3 hours ago, rigger said:

I don't get why Mowbrey insists on depressing people by keep harping on about players who are not available. Why not big up the players that are available. Give out a positive attitude. That is what the squad is for.

Insists on depressing people by giving a squad update before a game..? So when asked about injured players, you’d rather he ignore the question? 
There are plenty of reasons to criticise Tony, no need to invent them.

46 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

Newcastle have played a blinder there.

If there is ever concrete premier league interest in him, he'll ask to leave us. He won't give up PL footy (and the wages) to stay with Moggas midtable Rovers.

Also gives Newcastle the opportunity to buy him back at a significant knock down fee. 

Win - win for Newcastle. We lose either way.

We won't be able to hold him here against his will, players and agents have the power to move if they want.

We got ourselves a regular goal scorer in the championship. Hardly lost out. We may not see the full amount of profit but I’d suggest we still benefited from the transfer.

14 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

2 for Glen Murray yesterday. What a partnership him and AA could be....

But can Murray play on the wing?

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

Waggott says a lot of things, but in reality he’s spent his tenure downsizing.

Get out of this pandemic and see how it all settles down, employ a forward thinking leadership team that actually understand the fanbase - coupled with owners that love signing those cheques (infrastructure doesn’t impact FFP, remember), and who knows. But I won’t be holding my breath.

The owners are signing the cheques. It’s the only good thing they’ve done. Why they keep doing it is the mystery when we’ve had little to no progression over the last 10 years. It’s easy to find sticks to beat them with but you can’t argue that they’ve kept funding the club. They could always spend more money but considering they’ve already thrown in well over £150m, it’s hardly like they’ve turned the taps off.

Redeveloping a part of the stadium isn’t a priority simply because, I assume, the lack of demand. We could close the Riverside and easily accommodate the displaced fans elsewhere in Ewood. I know there’s talk of a hotel but would that turn a profit??

Some people can’t have it both ways.

Criticising the signing of loan players as being evidence of short-terminism but conveniently forgetting that we’re also signing a permanent long term prospect for left back. We clearly have a good relationship with top clubs in the PL so why not make the most of it? We have access to a calibre of player we could not otherwise afford. 

1 minute ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Kazim-Richards. Christian Bloody Dailly !

Sinama-Pongolle.

3 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I'm afraid when I scrutinise things the only conclusion I am coming round to is that Mowbray isn't the only conductor of our transfer business. 

Only last week he was again publicly stating in his interviews that he wasn't keen on the loan market as a solution and that he wanted to get permanent transfers in to build on and have as assets. That was off the back of the Branthwaite deal and now fast forward a week or so and here we are doing similar again.

I don't believe in coincidences like this. I believe Mowbray uses the press to get messages out to the fans and more importantly to India. Same thing happens when it comes to new contracts- he's sending messages to the owners about how they need to sort contracts out quickly, and also how we cannot as a club rely on the loan market.

Unfortunately they seem to enjoy the short termism and high turnover in players. 

Of course if a couple of decent loans propel us into promotion or bring in quality like Harvey Elliott, who we wouldn't have a cat in hells chance of doing better than on a permanent deal, then its worth doing as a means to an end. But medium to long term we need the defence in particular addressing. A turnover in personnel every 6 months is unnecessary and unhelpful. I also refuse to accept that we can't find a defence of good Championship quality without the loan market.

 

So how do you explain the permanent signing of Pickering?

Loans are too short term but permanents are not short term enough?

31 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

So, we buy a supposed top left back and then don't play him when we are 2 points off 6th place...instead he is playing league 1 football....what do we do with him if by magic we do go up?

You’re asking that as if it’s a bad problem to have..

10 minutes ago, JHRover said:

It isn't going to happen. You know that as well as I do.

Even if it did that would mean going into the PL with no defence and having to build a new one virtually from scratch.

Complete short termism at odds with everything the manager has said about building assets and growing a squad. 

Strangely though it fits in well with the 'lease' policy Venkys were keen on when they turned up

Low cost, short term, low risk, but medium to long term of little benefit to the club as we have to replace every transfer window and help develop other clubs players.

I'm struggling to work out how anyone can suggest this is a great deal for Rovers. We borrow a player for 21 games, are under pressure to get him game time to keep the parent club happy, and come the summer have to find someone else.

Its just a make do and mend job.

 

 How does Pickering fit in with your suggested ‘lease’ policy? Or do you prefer inventing narratives to criticise the club. There are plenty of reasons to judge TM and the club hierarchy, loaning exciting talent from top PL clubs is not one of them.

 

49 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Again, untrue. 

Well, my comment is subjective so you can disagree but it’s not ‘untrue’. How long did it take Dolan to impress? Chapman has had game time. Not much, but enough to make an impression in my opinion. He failed to take those chances.

10 hours ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

He didn't have his chances. How many games did he start, even in L1? Very few yet when he played in L1 he looked a class above most. 

He’s had enough cameo appearances in the Champ and not done much. Said a lot that Middlesbrough were willing to let him go. Not saying he’s a write off and it will be interesting to see how he does over the next 3 months with a run of games. 

I love the ‘just give them Bell instead’ talk. It’s not Fifa. 

Douglas is playing well and as it stands Pickering probably wouldn’t get many games unless Douglas gets injured. Clearly Pickering is being bought with a view to next season rather than now so if it secures the deal, I can accept him being loaned back. Sounds like it’ll be mutually beneficial.

20 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I'm with you.  Never got a sniff here...just got the impression he wasn't in Tony's "Get-Along-Gang" and being young struggled to navigate his way past smarter professionals who have the managers ear...the lad will do well when he matures.

He had his chances and didn’t take them. Plenty of young players have seized their chances and are regularly involved in the match day squads. Travis being a prime example.

Travis is worth persevering with, even though he’s far from his best.

Starting to really see the strength of our squad making a difference. Not many sides can bring the likes of Dack and Holtby off the bench.

5 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Yep, he will shoot on sight, most times badly but will score the odd one and they all add up. We have this debate perennially, if he wasn’t on the pitch others would be chipping in. It’s arguable that we are only nicking games because he doesn’t bring others into goal scoring opportunities.

He’s too one-eyed and someone offered us £10m now, while his share price is unrealistically high, I’d bite their hand off.

You’re trying desperately hard to be contrarian. Score the odd one? How about 17. Strange time to be making this point after he scored the winning goal. Pick your battles.

Scrappy game but thought we edged it. Look far more solid with Branthwaite. Result is all that matters and the pitch clearly made things difficult again. Keep up the clean sheets and you never know.

Travis is still some way short of sharpness. Wasteful in possession too often. 

Good result but hardly convincing. Arguably the biggest positive other than the win was Dack’s cameo. Really made a difference. 

Douglas still doesn’t appear to be a significant upgrade on Bell. Got beaten too often. Buckley isn’t cutting it and Travis is still yet to fully fire.

Impressed with Brereton and Gallagher. Useful to call upon two very different types of players to replace Rothwell and Elliott. 

Just now, Stuart said:

No way is this down to the level of rain. Nothing to speak of compared to other recent spells. This is all down to the pitch. Something has changed at the club in recent times IMHO. On the face of it, spending the absolute minimum on maintenance is now biting.

Embarrassing.

I’m fairly certain this has SOMETHING to do with the amount of rain.

Doesnt get away from the obvious. The pitch has been terrible all season. Even against Wycombe, it was cutting up. Not seen a league pitch this bad since the late 90s. Feel sorry for the ground staff who clearly have no chance. There needs to be a massive re-think.

Saw a video yesterday of Leicester’s new training complex. That is how you invest in a football club.

19 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Very strange. He's denying all knowledge, not something I eve remember him doing before. It's eithet that he doesn't want Douglas to know he was going to get fired off back to Leeds if the Pickering deal had gone through, or someone else is buying young players with potential for the 'project'. 

He’s not denying all knowledge. He’s being selective with the truth, presumably to not reveal why we tried to sign a LB when we already have two on the books. 

33 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

That's because we've signed a lot of very average midfield players. None of whom seem to do enough to hold down a place for long. We've gone for quantity over quality. With the exception of Travis I'd gladly swap any of our other midfield players for Whiteman. In some cases I'd swap two !

Of course you need to come up with a way of playing that would suit Whiteman's skill set. You'd have to build a team around him.  I wouldn't trust Mowbray to be able to do that.

With Dack and Travis returning, the priority is not central midfield. Certainly can’t justify spending a seven figure fee to add another option. It’s hard enough to pick a midfield as it is.

Centre back is far more important.

31 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

Ben Whiteman,  Preston's record signing.

Great move for the lad.. who's league 1 now @chaddyrovers ?

Mowbray hang your head in shame.

Mowbray Out 

We don’t need another midfielder.

There are many reasons to want Mowbray to go. This is not one of them.

I’d argue that signing whiteman over a defender would be a far more legitimate reason for sacking him.

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

Selling Armstrong for over 10 million secures Mowbray's position for another couple of years. He'll be Mr Popular with the Venky bean counters and point to his approach being vindicated.

Not what we need.

We need to keep Armstrong as long as possible and make a managerial change to bring in the staff needed to get us promoted.

The Armstrongs of this world are like gold dust. Very difficult to replace. The Mowbrays of this world are easy to replace.

When did we last sell a decent player? Of all the accusations to throw at Mowbray or Venkys, you can’t argue that they’ve shown willingness to sell our best players at the first opportunity.

If Armstrong goes for good money to a prem team, so be it. It happens to all Championship clubs. I don’t want him to go and I’d be concerned where the money might end up, but I wouldn’t blame the club IF the offer is right. Hopefully we’ll hold on to him until the summer at least.

Would have thought CB was the priority, not LB.

As our first bid has been rejected, I assume it’s still unlikely that Pickering will sign but at least there’s some money about.

If Mowbray is the man I hope he is, he’ll walk. 

Forget all the nonsense about body language and comments in the press. That’s irrelevant. It’s all about results. Expectations were high going into this season and we’ve gone nowhere. I genuinely worry who’ll be brought in to replace him but the time might now be right to take the gamble. 

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

Get over what? We are a significantly larger club than Doncaster in all regards - historically, financially, current status, playing squad. This result is a fuckup and I have no idea what you're trying to argue here. It's embarassing. If we are no better than them at the moment on the pitch on a given day, that only enhances the embarassment.

So what if we’re a bigger club? It’s not about how much bigger we are, it’s that we have, supposedly, far superior players that should have won that game. Our cup history is irrelevant. Right now, we’re no better than a league one team based on today. 

7 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

Sigh. 
 

been asking for mowbray out for many seasons, just a few more folk are waking up to it now. Terrible manager 

Well done.

Tell you what, I’m now going to start chanting for our next manager to be sacked. And when that day comes, I’ll be on here to say I told you so..