XLM

Obviously easiest to remember the most painful examples... Sheffield United in the FA Cup we went to 5 at the back about a minute before they equalised, Preston away it was about 5 mins before Hedges missed his dinked sitter and Hyam buried the Preston equaliser.

I'd 100% back Dolan over 5, 10 and probably 20 yards for pace. But other than that and being a bit lightweight, Mori looks a quality player. Gudjohnsen looked very promising too. Looks technically good and gets the most out of his frame. Seemed a smart player too, same as Mori. It bears repeating just how good Scott Wharton was today. Absolutely fantastic performance. Back with a bang on his first league start in nearly 18 months. Easiest MotM I'll ever give. Really chuffed for him.

Erm... Just... What? This conversation is what I imagine an aneurysm feels like. All I said was Hyam is an average championship defender, and I'd rather we kept him. Thanks for reminding me why I don't post things on the internet. Innabit.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that he's got a good injury and disciplinary record. I mean, I kind of knew that, that's why I said it, but regardless. You keep saying "two 7th place finishes" as though it proves something about how good he is. Well even if it did, 7th isn't exactly far above mid table anyway, and want to know what his average finish in the championship is? 12th. Out of 24. He's been available all summer for a modest fee on modest wages and he's gone to a club that will probably finish mid table. Sheff United have been pretty desperate for a CB all summer and I bet they didn't even consider him. We could do with a decent enough CB who is always available. We had one, we seemingly couldn't afford to offer him the going rate of pay, so he's gone. It's bad business, but don't kid yourself into thinking he was great, even for this shit league.

What are you on about? You might have read it, but you clearly didn't understand it. You don't even know what you're arguing about.

We have a worse team than Wrexham. I think you're only reading half what I wrote. We will miss him. We're crap.

Yeah, you're right. That must be why he's gone to Wrexham.

Hyam is a bog standard championship CB, whose best qualities are his injury and disciplinary records. He'll be a big loss to us because we're crap.

No surprise to see Kean and his dad defending him because he sure as hell couldn't defend himself.

Yeah I should have said, the last paragraph wasn't to you specifically. Just skimmed through the last 5 pages and seen plenty of people disgruntled that it's a loan with an option.

It was a loan with an option to buy. Blackburn Rovers have completed the signing of Ben Brereton from Nottingham Forest. The forward will move to Ewood Park on an initial loan deal with the option of a permanent transfer in January. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11676/11484523/blackburn-rovers-complete-signing-of-ben-brereton-from-nottingham-forest Loans with an option favour the buying club. That's why the loaning club and player sign extended contracts between themselves to mitigate the risk they're incurring. As always, loads to be annoyed about with Rovers, but the workings of the Baradji deal is not one of them.

Not the last 2, but it has been 3 of the last 4. 21/22: 8th (tanked playoff push) 22/23: 7th (tanked playoff push) 23/24: 19th (damn near relegated) 24/25: 7th (tanked playoff push) It is funny we've had seasons closer to what Chaddy has predicted than basically anyone else on here for 75% of the last 4 years. ... In spite of all conceivable facts and logic.

Brereton

Doesn't change the fact it's all that matters. Waggott, Gestede, whoever. The ceiling is mid-table championship nobodies while Venkys are here. To discuss the colour of the deckchairs on the Titanic for a second though... I have zero faith in Gestede. Even ignoring him giving me snake oil salesman vibes, he's unfathomably underqualified to be the "Head of Football Operations" at a club the size of Rovers. So he might be a success (which, I suppose is to keep us in the championship for the next 3 or so years), but chances are he won't be.

It was Venkys out, now it's Venkys out. That's all that matters.

I just don't get this viewpoint at all. Why would you want your manager throwing your captain under the bus? Unless he's an arse that everyone, players included, want out of the club it just breeds a toxic environment. Knowing your manager will just call you out in public isn't exactly going to endear him to the rest of the squad. If I was Hyam or Tronstad I'd just keep my mouth shut. No point talking to the manager to work out a mutually beneficial outcome, he might try to make the fans hate me. Sod him, I'll just keep clear of injury and go on a free. It's called (a lack of) psychological safety, and it's naive management at best.

I agree with the sentiment, but we did exactly that for 30 mins yesterday and created absolutely nothing and had no shots on target. I think we looked more threatening at the end of the first half with Hedges coming inside to make room for Alebiosu to overlap. That also didn't look remotely threatening either, but slightly more so. We should have swapped Hedges and Kargbo over once Alebiosu went off. Miller offered no threat aside from the long throws.

I don't really post or read here anymore because I've largely lost interest in Rovers for obvious reasons. Came on to see if there were any signs of things to be optimistic about (more fool me). Anyway, I think the LT should get some slack. There's absolutely no money in local journalism. It's just a vessel for ads. So don't expect them to do much hard hitting stuff. They don't have the paying customers to support them if they lose the miniscule access they do have. I was actually incredibly impressed with what Elliot Jackson (and Herbie) did put out around Eustace's departure. So it at least showed the care is there, but everyone's got to eat. The only people that can put the lens on Venkys are the supporters, using social media. If you have the facts, the time and the remaining will, don't wait around for the local "paper". I have none of those, so back to finding other things to do with my time ✌️

There's loads to complain about when it comes to Rovers, but come on. The man's been here 4 days. I've got older milk in my fridge.

First thing Dennis did after he came on was scream at Weimann to press, and it was basically the first time all game we'd put pressure on their CBs and they ended up going back to the keeper. I get the sense that Ismael doesn't like to press from today's game, but I thought it was a good sign for Dennis regardless. I thought he was going to be very passive and just be here in body with little interest, but his complaining was because he wanted to win. It definitely wasn't bad attitude.

That stat is a bit disingenuous. It includes 3 stints managing reserves in basically regional football. Even without those, his win percentage is pretty decent at around 45% ish. But he's never managed anywhere for more than one season and has seemingly been let go/not renewed from all his jobs except Barnsley. To never be given a second season anywhere is a bit of a red flag.

He was definitely better positionally and even worse on crosses as you say, probably better with his feet too... But Wahlstedt was way worse than Pears overall. His arms didn't work and he couldn't catch. It was as though he was holding a pair of plastic hands to make his arms longer. The fact we've been unable to bring in a keeper better than Aynsley fucking Pears in 4 windows is criminal.

He's Jekyll and Hyde in that he's either shit or average

Assuming the keeper is any good and we have reasonable luck with injuries, we've had a good window considering we had buttons to spend. But imagine if Venkys cared enough to merely fund the running costs, allowing us to spend £40 million to build a squad. Hell, even £20 million. The mere fact that Wharton was born in Blackburn gave the club "the Brentford model" on a plate, and even then we didn't do anything meaningful with it. All Venkys had to do was only fuck up to the level they've been fucking up for the past 6 years, and they fucked it up.

Definitely happy with where we've ended up given the circumstances, but Mowbray had at least 2 seasons with superior squads to this, maybe more, bowyer had 2 seasons with way better squads too, JDT's first season was probably similar to this one. Go and have a look at the 14/15 or 20/21 squads. Travesties that we couldn't get into the playoffs with those squads