9 hours ago, garnersfags said:

The difference being that we have played much, much better since we lost our 'better' players....no senior players have been rested.

Just like after the Fulham debacle last season, when TM accidentally found the perfect winning formula, I think the same thing has happened for JDT following the loss of Dack and Diaz. 

Whereas TM didn't look the gift horse in the mouth, I worry that JDT will stubbornly return to the Diaz/Gally on the wing tactics, which I guarantee, will fail.

If he does that, I believe that it will be another catastrophic decision, up there with changing the formation against PNE when we had won SIX HOME GAMES IN A ROW....

So, let's reign in the god-like plaudits for the manager until we see the team selection at 11.30 tomorrow.

Sounds dramatic but that decision will be pivotal in terms of our promotion chances.

I'm nervous.

COY mighty B ! ! !

Let’s not overdo it. Didn’t TM stick Diaz and Gally on the wings last season to some success? It can work but Dolan and Thomas deserve to retain their places in the side for now.

JDT has done remarkably well this year regardless of what happens today. 

29 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

Well if you're right that says more about our fairweather fans. It's easily do-able if you care about the club.

There’s always an excuse not to go. It’s really sad to see Ewood 2/3rds empty most weeks and will be barely half full tomorrow even with our current form. Ticket cost and ownership mistakes are obviously factors but ultimately we just don’t have the fanbase. 

Hope we can get near to selling this out but dread to think how many empty seats there will be at Wembley if we do get through.

1 hour ago, booth said:

For all the people saying they wouldn't have him back, would you swap Armstrong for Vale right now?

He was a Championship goal machine in his last season and he's only 26. Infuriatingly greedy at times, but just imagine if we had a goalscorer of that calibre in the squad for the remainder of this season.

Being better than Vale isn’t an accomplishment. I’d take a traffic cone with an angry face drawn on it over Vale.

Wouldn’t want Armstrong back. Very one dimensional player. Bit of a flat track bully and rarely did much against the better teams. Overall, he obviously did great for us and wish him well but don’t think he’s the type of player we need. Similar to Rhodes. Great memories but not what we need in today’s team.

8 hours ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Swag will be delighted that there's lot of Tv money available and we get 45% of the gate receipts. 

Yes, he should be pleased. Is the club making money a bad thing? Odd criticism.

Initially disappointed about the draw but in hindsight, it’s much more winnable than the others bar Grimsby. We’ll be the underdogs but that could work to our advantage. We’ve got a decent shot at getting to Wembley so can’t complain. Any of the Prem teams or Burnley would have been a far tougher task.

A nothing draw. Unglamorous opponents, unlikely to win and in the same division. More winnable than other opponents though so you never know.

20 minutes ago, rigger said:

Lose on Tuesday and we are out of the cup. Lose on Saturday and we are still in the play-off race.

I’m conflicted. Priority has to be the league but two wins away from Wembley can’t be overlooked. Hopefully a blend of youth and experience. I’d want to see Phillips get a start and possibly Garrett for Travis.

Cant downplay the significance of our league position so whatever way JDT decides to go, I’ll be ok with it. I was at the London Stadium when we fielded a ‘weaker’ side and look what happened.

Noticed for the first goal that the other Rovers player around the keeper ready to take any opportunity, was Brittain. Can’t remember a time when our full backs were so influential. JRC was phenomenal. Keeping those two fit will go along way to staying around the top 6.

Yesterday felt like two sides at opposite ends of the table. One team familiar with winning and one team familiar with losing. A textbook away performance.  

JRC Diaz.
A Chilean-esque transformation. Remarkable to see how well he’s playing now compared to earlier in the season. Him and Brittain offer so much more going forward than previous full backs, including Pickering. 

3 hours ago, tomphil said:

Two home games in the space of a few days and one of them a derby of sorts might have been a perfect time for some kind of imaginative tickets offer.

I don’t disagree but equally, I’m not confident that we’d regularly get higher attendances regardless of price. We’ve been in the play off spots for a decent portion of the last two seasons and attendance figures have largely been static - even with cheaper midweek tickets. The club certainly need to be more imaginative but barring one off games, Im not sure we’ll see decent attendances until/if we make the PL.

1 hour ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Mental to me that people never ever believe Alan Nixon.

But the minute it swings in the clubs favour he becomes gospel?

What is happening lol

He’s said nothing about it swinging in the club’s favour (as far as I know). He provided more accurate news during the window than any of the local journos and think he broke the O’Brien story.

2 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Let me repeat:

The EFL have not been dragging their feet, they made a decision very quickly and stuck with it. 

It is Rovers who instigated the appeals.

How quickly have the EFL dealt with the appeals? Given how little we know, I’m not absolving either party of blame at the moment.

13 minutes ago, den said:

I can’t get past the idea that someone at this club thought it a good idea to commit to a fee of up to £10m plus a PL wages contract for a player not proven to be PL class in any way. We don’t even know for sure he would perform for us.

Why would any club do that?

I think it’s called a good problem to have.

5 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Why would Greggy come out and accept full responsibility for the cock up then?  That doesn't make sense if you believe the EFL cocked up...

He took responsibility but made it very clear that there were internal and external factors. Until all the facts are out there, we are guessing but the wait certainly suggests that there’s more to it than Rovers simply cocking it up.

39 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

It does for me...please try again, if still no joy let me know...

 

https://www.brfcs.com/store/category/1-retro-shirts/

Works fine now, order placed. Thanks.

Clicked on the link and the page doesn’t load? 

3 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

But @JoeHsaid it was Swags 'duty' to be at Birmingham. 

 

Haha, the same BS as Gregg came out with.  

What do you expect them to say? Come out and ask to be fired? GB has done the right thing by owning it and apologising. It means nothing if anything like this happens again, but it is still the right thing to do.

Trying to stay rational with this but my god they’ve dropped a bollock here.

The club have finally done the bare minimum and put out a statement and to be fair, they were on a hiding to nothing with it but at least it’s something.

If I’m being super generous, I can possibly accept that the LoB deal was more complicated than most and it would have been a rush to get things over the line.

However, there were several hours to sort it out and I can’t understand what the outside influences could be to prevent everything being submitted on time. 

But even if we give the club the benefit of the doubt on the LoB deal (which I’m not), the excuse for the Rochdale player is unacceptable. Paperwork not signed? Pathetic. One mistake is bad enough, but this is clearly a catalogue of failures.

As for Broughton, I’m judging him on how he reacts to this. Front up, own it and do whatever it takes to avoid this from ever happening again. It’s one of the most embarrassing episodes in the club’s recent history. 

Turns out my mum was right all along. I should have switched my allegiances to Newcastle when Shearer left.

And I’m a happy clapper.

Very disappointed but not surprised. Will wait to hear more before fully judging but there needs to be an explanation.

Some of the conspiracy nonsense is unnecessary, as is calling for everyone involved to be fired when we don’t know the facts.

2 minutes ago, booth said:

We'd be better off with Sylvester the cat.

I hear the guy is an absolute two hat, so get rid, sue him for negligence, throw him to the dogs. What an absolute wanker.

But... Why were Waggott and Pascha in Birmingham at such an important time? They have to answer for this too.

What exactly is Waggott meant to do after the deal has been agreed? This is down to whoever was handling the paperwork. 

16 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Surely the only grounds we could win this appeal on would be by proving that all relevant documentation was submitted complete and on time.

If there was anything missing, or it was late, we are asking the EFL to make an exception to the rules, which they surely can’t, regardless of how trivial we might claim any omission to be.

From the limited info we have I can’t see this getting the green light. 

Is this actually an appeal though? Nixon said that the registration has been rejected but Sharpe is saying that it has yet to be approved - which are slightly different things.

4 minutes ago, Danny O.Brien said:

There's no reason why if it goes through he can't play a part on Monday. Even if off the bench. He'll be match fit and eager to get some game time. I just hope we find out one way or the other by Monday 😂

We’re three days in, if it was happening, it would have happened. There’s no chance it’s going through. I’m not allowing myself to think otherwise. Supporting Rovers is so much easier if you never have hope.

2 minutes ago, Andy said:

My point is that we have a core support; it's about 10k-15k fans.

We got less in the 70's and 80's for the reasons you state.

They peaked in the 90's, with the benefit of Prem football, but it would seem that we're back to our 'normal' core support.

And, again, a further c5k-15k per home game would reappear if we did make the Prem again.

I don't know why we would expect to get much more than 15k in this division, based on the numbers?

I remember the 05/06 season when we struggled to get over 20k attendances most weeks and that was with a team that finished 6th in the PL. Think we only got 16k for Fulham on the opening day. 

Forest didn’t win an appeal when they missed the deadline by 10 seconds. Unless there are uniquely exceptional circumstances, it’s over. 

It wouldn’t be a consolation but if that’s the reason for the O’Brien deal falling apart, why hasn’t the Rochdale player gone through?