Jimmy612

Eustace, "He hasn't trained or played for the last 3 or 4 weeks"

All I can deduce from this scenario is that they have effectively ringfenced a large portion of the transfer fee as the next firefighting funds for when the August hearing inevitably goes against them. I can't think of another scenario (at Rovers or otherwise) where a club goes to such extraordinary lengths to avoid scuppering a potential windfall. He's our best player and we have 4 games before the end of August, including a game against our bitter rivals. He should have been preparing just like the rest of them to give us the best possible start to the season.

I can't recall any situation where the player has not played (never mind trained!!) during even the closing stages of a window, never mind with over 3-weeks to go. Brereton played against Blackpool 24 hours before the window closed a couple of years ago, and that was admist seemingly very serious interest from Fulham and other clubs. If he's still contracted to the club he should be playing. If, as you say, no club has even come close to his valuation then it's extraordinary that he is effectively on gardening leave. Looks more and more like Rovers are pinning their likely meagre transfer outlay on his departure - ridiculous given the amount of money already brought in since last summer.

Sorry if it’s already been asked, but does anyone know if existing ST holders just use the same card again, or are new ones being sent?

Nearly cried yesterday when I saw that the Rovers media team had taken it upon themselves to inform us that 17 years ago to the day we signed Roque Santa Cruz from Bayern Munich. Whilst none of this mess is their fault, and they're no doubt doing their best to portray an 'all is well' environment, at what point does anyone think... "better read the room here".

One being 37 year old McFadzean, who was part of the bare bones squad that limped over the line in May. I don't think any fan in their right mind is going to consider that a new signing, it just isn't. Couple that with the seemingly imminent departures of Szmodics and Gallagher and the squad, with 11 days until the new season is unquestionably weaker. It is depressing, you can't deny that.

Altrincham

Where has this been reported?

Well, actually, Park is also consistent from the Dembele link. We wanted him when Mowbray was here.

Some fans are demanding it. Honestly staggering.

If it’s us I hope he’s only got carry on luggage, we won’t have stretched to hold.

Advantage, Jackson.

Oh come on, he's literally flown half way across the world... I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the deal is done. In fact, so confident am I, that he may as well be holding up a blue and white shirt already! Actually, forget that... Rovers may as well have unveiled him as an official signing on all social media channels. Those examples of course being the absolute, cast iron confirmations that any football club in the world has completed the signing of a new player.

Original tweet.

The fact that it may be construed as 'one or the other' tells you all you need to know about the contempt held for the current regime. As it is, I have no issue whatsoever with this teambuilding day. The summer JDT arrived when we were all falsely hoping for a new dawn, I'd have been quite impressed with the idea of showing appreciation to the entire workforce and not just the players/coaches.

A quick look online suggests Baker is on circa £20K p/w at Stoke. File this one away, it’s not happening.

This should be shared on the comments/thread of every twitter and Facebook post Rovers make. See if it can’t wake up one or two of those fans who blindly back the owners.

Never has the phrase 'a camel is a horse designed by committee' been so pertinent.

God help us if anyone at Rovers thinks the answer to our problems is to simply play Dilan Markanday in the ‘correct’ position. What even is his correct position?

Markanday only made 6 appearances (at least 5 as a sub) in Eustace’s 17 games in charge, and scored 1 league goal all season. Would have to be some turnaround for him to become anything like a reliable goal scorer for us.

Just for a bit of extra context, Szmodics scored just under 40% of our goals last season. There just isn’t a logical argument to suggest any single player in our squad could replace his goals. In fact, the top 8 scorers after Szmod (I’ve taken out Moran as he is gone) would all have to double their tallies for the season simply to make up the difference. You can’t possibly believe that is even remotely realistic.

4 games, 5 goals and 3 assists in PL2.

I can't argue with that, he could easily go the way of Nuttall or countless other strikers we've had who disappear back in to obscurity. He didn't help himself when we were absolutely backs to the wall in one of Eustace's first game (might have been Stoke), and he lost possession or made very poor decisions at least 2 or 3 times. After that I'm not sure we really saw him again. BUT, I still thought there was flashes of intelligent striker play and I don't think he was completely anonymous in his few cameos. As I say, he had a few half decent opportunities where he just didn't pull the trigger. It's a massive pre-season for him, I just hope he can prove a lot of us wrong.

I know most will disagree with this, but I did see flashes of play that I liked in Telalovic. He looked like he had some decent ability in terms of link up play and he found himself in positions where only his reluctance to shoot let him down - whether that was a confidence issue I don't know. I hope this pre-season might just offer him the opportunity to get some minutes, score a few goals and give himself a platform to at least get some first team minutes. I know this is only U21 football, but when we were linked to one of the Palace players a month or two ago I had a look at this video of a game played last season. It includes an absolute clanger from Pears, when the ref spares his blushes (about 9mins 45secs), but Telal really stood out to me during the highlights, particularly with an excellent assist for the second goal.