about Myles Anderson here yeh!?! 😁

Hmm ok everyone else said he was one of our stronger performers! Is Brittain your new Buckley?! 😁

Getting massively excited now about the game tomorrow, new manager bounce and all that jazz. A lot of trepidation aswell. A win on the opening game of the season could really set a trajectory for us. If we remember last year we had a lot of concerns going into the first game. Lot of squad players leaving, our top scorer from the year before being sold, where was the goals going to come from etc. We beat Swansea and I think it gave the team and the fans confidence, which we then took onto an away draw at Millwall and an away win at Forest. Neither of those results would have followed if we didnt have that good start I reckon. Opposite to that, a bad loss could be a big hit on confidence and leave us waiting weeks for a win (basically the start of the Coyle season). Give me a jammy deflected injury time goal for a 1-0 win and I'll snatch your hand off!

Some generalization there Sparks! In fairness so were Chris Sutton, Damien Duff and Matt Jansen back in the day.

And those same people would be the exact same ones on twitter and facebook a week or two previously saying we shouldn't be overly concerned about the centre back situation as he is ready to step in and perform worldie performances!

Was it definately 22k per week we offered him? That isn't too bad in all honesty, I still had assumed we were trying to screw him over to the tune of around 10 or 15k per week.

Yep we are a world away from Brentford right now, they have a whole structure that is built on the same game plan. Players are scouted ready to come in and take the place of the lads sold on, all at a fraction of the price. Indeed, one of their "cheaper rough diamonds" that you refer to above roversfan was David Raya. They saw the quality and massive potential there, saw that he was young and only going to get better with better coaching, and saw that we could be done all ends up on the price due to our previous management not seeing what they saw. We're the suckers that a club like Brentford steal from as part of their business model.

Why would we need Anel Whatsisname when we have Hayden Carder (sung to the tune of the Sherwood/Zidane situation of many moons ago) 😁

Duff leaving was a kick in the teeth, but to be honest it was kind of inevitable that he would be going on to a bigger stage. He pretty much destroyed Spain by himself during the previous summers world cup and then backed it up by just ripping the piss out of half the league the following season. Having said that, I think the biggest gut punch for me wasn't a player but a manager leaving: Mark Hughes. I was devastated when he left, with him in charge we were regularly between 6th to 9th in the prem, the rare occasion even having a sneaky look at the top 4. If ever there was a manager that made the team better than the sum of its parts was him, I knew we would be starting on a downward trajectory when he exited stage left.

Have to say I am chuffed by this appointment. It could end up going horribly wrong, similar to any managerial appointment really (and that's even before you take the elephant sized variable of Venkys into account) but at the very least its something different. It was getting to a stage that I just wanted them to get on with it and appoint some dolloper like Pulis, Grayson or AN Other because that's what I fully expected them to do anyway. At least then it would put us out of our misery, and we can at least start looking to build up a squad. This whole notion of a DoF and a manager that has had experience and success on the continent is something straight out of left field considering what we have done previously. You would assume that Jon and the team he has brought in, as well as Greg, should have massive knowledge of the Scandinavian leagues and you would fancy us to pick up a few gems from there. A teak tough Norwegian or Swedish defender would go a long way to replace Lenihan! Cant wait to see how the next few weeks will develop as regards incomings. Also I wonder what impact this will have on Nyambe, will he be intrigued by this appointment and be willing to give it another shot here.

Fixed that for you goozburger! Seriously though, incompetent at running a football club is one thing, at the end of the day there isn't any shame in that if it's not something you have been brought up with it. What these lads are is much worse, they are utterly incompetent in all aspects it seems. You would think that they might have some business acumen but that seems to be foreign to them aswell. If they are spurging 20m a year to keep the club ticking over, any competent business man would be looking for constant feedback on that 20m. Where is it going, why is the club in this constant hole etc. If he wasn't capable of looking into or fix the problem he would employ someone who knows what they are doing. But nope evidently happy to keep the head in the sand, ignore it and just sign off the usual checks. That for me is the most infuriatingly insane thing in all this, if they took the club at all seriously and gave it the attention it deserved we could easily be back in the big time. They would then be reaping the financial rewards as well as the cred that goes with owning a solid Premiership team! It would be win win for everyone

Bit sickened to see him go to be honest. He did have the odd rash decision but for the most part he was a fairly competent defender, probably the most reliable we have had here in the last few years outside of Van Hecke. Few people dismissing him but he was far from the worst player here. He is also another player we would need to replace. History has shown us we can't rely on Ayala at all, Carter looks good at L1 level but we need another strong signing in that position before the start of the season. Always thought he would end up re-signing, even after his contract ran out due to being the club captain and all. Obviously not to be.

What do ya know, its actually turning into a good day! First of all a seemingly competent and knowledgeable chap appointed as director football (of course now the question starts in relation to how much control will he have or will his hands be tied by the usual rubbish from the morons in India). Then we find out that the nightmare scenario of Simon Grayson rocking up and being presented as the outstanding candidate has been taken away! I'll take small wins wherever I can get them!

This is totally like death by a thousand cuts! If they are going to hire some utter waste a space (which unfortunately all signs of history and competence tells they will) you would nearly wish that they would come out and just get it signed so we can all come to terms with it. Its the horrible dangling of a carrot of Carvahal and then Farke which is just torturous. We have now moved on from those and the latest carrot is now Ainsworth, which soon will be eventually overlooked for some cretin who hasnt worked in 10 years and appointed solely on the basis of being a yes man.

Hah first thing that came in to my head aswell, when I saw the original sentence!

Is there really a sell on fee for BBD?!? Like we got properly done over the price so I assumed it was all paid up front in the 7mil, unlike Armstrong who we paid less up front but had to agree to a sizable sell on fee. To be fair, a year ago if you mentioned that a 15-20m fee for Brereton is possible you would have been carted off by the men in the white coats! To get the 7 back and then have some over is pretty much more than any of us expected a year or two ago from the player! I don't hear anything about contract negotiations with the player so I assume he is off this summer. Would be a nice bit to funds to play with for a new boss coming in. We just need to appoint the right one... so that's us goosed!

Luca Toni has been spotted making his way down from the train station!

Bradley Johnson went up an infinite amount of notches for this post alone! Seems to be literally ripping the p*ss out of Mowbray for coming up with the hair-brained idea of throwing him into that position! Sad to see him go, he was a useful player for us down through the years but in all honesty we should have had Davenport in front of him in the pecking order this season to see what he could do with more game time.

Lets be honest, we were never going to get 6th place, especially after Sheffield Uniteds win last night. In a way I am glad that the season was basically decided by a gutless performance by us, in front of a packed home crowd. If we won our last two games and just missed out it would not be an accurate reflection of the second half of the season, it would also lead people to think that we are mostly ok and, heavens forbid, think that we should be pushing to give Mowbray another contract. As it was we basically gave a listless performance when it was in our own hands to get the job done, which encompasses everything we have seen from the latter half of this season (and the latter halves of every other season) from this management.

I didn't know anything about these supposed links to West Brom but probably haven't been paying too much attention. Is it proper genuine? Interesting point about Venus telling the out of contract players not to sign new deals so they can pick them up for free at West Brom. I cant for one second think that any of those out of contract players would want to go near Mowbray again. Nyambe he has basically ruined, especially this year with his insistence on taking him off to play a centre back in his spot. Would Rothwell or Lenihan even want to listen to any more of his unenthusiastic drivel. If I was any of the players currently at the club I would want a break from Mowbray just as much as the fans do, he must be just horrific to listen to on a daily basis. I will tell you one thing though, I would gladly send over all 3 of Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe to West Brom if it guaranteed that Mowbray was leaving. My fear that he'll still be here is based of the horrors of last year where most people expected him to walk/be sacked at the end of the season and as the early weeks of summer went by he stayed hanging around. How glorious would it be to see him over thinking things with playing players out of position for a club that's not us! If nothing else it will mean that West Brom will more than likely underachieve and its one less promotion spot to worry about next year

Do we think it’s likely there will be a crowd reaction at the last home game, he deserves nothing but being totally lambasted by the crowd from the 1st minute to the last. It should be left totally obvious to him if it is to be his last game (I say if as I’m terrified Venkys might just throw him another contract) that he is basically hated here by this stage. A shocking excuse for a manager based off yearly nosedives and if that last press conference is true and he’s blaming the atmosphere/fans then a shocking excuse for a person aswell. When the happy clappers on Facebook are now pretty much to a man calling him to be sacked rather than having his contract run down, you know it’s close to getting real ugly.

Ah good stuff, that’s him nullified so!! 😁