That’ll do nicely ladies ??

Professional football is always about winning, it’s what makes players stand out as being better than their peers. The point I was responding to was about the competitiveness of the division. There are still some good players, Fisher, Hardcastle, Mols, Rankin-Costello, Butterworth, Platt but it will take time for them to be in a position to compete - individually and as a team - having lost several good players at the same time. Hence they will struggle to win games. If they don’t win enough games they will be relegated and won’t be at the highest level. Having two divisions introduced this dynamic.

The reason for that is that we promoted the better players from last season so we now have a lower quality squad at a higher level. Worst of both worlds.

In what way? There is some decent football at times, tbf.

Grayson’s replacement for the U23s presumably. Without Nuttall, Travis, Grayson and potentially Butterworth they are very light now this season. It’ll be tough to stay up at this rate.

Which of those two 20 year olds cost millions of pounds to sign? Which of them have been nothing but playing wall to wall football for the last 10 years - no college, no job? I get that he is young but the problem here is the outlay and investment. Particularly for this club at this moment in time. It was outlandish and could have been spent better. Dack and Armstrong cost less than £3m between them. Travis is home grown. Nuttall is one your older than those lads in your team and ‘looks’ twice the player Brereton is. This is all about the money, I’m afraid. It bought Brereton but won’t buy him time. Already even the least hysterical fans are saying he needs to go into the U23s. A seven million pound reserve! According to transfermarkt, he is the most expensive teenager ever to sign for a Championship club. Almost double the second. Neves was 20 when he was bought but even he was a regular at Porto from being 18. Looking through that list, multimillion pound deals for teenagers are rarely successful, and don’t work out for player or club. Cameron Jerome, Ched Evans Anthony Stokes even making the list representing centre forwards. The fact that he looks to have no strikers instinct just makes it worse. He maybe even needs to be converted to a winger with the way he is playing. No way would he have shown the desire to get into the box for that second goal that Nuttall did yesterday. Not even sure he’d have got there in time! He has a long was to go and is starting with a big handicap.

The irony is that the same people enforcing this draconian embargo probably grew up taping songs off the radio and recording films on VHS. Now copyright is big business.

Young people live for things like IG and snapchat. If photos/camera phones are ever banned then they’ll put off a heck of a lot of potential fans! The world has moved on and not necessarily for the better but commercial enterprises have to get on board.

What did you read that was worthwhile?

Yeah but apart from that...

All three coaches!

He was only counting home fans. ☺️

Good to see Smallwood on the bench. Hopefully we can get in front and be in a position to bring him on late in the game to see out a win. Like the look of that team. Who will get on the pitch between Nuttall and Brereton?

I’d like to know too. Just wasted 10 minutes reading his tweets and didn’t see anything worthwhile.

It seems that he didn’t like Bowyer then but Kean wasn’t the worst Rovers manager he played for. 2 + 2 = 5?

Get real.

It’s quite heartbreaking when you see it written out like that.

It would be interesting to know how many of those 10,000 were “football fans” attracted to Rovers by cheap ST deals. Where the club missed a trick, probably when Venkys rocked up and spent more time backing Kean against fans than trying to build bridges, was not to turn those “football fans” into Rovers fans. To make it personal and make the club rather than the opposition important to them. This is the real lasting legacy from Kean and his kronies. I honestly believe more would have stick around for a Walker Trust/John Williams Rovers in the Championship. But ultimately the hearts and minds weren’t won over to help survive relegation in spite of Venkys. Those fans who cared the most to act were largely alienated, but the biggest loss was the silent group who voted with their feet’s. Ironic that those who cared the most passionately were vilified the most and now we pine for the deserters to return. Venkys have two choices to take the club forward and bring fans back - assuming they won’t sell (still my preferred option): the short term risky attempt to throw money at it and get promoted in the next couple of seasons; or the long game, literally a generation or two away: win the hearts and minds of the next generation. Get them in the door cheaply and keep them involved during the difficult 18-25yo stages. This required imagination from the new senior management team when it comes to prices. The longer Waggott is here the longer it will be that we trundle along milking the 12k... 11k... 9k...

6 points of the play-off just after the halfway stage with some tough games behind us. If that doesn’t justify budget the we are only going to spend when we are faced with relegation. Which will attract the wrong kind of player and be too late anyway! I don’t buy this assumption anyway. More likely is that the £7m he committed (publicly at least) is seen a failure and they are concerned about putting any more money into the budget in case they don’t get it back.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2019/january/grimsby-move-for-grayson/ What the actual f...? We have no reserve defenders and the one we do have is allowed out! Mowbray had better have some plan up his sleeve!

Interesting comment under the LT link. Has someone been asking questions about Mowbray’s abilities in the transfer market on the back of what’s happening with BB?

Well done to Lindsey Talbot by the way. ??

I would not forgive Mowbray if he sells Travis in this window.

Correct. But he won’t because it’s making a couple a grand per match and nobody is really complaining. In fact they are “happy” to pay. Probably tipping out their pockets to give more loose change, boiled sweets, and lint. Why oh why would they not promote this way for fans to save some cash? Actually, thinking about it, those 800 people every home game have probably already seen the small print but prefer to hand over their cash for nothing in return. Happy as larks!

Yeah, I think most people are happy to be needlessly and gratuitously fleeced of their small change. Or they just tolerate it due to the flexibility of going at the last minute.