RevidgeBlue

It's certainly a large part of it though.

It might not do, but whilst brutally honest I dont particularly like the negative comments about the town, it doesn't indicate a very positive mindset from the player about being at the Club in the first place. I'll always remember Henchoz moaning in a foreign publication ( probably thinking it wouldn't be seen over here) that it was always raining in England and went dark at 3p.m. that time of year yada yada. Presumably it must be like Barbados in Liverpool by comparison and not go dark at the same time. We went down that season. I hesitate to add the word "too".

I was on a tour of Brockhall at some point in the past and Souness emerged from the showers with a towel round his waist looking as ripped as a middleweight boxer. He's had a very serious procedure for heart issues in the past and has admitted that at Liverpool his lifestyle wasn't what you'd expect from a professional footballer these days so since the health scare he's probably kept himself in tip top condition physically. Towards the end of his time at Rovers, when his decision making became erratic to say the least, a former friend of mine who'd also had serious heart problems said he didnt see how Souness could operate as a manager properly with the medication he must have been on. Whether there's any mileage in that suggestion I've no idea. I do enjoy listening to him as a pundit on Talksport although his views hark from when the game was arguably better in many ways and sometimes sound a bit dated He is always extremely complimentary about John Williams every opportunity he gets, although I understand that when he was at the Club he used to rib Williams mercilessly, greeting him with the salutation "Here's the guy who doesn't know the first thing about football" type thing when he walked into the canteen at Brockhall. I gather they were invariably at each other's throats as well with Souness saying he wanted such and such a player and Williams saying he couldnt have him. That's the way it should be. You dont want a Mowbray or an Ismael toeing the Company line and refusing to rock the boat to keep their employments safe.

I do hold against him the fact he has been absolutely abysmal since being here. I also dont like the comments from RG and Ismael advising him not to live in Blackburn but to live in Manchester. Nobody expects them to live in Shadsworth but there's nothing wrong with living somewhere nice on the outskirts of town. Wasn't VI also insinuating one of the reasons for Carter picking up an injury was him doing too much driving

Not that it matters but disagree. The Board didnt have the final say because they'd been completely marginalised in favour of Anderson. Venky's however did still have the final say if they could be bothered enough to get involved at any point.

It doesn't matter what I think all these years later but I can't see that that matters as long as Venky's had the final say on anything if push came to shove. It's not that different to employing a Board of Directors to run the Club on your behalf and just letting them get on with it.

Yes undoubtedly. I still dont think the recruitment is any better than before data was used so heavily though. Id say its significantly worse.

It was our pal Souness who brought George Weah's cousin in temporarily at Southampton I think. 🤣 I've seen Moneyball - very interesting and fairly ingenious. Problem imo is it worked once with certain individuals in a specific set of circumstances and people think they can use the idea of it to reproduce something similarly miraculousin a completely different setting again and again. You can't imo or at least your chances of success are exceptionally limited. I've mentioned several times before that we seem to be using a Moneyball type of approach by targeting several players who've recently been relegated from some obscure European League. Which presumably means they're extremely cheap Doomed to failure imo but who knows, maybe Rudy knows better than I.

He certainly didn't have any bad luck with the squads he had at his disposal.

Reading the above, as an old timer I have to say I agree with RF 99. Most stats have no context and are virtually meaningless imo. So what if a player completes his passes more often than not? He probably will do if he isn't taking a risk and might not do if he is trying to be creative and make something happen. Also agree with RF about the amount of shite we've brought in in recent years presumably with the help of data. It's convenient because it's easier and massively reduces the amount of leg work initially in identifying potential targets but there's no way anyone is telling me that the end result is any better or more consistent than in years gone by pre the use of data. e.g. We want a winger with pace - computer spits out Kargbo.

Great effort considering how shit we are, the fact it's televised and the fact it's "only" Preston and not Burnley. It's not quite "just another game" to me but not that far off. It's 1974/75 and Bobby Charlton's comb over flapping in the wind since I got that excited about playing them. I couldnt care less whether we sell 500 or 5,000 tickets as long as we come away with the 3 points.

Not diverting away from the owners at all. All the Anderson/Shebby Singh chaos predated Waggott. The fact we were appallingly run was never in doubt. The question was whether anything illegal or sufficiently in breach of FA guidelines had occurred. Rightly or wrongly the Authorities must have decided at the time it hadn't. Why do you always leap to Waggott’s defence?

Sounds like JDT wasn't happy with the "project" on offer and the potential financial support available before he even started this time. Devil's advocate mode on: Is he the Championship equivalent of "a cheque book manager?" O Neill needs to be careful as well. As various managers including Allardyce have noted, once you're out of work, it doesnt take long before the phone stops ringing. Edit: And O Neill doesn't have anything like the track record of an Allardyce to justify being so picky.

Each to his own, Id never even heard of him until Tuchel drafted him in recently. Imo he's a solid enough player but not a Lampard, Gerrard, Scholes, Bellingham, Foden, Palmer or even a Wharton. At this stage I do have the utmost confidence in Tuchel though. If he decides he wants to play Anderson instead of Wharton or Wharton ahead of Anderson then either is fine by me.

Holy Cow. Gut reaction says that will be an absolute disaster. Edit: Can't imagine the news will be well received by the Norwich fanbase.

If Wharton was still a Rovers player you would 100% be going mad the other way round trying to convince everyone that Wharton was better than Anderson!

But what of any significance or interest was uncovered by Harris in the first place other than the fact that he received numerous Solicitors' letters from the Club at the time? What went on was examined from all sides and deemed rightly or wrongly not to be actionable. It might be the only time ever I agreed with anything Jack Straw said, but, he was right when he said "It's not an offence to run a Club badly". In fact overall if you look at the link to Harris's previous article he's broadly supportive of the owners and concludes they were well meaning but naive and badly advised in the early years and continued to be supportive for many years thereafter. Imo Harris and anyone else would be better served concentrating on the period from around the time they stopped funding to the Club, we had the Court case in India, and Waggott made the infamous interview about how it was the Club's turn to start giving the owners something back, and made the ridiculous white lie about purchasing a new team bus. The over-riding problem remains I suppose that as long as you're not doing anything illegal - it's still not an offence to run a Club badly. As long as all bills are paid etc it's not an offence to asset strip the Club, starve it of the funding required to thrive and leave it to gradually wither and die on the vine as is happening currently. The only people that can ultimately effect change are other shareholders (not applicable in this case) or the fanbase. Harris or others can serve a purpose by highlighting current or recent events which are highly unsatisfactory if not technically illegal and it might just galvanise the fanbase into a little more dissent.

Fair point. I'm aware of the distinction but couldnt care less not being a fan of either Club.

It's not ridiculous at all. What we need is an up to date Expose' of some genuine significance which might make a difference. Not a tired old rehash of ancient events which, rightly or wrongly were examined and passed off by the relevant Authorities as "nothing to see here" at the time.

Christ, what's your beef with Wharton chaddy? Your obsession with trying to convince everyone that a fairly ordinary Notts Forest player is better than an ex Rover is frankly beyond weird, irrespective of whether you're right or wrong.

What's the point of all this nearly 15 years on? A lot of innuendo from Harris without actually revealing anything we didnt already know or anything particularly significant.

Jackson now saying we're due "a payment" from Palace as a result of the start last night which is probably backtracking somewhat from what he said originally about the add on being triggered by his first start. Might be something in what Nixon said. One or two suggestions there are graduated payments due dependent on number of appearances etc. Ludicrous.

Do you think less than £10m was good for Raya? It's not 1995.

Edit - Scrub that he's 44! 🤣

The rest of the players weren't on his wavelength. He was on a completely different level altogether in the way he saw and read the game imo but it's hard to impress when you're not being picked. Had a look on Wiki and he still seems to be playing in Spain at age 34. Bizarrely also heard Tim Vickery on Talksport a while ago say "Crocky" Santa Cruz was still playing somewhere in South America at age 41!