Just now, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

Only thing going for Samuel is he gets in the right position now and again. Just a shame he has two left feet and the finishing of Ade Akinbiyi (on a bad day). If he gets a new deal then that tells you all you need to know about next season.

He offers more in an attacking sense as a wide forward than Gallagher or BB but there's probably less goal threat in him.  Problem we have now is Mowbray has these 3 on the books so he'll keep churning out more of the same to give them games and try and justify them.  That's my main issue with retaining Samuel. 

We've seen the same thing for several seasons with him now when he's been fit and you can literally count on one hand his good games. We've seen the same from Brereton since he's been here which is not very much at all and Gallagher is threatening to go the same way despite the odd encouraging effort.

We simply can't keep trying to accommodate players if we want to give forwards so something has to give otherwise we'll go around in the same circles.

Some ott critics of his signings ?

It's been a mixed bag we have to remember what we were operating in before he was lavished with an annual pot to waste.

The most puzzling and annoying thing for me is not some of the players themselves but just why HE signed them.

It's always seemed a case of get him then try and find a way to fit him in. Even Dack was shunted about at first until he just clicked with DG one game and that system was born.

6 hours ago, Oldgregg86 said:

Samuel is awful.

i bet the people advocating keeping him are the same ones who wanted to keep joe nuttall. Another who deserved a chance and has proved he wasn’t up to it either

Nuttal was a donkey but had a bit of a goalscoring knack. Brown and Varney were genuinely better players. 

He had that knack though and that's why he edged in front of Samuel. Says it all really.

4 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Scott Brown “I had Tony Mowbray as a manager – that was a crisis. We’re playing well now but back then we weren’t playing any football whatsoever and the crowds were down to 15,000-20,000"

Quite how he got Celtic crowds down to below 20K is unknown to this day.

6 forwards on the pitch at one time I've read somewhere.

Meanwhile someone on the LT saying he's signed 10 attacking players since he's been here.

You'd think with such bold ambitious football the crowds there and here would have been climbing not receding.

Something doesn't add up, not Tony's fault though his clubs are perennially at a crossroads every summer,.....

6 or 7k i reckon 

10 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

‘It’s their dressing room’

'It's about them not us'

As for twitter if all they want is smoke blowing up their backsides they really shouldn't be on there. What's the point in biting back when you might well be being twitted by a dingle pretending to be an angry Rovers fan,  They are too thick to consider that.

As for Bennett just like the system of play we now employ it's the manager who has to take a share of the stick for continually including him in place of others and shunting him round the team for the sake of it.  

As he's said himself on there i'm not going to refuse to play when he asks me.

It all starts from the dugout.

21 minutes ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

Joey Barton ?

He seems to do ok he's a bit like Keane without the brains.

There are hardly any goals in Samuel and we need people from the bench who can change games.

,How often do we get back into games late and rescue a point. Or turn a game around and win it late ?

There's a reason for that it's the manager using the same old players who just aren't good enough at this level. As long as Samuel, Brereton and Gallagher are here he'll keep trying the same things.

Rotating them, subbing them and keeping a system to try and accommodate them. It's done to absolute death now.

Changes and something fresh needed. Get rid of two and bring in a target man or poacher and a proper winger we are crying out for that not 3 wide right forwards who need 50 chances to get 1 goal between them. 

In league 1 it would work in the cut and thrust of the championship it won't !

1 hour ago, Miller11 said:

I’ve seen Venky’s described as “our guardian angels” today. I’m not even making that up.

Guarding yes, angels no.  Question is just what and why are they guarding ?

If they'll loved the club that much to lose 10 million a year through it's books they wouldn't keep throwing it to the wolves.  The audit they did a couple of years ago needs doing again right about now.  One of the firms doing it needs to be  a proper independent football advisory firm to analyse what's going of on the training ground, dressing room and dugout.

Then deduce if it really is the best way to push the club forwards. But then again do they really want to or have they now just reached comfortable status with it like their club employees ?

Yep good cop bad cop he's probably nowhere near as bad as he's made out in terms of how he might be with players.  You do keep thinking there's a Souness in there somewhere if  he lands on the right club at the right time.

Main problem with Keane is after the mollycoddling some of them get he'd frighten half this lot to death. Wouldn't do any harm in the grand scheme of things but they'd be crying to the PFA before the first month was out.

14 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

I always remember thinking the oddest Rangers/Souness deal was Jean-Alain Boumsong.

Signed for Rangers on a free whilst Souness was Rovers manager - and we seemingly showed no interest.

A few months later - Souness is at Newcastle and pays £8m for him.

 

Basically he helped his old mates out a few times and no doubt had a nice glass of wine out of it.

Or even a vineyard....?

1 hour ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Never heard that one. What happened?

 

Just a salute in the direction of the Rovers fans tucked in the corner after scoring at that end at the Cottage. No idea what it was all about but no need for it.

Think it was when we were suffering as well around king rats era or thereabouts.

3 hours ago, LeftWinger said:

Just had a look and we got 22.5m for Dunn and Duff that summer (I'd forgotten they both left the same summer).

Brought in:

Emerton 2.5m - Great success

Amoruso 1.4m - Did OK

Reid 2.5m - Good signing eventually

Gresko 1.2m - Did OK

Yeldell FREE - Was never intended as a first team signing and proved as much

Ferguson 7.5m - Flop

 

So in summary, we would have been better keeping hold of Dunn and Duff.

Amoruso - I'd call him a flop but i don't think a great deal was expected of him and Souness was a know critic previously.  Some odd deals between us and Rangers.  He was good at getting his head to it in the oppo penalty box and was committed for sure but a very poor reader of the game it was a level too high for him.

3 hours ago, CheshireRover said:

For me the biggest problem with Bennett is the captaincy. If I remember correctly, when Mulgrew was shipped down the M6, the other players voted on a new captain didn’t they?

I don’t speak for anyone else, but I know for a fact if I was to vote who I’d want as my team leader at work, I wouldn’t be voting for the person who makes my life most difficult & demands the most out of me.

It should never have been the players’ decision who was temporary captain, that was doomed from the very start. They picked their mate.

What’s more worrying is the fact that TM didn’t have the conviction to make the decision himself!

If (and no doubt when) both TM & EB are still around on match day one next season, we will be regressing further.

That's how it seems he operates though like he's frightened of some of them or their influence at least so he lets it go. 

59 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Vinjay? Can you help?

He did come back to his spiritual home though.

How do you just 'become' a fan of another club ?

Sounds like a bit of a tosser to me.

Over loyalty is part of the problem here certainly in squad terms and that looks set to continue.  It's a pointless phrase in football anyway, how loyal would he have been if Boro came calling again or another interesting job ?

His main loyalty will be to the 500k - 1 million he earns every year.

13 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

We used to play " centring and heading " for hours at night. I did the centring so crossing a ball was second nature, my heading was crap though.

Crossing and heading it was in the 80's then 3 and in.  We did the same every night wherever we could find suitable gateposts so we were usually in the middle of the ( b) road.

I was terrible at footy as a kid which was annoying because a couple of my mates were quite good, used to piss me right off.  Became quite good at crossing it and heading it because i just tried and tried and tried. By the time i was 18 i was a good header of the ball and could play right wing because i was quite quick but a bit lanky. That came about through just playing all the time doing what i could do over and over again because like i said when i was at school i'd fall over just trying to kick a ball.

Amazing how it just comes together eventually if you put in the graft. I was nowhere near pro standard so those who are have a decent head start.

I expect they'll root out a token signing from foreign lands at the very least. Something will have to justify the outlay and the bluster.

Like i said last night the dour tepid scared of the opposition football he's trying to coach into them makes us look worse than we are. We've looked good when we are lively and get in faces and we've looked good on the counter against some sides who come at us.  It just doesn't suit the players or the purpose even Sharpe pointed out we are playing safety first right at the time we should be going for it.

A risk averse manager that would rather lose 1-0 than 4-3, at this stage of the season why the hell does it matter.

I'm sorry to be blunt but it's the work of a wuss, a guy thinking about the plod next season and resting and rotating players now because it'll be a short break instead of chasing what was on offer.

6 hours ago, bluebruce said:

And the potential corona hole for next season.

I kinda suspect that that one will dictate the FUP relaxation more in a way. They don't know how long the problems will run on for and this makes it difficult for clubs to set their budgets accordingly for staying out of FUP. Otherwise the sensible thing to do would just be to take the largest estimated loss by a club due to covid, add a little bit, and add that to what every club can lose before the penalties hit. And I'd expect it to have been done by now, so clubs know the rules and can go about their business. The fact the issues could be ongoing means it makes more sense to kick the whole thing down the road until the picture is clearer.

Agree and i hope the FUP gets brought into line otherwise it pushes more clubs towards the edge.

My main point though was it all still has to be covered so we are relying on them for extra money or it comes out of next seasons and maybe beyond to square off extra debt taken.  Personally i'd expect a Tom Cairney,  David Raya type late unexpected 3 mill pound sale in the event of no big out going transfer that would cover the lot.

And i suspect Nyambe will be the sacrifice if so.

1 hour ago, Amo said:

Have we forgiven him for kissing the Chelsea badge at Ewood? What was that all about?

And the jesture at Fulham.

We'll win the last couple in comfortable fashion it was only really the dead rubbers at the end of last season that glossed over the cracks and gave a skewed view to some in anticipation for this season.

Once it started it was obvious nothing much had changed and that was with a fit Bradley Dack.

Rovers  4   Reading  1

2 hours ago, Scotland1 said:

Isn’t Nyambes the same agent as Gallagher, Sam Hart, Christian Walton: Simon Conning @ Crown? 

Even our transfer targets in January like Stephy Mavidi are Crown.

Something smells fishy 

Didn't he leave them, allegedly around the time he found himself dropped ?

If he was with that lot he might well have a shiny new contract by now.