RevidgeBlue

For conspiracy theory purposes he'd appear to be on 47 appearances in all Comps according to Wikipedia.

Or Augustus Kargbo corner.

The worst aspect of VAR is offside. It's obviously not a "clear and obvious error" if an offside isn't given onfield but endless slow motion checks eventually conclude a player has a toe nail or an arm pit offside yet you'll get some former official or other triumphantly celebrating the decision to rule out a brilliant goal by declaring the player was "clearly" off. The offside rule wasn't designed or intended to survive such microscopic examination. At one time the attacker was meant to receive the benefit of the doubt. I could just about live with VAR if Arsene Wenger's suggestion that there should be clear daylight was adopted. However like you, on balance I dont like it and would scrap it although realistically that obviously isnt happening.

😉 Regarding Baradji don't be so bloody impatient man! There's still 37 days until Christmas yet FFS! what on earth do you expect! As far as Cantwell is concerned gut reaction dictates we won't see him in a Rovers shirt again, there feels something extremely off about both situations.

As John Cleese said on Monty Python This is all getting very silly! Anderson better than Wharton Wharton better than Scholes Rice better than Lampard In Next week's episode "Bobby Charlton - was he all that?"

Schteeeve McClaren has now resigned as manager of Jamaica after earning the dubious distinction of failing to qualify automatically for the WC as a result of finishing behind the smallest Country ever to qualify (Population 156,000)

Might have somewhere but couldnt put my hands on it immediately.

Jim Smith lived near me in a sprawling property (Springfield Cottage)which subsequently became a smallish nursing home next to the big modern one Springfield Clinic on Preston New Rd. As a kid I cheekily wrote to him at the Club suggesting players we could buy. Expecting that to be the end of it. I received back from him a beautiful letter on Club headed notepaper with his home address on thanking me for my interest and explaining why we could or couldnt try for each player. Finished off with Jim's flourishing signature in fountain pen. Can you imagine that these days? Be filed straight in the bin.

Spot on regarding the "rivalry". My feelings as well.

Yeah, no problem. But don't repeat it in the press. It probably doesn't happen as much as it used to with the advent of 24 hrs social media but it never used to cease to amaze me how often players used to sound off negatively about their Club or own circumstances when away abroad on international duty presumably thinking the comments would never be read back home.

There's also a very enjoyable documentary about King Kenny just come out. Well worth a watch. (Unsurprisingly his time at Rovers is limited to a couple of lines before the credits) In it Souness and Hansen recount that how as young "Scottish" (for jim's benefit) players in Liverpool they were always round Kenny and Marina's House for dinner etc. Souness recounted that in those days whilst Kenny was a family man with young children, as a single man, he led a very different lifestyle and had the job of talking Kelly for a walk every afternoon. This was incredibly useful as she was the ultimate babe magnet but he could say she wasn't his etc!

It was Gestede and VI who said it according to the quotes reproduced by Mark. As representatives of the Club they definitely shouldnt be saying stuff like that imo. I also remember Hodgson once making a comment about how it was more difficult to attract players to BRFC than to a big City Club because " They wanted to park their Porsches outside the nightclubs of Manchester and Liverpool". I thought that was extremely disrespectful to Uncle Jack and my first thought on hearing that was "Why would they be in a night club in the first place?" Surprise, surprise, that was also the season they went down. As for Henriksson he would probably have been better not repeating that part of what he was advised, it does nothing to dispel the stereotype of the foreign mercenary only here for the money and he's definitely done nothing to dispel that with his performances since being here. The comment about the fans not liking the owners is a separate thing entirely and I've no problem with that whatsoever.

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.