It's kinda funny, do you go for objectively best 11 or personal favourite 11? Head knows Hendry goes in, but heart just wants Nelsen and Samba back together again...

We certainly didn't see him at his best, but to be honest I think that was partially down to the fact that by the beginning of the season he wasn't going to dislodge Dack as the creative force or Smallwood in the defensive role so he didn't really fit into the system. The rest of our transfer activity that summer pretty much rendered him obsolete before we kicked a ball. A disappointment but I wouldn't put him in the same category as Murphy, a player who we were relying on and was just terrible. In the grand scheme of things I have no ill will towards Whittingham from his time here, quite a bit of admiration for his Cardiff career and hope he makes a good and speedy recovery. Edit - ten minutes after I posted the above we get confirmation of his passing. Tragic by any measure, no age to go at all.

Cheers - here's hoping we've got them rattled. I'm stuck down on the south coast with no way of watching so am a bit reliant on the mesageboard for analysis!

Are Gallagher and Armstrong at least making the defenders work a bit? I want to see Buckley given a bit of time to work with a tiring defence in front of him.

Other games going pretty well for us at half time, Cardiff, Bristol and Preston all losing. Forest drawing isn't too bad either, only Swansea making ground. Makes our point look all the better, could be valuable at the end of the season.

got to defend that... draw I guess Come on Benno, score a worldie, prove me wrong!

in the 5:2 game I went to do the weekly shop with us two up and left the supermarket to find we'd conceded five. I really need to go and do the shopping. Whats the play here lads?

Yeah maybe, a couple of articles from last September covering him signing his first pro contract though, seems odd that they'd give him a one year contract in September and loan him out in January with the prospect of him leaving at the end of it. Unless all that Man City wanted from the contract was the press coverage! https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9891154/arsenal-ian-wright-dmargio-wright-phillips-shaun-man-city/ https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/man-city-transfers-wright-phillips-17672439 Edit: dates.

Alright now can someone explain this to me - D'Margio Wright-Phillips, son of Shaun, 18 years old, has made a couple of starts for us recently, scored against Preston. Looks a handy player. Apparently he's on loan from Man City in an under 18s deal, and from what I've found in the press he seems pretty highly rated in Manchester (though tbf there might just be articles about him floating around because of the famous surname) What does this mean? Are we literally being subcontracted to develop other teams youth players now? Are we being paid for this or are we paying to have someone else's player in our u21s? Surely the point of the youth teams should be to develop our players not those of a team a division above us swimming in cash? Who's getting the benefit here? I'm sure its perfectly normal and all, I just don't know how these things work.

Realistically (I know, I know) - 1). how much would people be happy paying for Walton vs. 2). how much do we think he would actually cost? I see three possible outcomes Option 1 - There's never been an intention to sign him, we couldn't find a decent keeper after selling Raya last season and he's a stopgap, in which case I'd argue that he's done fine over the course of the season but you've got to question the strategy behind the scenes. Did we really need the money that badly? What have we done with it? Where's the guarantee we get a good keeper in the summer? Option 2 - we can sign him for less than we got for Raya overall (fee + wages). Certainly Walton and Raya are not the same type of keeper, but I'd struggle right now to say which one is the better player. Both inconsistent (Raya still inconsistent with a different, some might say better, defence in front of him), both capable of making good saves. It would be a way of leveraging our squad to conjure the difference in fees out of thin air without materially weakening the team. (i.e. exchanging two players of similar age and ability but gaining, idk £1m in the process). If that extra money pays Tosin's loan fee for another season or whatever then it could be sensible, if unspectacular, business. Unless they can pull a world class keeper on a free in the summer this may be the best case scenario. Option 3 - We end up signing him but he costs us more than we got for Raya, in which case I really struggle to see any point to the whole exercise.

He's from Greenwich isn't he? I think he began at Charlton, might have made the trip down to visit family I guess. Nice to see though.

Three points off the playoffs with the best goal difference outside of the playoffs... I'll take it.

This is going to be a tough one tbf, Fulham aren't in unplayable form but they have picked up 52 points and strengthened in Jan, whereas we're pretty much guaranteed to play with an unfamiliar lineup as the first, second and third choice picks for the position that out whole formation is built around are out. I'd like to see a lineup that looks something like Walton Nyambe Tosin Lenihan Bell Davenport Travis Downing Chapman Armstrong Graham With the idea being that Downing drops a bit deeper to help Bell out and ping passes forward, so that you're playing for Graham to hold the ball up with Chapman and Armstrong running off him and a defensive three of Travis Davenport and Downing to try any prevent Fulham playing on the break. Not sure about Davenport, he's looked decent for the u23s, we may have better options. Would probably get hammered mind. In reality I'll guess a starting line up of Walton Nyambe Tosin Lenihan Bell Travis Johnson Gallagher Bennet Downing Armstrong and a pasting through the middle of the park.

Bell's an odd one - he hasn't looked great (by any means) since he's been here, but he's looked in good form last couple of games and like he could do a job for us in some capacity for the next few seasons (a cheap option - not needing to bring someone new in with all that involves). On paper there shouldn't be a reason to offer him a new deal now, let him play the rest of the season, if he plays well then offer him a contract, if he continues to look poor don't. On paper. The problem is that I can see another (possibly similar mid to high championship) club looking at him and saying - 'he's young, he's free, he made the league one team of the season a couple of years ago, he hasn't been played consistently at Rovers, our management might get that extra 10% out of him, there could be a gem there'. And I'd get it too - he's the sort of low risk signing that many people on this message board want us to be sniffing around at other clubs. The worst case scenario is for another club to come in with an offer and for us to gt sucked into a panic fuelled bidding war on the contract of a player who's a 'maybe' at best. I can see it happening.

I thought he looked decent on the ball, tidy few touches, bit of pace, looked to get forwards. Also looked like he'd be brushed off the ball by passing butterflies. It could be that once he's had a bit of first team football and got used to having to stand up to first team professionals he'll be fine, it happens sometimes, the step up can be a bit of a shock. Alternatively we need to lock him in the gym for a month or two.

Honestly if thats true its as big a blow as losing Dack

You'd swap him for Bradley Orr?

I wonder if in Tony's mind Chapman is an out and out winger who can't play as a striker or in a more central position - in our normal formation with a front 3 (kinda) he clearly doesn't trust him but suddenly we go 4-4-2 and Chapman turns up on the bench? It's interesting to me more as an insight to how he see's the wide players usually - why he picks Gallagher etc. and sticks them out wide.

Did anyone make their debut in that game? This is past the Mandela effect, I may simply be losing my marbles!

In recent years I have confidently stated the following as facts on this message board. 1. Following Friedel scoring from a corner, Charlton broke up to our end direct from the kick off before Paolo DiCanio curled an absolute peach into the top corner before celebrating in front of our fans (I was in the stand behind the goal). It was a good goal, but Claus Jensen scored it - I'm not even sure DiCanio played for charlton at the time... 2. Chris Samba made his debut vs. Blythe Spartans in the cup. (It was Carlos Villanueva, though as many on the board took pains to point out it is understandable that I might confuse the two!) The keen eyed amongst you might notice that I have edited this post. That's because I also managed to convince myself momentarily that it was Mauro Formica, not C.V. To be fair he is also a dead ringer for big Chris.

Great as the last four games have been, I don't object to changing a player or two in the starting lineup to keep players fresh providing it's like for like. This formation works, don't start significantly altering it. IF Graham cant start week in week out then that's understandable, its a tough run of games over christmas and I'd rather have a fully fit Graham in 75% of them than a 75% fit Graham in 100% of them, but bring in Galagher, Brereton or sod it even Samuel if he's still about down the middle. Don't muck about trying to bring Armstrong inside or pushing Dack forwards, that causes a domino effect where we have to move one person to move one person to move one person. If we want to rest Armstrong or Rothwell then bring in Holtby or Chapman, don't shuffle the strikers around. Continue down the rest of the starting eleven. Like for like replacements, no shuffling. And a maximum of two changes/starting lineup a game. On paper we've got the players to do it.

Leeds have conceded the fewest goals in the league, so I'd have their keeper, left back and whichever of their two centre halfs is taller/younger. Brentford have conceded the third fewest goals so I guess their keeper's alright too.

I now live on the south coast, my biggest local club would be Bournemouth I guess. Honestly, whenever I get into a football conversation here and say I support Rovers, I'd say nine times out of ten I get the questions 'who is your manager?' 'Which league are you in?' and if I mention that we're where we are because of poor ownership the question is 'who are your owners?' The sad truth is that a lot of football fans have actually forgotten the whole Venky situation. We aren't on their radar any more. Once the chicken farmers stopped doing funny stuff for the papers other fans ceased to care. I don't get sympathy, but I don't get ridicule either. We had a good reputation, then we had a bad reputation, now we're just irrelevant. I die a bit every time.

Not really a contender for greatest Lancs player by a long shot, but this thread reminded me of something. During the war my Grandad was involved in the campaign in Italy and during this time his regimental PT instructor was Rovers centre half Bob Pryde. Grandad used to tell me stories about Pryde taking the squad out for a 'run' around mount Etna only to take them 10 mins away from the camp and tell them to knock off, have a smoke and have a rest for half an hour before jogging back and doing their best to look like they'd been on a proper run. Grandad was the only one who didn't smoke (including Pryde), but he appreciated the break! Pryde went on to make 320 appearances for Rovers between 1933 and 1949, in spite of serving in the war, scoring 11 goals (or so a quick google tells me). Not sure how many years he was away for, but you'd have to imagine he'd be near the top of our all time appearances list if there hadn't been a war on. Eventually went on to manage Wigan for a couple of seasons too. Odd bit of family history, but might be of interest to some.

Sounds about right. What a pair to mix up!