5 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Don't remember that far back, he scouted me playing for Blue Star Juniors around 87/88 and was my coach at 14,15 and 16. Top bloke.

I’m good mate. As is the old fella. Thanks for those kind words.

Merry Christmas.

Just now, AAK said:

Im not overly bothered either way

I think you should be. We’ve a player there. Sure, the £10m quote might be a little previous, but the guys got something about him. A bit of class.

1 hour ago, 47er said:

Paul Mani, the point I'm trying to make is that promotion to the Premier league is never a slow and steady procession at the discretion of the manager.

Someone unexpected usually comes from nowhere. You have to go all-out for it and take your chance when it comes.

In any case you seem to be arguing that we have improved since Coyle left! That's no yardstick at all, Coyle is a fraud of a manager. Useless.

Our better young players are not going to hang around for the best years of their career on relatively low wages hoping Tony 's going to do it at last!

An offer that doubles or trebles their wages will be made at some point and most likely accepted. The money Rovers receive will be at the whim of the owners, Bowyer didn't receive it to rebuild his squad did he? TM hasn't made the most of what he's been given has he?

We are on a good run right now and we all pray for it to continue and give us a real shot at promotion. 

But is TM the man to take us forward if we unexpectedly got there? IMO he is not.

 

Fair enough. We shall see my man. I’ll not lie, I had massive doubts about TM. And I still have. BUT...

You just never know!

He’s a good guy, and sometimes the good guys get what they deserve.

Just now, roversfan99 said:

I was just saying that my first reaction was not to randomly criticise Gallagher as you implied.

 He should be well down the pecking order at this moment in time. The 3 forwards who featured today and Graham who is miles more likely to score should all be ahead of him and it is very difficult to justify having 5 strikers in a matchday squad. The side should be the same with Rothwell introduced to the bench.

Fascinating. Glad you enjoyed it so much.

Any chance you and Chaddy could get a room or a divorce?

45 minutes ago, WIR Second Coming said:

Lol

That’s got to be one of the biggest pitches in the championship surely? Storm Dan kicking off there.

6 hours ago, bazza said:

Yes. I agree. Becoming a real gem of a player.

This. Top notch. MoM tonight imo. A right pain in the arris.

Always liked em. My lads. Up the Rovers!

8 hours ago, 47er said:

Oh Bob, you're so'90's.  !!

It’s the future I tell you! Just needs the likes of Klopp and Pep to get on board the bandwagon!

Seriously though, it’s the Championship, not the top flight. There are numerous examples of teams going up by being organised, well drilled, working hard, sticking with a plan and with the same players in order to do so. We’ve tried every permutation under the sun, with Dack now out I’d give 442 a go. I seem to remember it being moderately entertaining to boot.

Top top fella TM.

Time for a change though.

The Illicits were great last week. Fontaines DC. Oh yes.

4 minutes ago, arbitro said:

He has given the players the perfect excuse to lose the game with total impunity with a caveat of as long as they try.

He's done it since he's been here, it grates. It's an excuse to fail. It's a cop out. Players mindset will be all wrong - "well we're not going to get a bollocking so long as we try - manager did say they're probably better than us after all".

This has to be up there....

I can’t / won’t listen to this again

AC/DC - Night Prowler

New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Fishes Eyes

Primal Scream at KGH a week today. Which’ll be nice.

"....And it's Live!!!" Just feck off Tyler. I know it's bloody live.

Jim White. "It's all so unbelievably exciting!!"  (as opposed to Bob Mortimer on the Athletico Mince podcast "doing" Jim White, which is just superb)

Just now, arbitro said:

I don't know what Mowbray said to get his red card but generally referees are tolerant towards managers.

Ref wasn’t called Derek was he?

16 minutes ago, Damien said:

Don’t forget Rothwell!

See I'm at it now! It's a common mistake!

Goalkeeper - might be similar to Raya. Don't know yet.

Right Back - would start with Nyambe. JRC and Bennett can cover. This will do I suppose. Big season for Nyambe.

Centre Half - the one I was hoping for and the one that would have been my priority. An experienced 30+ year old who could organise the defence, get them set up and switched on. I don't think we got that and we certainly didn't have it before. But we did get a 6 foot 4 centre half in from Man City, rated by their manager. Leaving us with Lenihan, Williams (looks comfortable enough in there for me), the aforementioned Tosin. Also Nyambe can cover, plus there's Grayson - and maybe even Mulgrew yet. But we're one short for me if Mulgrew does go. So maybe we will bring in a free agent? Don't know.

Left Back - Cunningham sounds just the ticket. Bell, Hart can cover and Williams of course. Upgraded

Midfield - Johnson and Travis every week. Upgraded through Johnson. Plenty of cover and bodies here. Evans, Smallwood will do a job but you'd hope their playing time will be limited. There's also Downing, Davenport, Bennett.   

Attacking Mid - Dack, Butterworth, Buckley perhaps? Can take from the pool of other midfielders and forwards if need be.

Forwards - Graham, Gallagher, Armstrong, Brereton, Samuel, Chapman

So in summary more than enough cover up front and in midfield. Where you fit them all in I have no idea and there is a lack of width for me, but that's not how we set up. Defence: improved the left back position. Right back; as you were. Centre half is clearly the concern. I see that Cunningham and Williams played at Bristol City together so hopefully they'll have a good understanding. Would have loved to have seen that Kevin Moran, Craig Short, Henning Berg type brought in but there you go. We shall see.

My old man says Best was the one. That’s not belittling anyone by the way. Sir Tom was a top fella by all accounts, he was in the army with my wife’s late grandad (rip) who also said he was a top bloke, as was he. Ronnie was a lovely fella, captain of England. Dougie, another really nice guy. Still goes to Ewood of course.

So to contradict myself I really wouldn’t worry too much about who was the best. They’re all absolute legends.

43 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

Sitting behind the hold up striker as we played all last season pretty much 

Sorry if I wasn’t explicit enough, when I said “two up top” I meant two strikers.

Anyway, we digress.

Just now, Exiled_Rover said:

I'd have flogged him for £15m when West Brom came calling last year, but that's just me.

Too often he just goes missing. 

Massive call that, whoever the manager is.