To be fair, we smashed the Deutsch in the last major tourney, in the knockout stage - off the top of my head.

If he takes the likes of Henderson over players like Wharton/Mainoo I think that tells us everything about Southgate's ambition.

We won't win it unless we get a large slice of luck, but anywhere after the quarter finals is par for England and I'll be alright with it.

Our big chance was being 1-0 up against Italy in the final of the last Euros, being on top and bottling it.

25 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I guess they are waiting 

Yes, no experience in scouting, youth development, dealing with agents or clubs, etc. If you sacking GB for poor signings last season then you want someone who has been in that role and some experiences. 

involve in what capacity tho? like a Club ambassador role 

He'll be one of the DoF's staff, but he 100% won't be the new DoF 👍

Gestede is planned to be involved, but he is not in the running to be the new DoF.

10 hours ago, ABRAM ROVER said:

He's hardly going to come out and say everyone is sh*t we need a complete squad overhaul, 10-15 players because the rest aren't good enough and we are going to spend quite a bit of money this summer on a new team. 

In the same respect, he doesn't need to come out and say anything of substance on the matter.

Sometimes it's better to say nothing than risk sounding like an idiot.
He's got a bit of form in the short time he's been here.

8 hours ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

Good grief. 

I know, right?
It's akin to those 'thank the heavenly lord and all of his ever-loving mercy for healing me from this ailment'.

It was the surgeon and his theatre staff; thank him. He did the actual work.

Anyway, hopefully Duru gives us another option at RB this coming season, God willing.

3 hours ago, KentExile said:

  Some clips of him from about 20 seconds on in this video

 

Sounds like a Manc and, whilst I know it doesn't really matter, I always prefer local(ish) lads coming through.

Not sure on this 'work of God' stuff though. It's hard work and good coaching that's got you this far Leo, don't downplay the effort.

49 minutes ago, Torgeir said:

Please no thumbs down, BUT:

Would anyone take George Hirst back? I doubt Ipswich see him as PL quality and would probably be available on loan in the summer or later on in January. We're not exactly shopping from the top shelf at this point, so just a thought.

He wasn't physically ready when he was first with us - had some raw attributes, but just wasn't ready.

However, he looks to have bulked up a bit and has scored a few goals for Ipswich this season.

I mean, he'd score more than Gally.

Agreed on that last point in particular.

Broughton did his part in getting the players to the doorstep.
The admin function (or whoever) then failed to bring them through the door on numerous occasions.

Missing out on O'Brien was the big one for me; that would have been a huge signing at the time.

15 hours ago, scotchrover said:

Edit- this is what I think’s happened  I’m not claiming to be in an ITK account, either because they’re usually bobbins. 
 

GB has told Waggot we need to spend some money, to avoid a repeat of this season.

Waggot has told him no, and told him to walk if he’s not on board, with playing the youth team and selling them.

Waggot has told Venky’s they don’t need to spend a penny (again), and the Armstrong, Wharton, Raya and Szmodics money will keep the club afloat. 

The owners have lapped it up, because he’s reducing their losses and they don’t have a clue what’s going on here.

Result?

A squad that’s not up to the level we’re playing at. 

When are we- the supporters of this club- going to remove Waggot?  

If that is the case, we will 100% be relegated next season.
Quite possibly with a record low points tally.

We have to spend money this summer and properly strengthen the squad, it's not negotiable.

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

No you didn’t say it would blow over when it all came out in July? I think you did!

I genuinely can't remember - whatever I'd have posted on that would have been directly what I'd been told (I'd have to go back and have a look).

As I've said before, I'm not a famous ITK-er, nor do I want to be.
But I'm passed some info from a source that has been extremely accurate (and not told to keep it under my hat), I like to pass it on.

Better than the radio silence we get from the club 👍

Just now, Mattyblue said:

Didn’t you say all this last summer when all the shit started hitting the fan in July?

No, things in India started in January, but we managed to podge our way through via various means until around that time.

Nobody believed that there was a legal issue for quite some time, until the club were forced to acknowledge it.

2 minutes ago, Bethnal said:

Appreciate you’re just passing this on, but just to pick at a few points from your source’s assertions: “club didn’t want to announce it due to where we were in the league” means what exactly? Fan uproar around “club legend, Ian Silvester” being ousted? They’d have probably sold more tickets announcing someone was losing their job over Maguire.

”throwing the club under the bus, similar to the JDT trick” - firstly, is that the bus we paid to be tricked out and loaned out by the real owner when we weren’t using it? Second; have either thrown the club under the bus or is Waggott so spineless that he can’t convince his paymasters to invest in the club he’s supposed to be stewarding?

Only you can answer this - what motive has your source got to make it seem like Waggott and Suhail are earnestly keeping the club on course and make it seem like it’s everyone else at fault? Because there’s only so many times that you can blame everyone else before the real common denominator becomes apparent. I think you’re receiving club spin, honestly.

It has crossed my mind, if I'm honest.

But they have been critical of how the club has been run - as well as of the owners - in the past and without taking just tonight's bits into account, I don't get the general feeling that they are feeding propaganda.

There are some other things (not on this topic) which have been shared in confidence and I'll respect that confidence - but, if indeed true, it shows me (as somebody who has been very critical of the club since JDT left) that some things are moving in the right direction behind the scenes.

We do apparently have some money to spend, though no idea on values at the moment.

I guess we'll need to see how things play out in the coming weeks.

5 minutes ago, Torgeir said:

Is your source by any chance Steve W. Aggott?

Not that I'm aware of (they have a BRFCS account), but they do genuinely know what they're talking about.
I kept a lot of what I was told under my hat last season, to see how it played out - and they do know their stuff.

Suspect agent or something along those lines, but genuinely not sure.

If you remember some time at the start of this year, I was given some info around the issues in India and a few other bits around the club.
Despite taking some grief for being 'cryptic / ITK bollocks' I just purely passed on the info I was given.
And, in fairness, it was almost exclusively bob-on.

We've not been in contact for a little bit, but I've literally had the below though tonight on both Silvester and Broughton.
Feel free to disregard it if you so wish, but I'm told:

Silvester sacked. Was sacked straight after the Maguire fiasco.
However, club had to follow disciplinary procedure as he is an employee and not like a manager or player you can dismiss.
He then went off long term sick and eventually dismissed.
Club didn’t want to announce it due to where we were in the league.

Broughton sacked.
Failed in his signings (Wahlstead bought in on same salary as Kaminski!!) and lots more that have failed.
Broughton ran out of Ewood as fast as he could and now trying to throw the club under the bus, similar to the JDT trick.

It's negative news for me.
Between GB and JDT we appeared to have a plan, a vision and a mission - with a process of how to get there.

Obviously this was hamstrung by the likes of Waggott and the lack of funds / failure to finalise some key deals when they were already over the line.

As for Gestede, the nicest thing I can say about him is that he played me in for a shot on target in the 2nd half of the charity game at Ewood last week (when he probably should have shot).
As a DoF, who knows.

Does it really matter anymore?
The end result will almost certainly be the same irrespective of who the Head Coach, or DoF, or Club Secretary is.

15 minutes ago, Ed Woan said:

Silvester had the dirt on Waggott thats why its taken so long. He knew he could bring him down.

Go on Ian, spill the beans...

You'd like to think that we negotiated an additional fee for 'wins first England cap'.

But then again, this is current-day Rovers we're talking about...

Was Silvester not the guy who was retiring this summer anyway?

Or am I thinking of someone else?

Listened to this today, really enjoyed it.

Loved the stories on Big Sam - great man-manager and sounds a genuinely nice bloke.

Also interesting to hear Sam's approach to big, pressure games.
Big the players up, give them specific instructions and get them fired up to believe they can win any game.

As opposed to 'as long as we're competitive / it's not a game we need to win' in a home game against a divisional rival or 'we were outstanding today' after a heavy defeat...

31 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

I don't know if you saw the post-match interview with Pickering, JRC and Szmodics yesterday on Rovers' Twitter account. At the end JRC talked about building for next year - it was clear from Szmodics' reaction that he doesn't plan to be here next year (albeit it was subtle). 

Yeah, I caught that.

This is what I mean, he'll already have a good idea of where he's heading, even if the whole club-to-club negotiations haven't been sorted yet.

Shame for us, but he completely deserved a big move.

24 minutes ago, OJRovers said:

Eustace would get a lot more respect if he didn't come out with utter BS in his interviews.

Before the Leicester match, Eustace said he wanted it to be a 'celebration' if we survived. 

Much more refreshing from Carter who said he wouldn't be celebrating because it was way below what they should be achieving. 

Agreed with this.

Before the last few home games, against sides we should be beating, he came out with things like 'just be competitive' and 'we don't really need to win'.

It's one thing trying to take pressure off the poor little delicate lambs on the pitch, but it's another spouting obvious bollocks.

We've gone from the straight-talking, honest and insightful JDT interviews to generic bullshit.
And I can't stomach it.

I'd take the GK and Rathbone from Rotherham.
Rathbone is a Rovers lad and almost joined under Mowbray (but the deal fell through for reasons I can't remember).
Is he any better than Garrett though?

As nice as it would be, there's no chance SS is here next season - his agent will have done all of the leg work already and he'll have a lot of options, even at his age.
We might play hardball for a while, but once the agent decides the boy is leaving, it's inevitable - as what happened with A.Wharton.

If the club has any ambition at all - and wants to shift any season tickets - we'll get some signings over the line as early as possible, like last season.
Waggott has made a public statement that the situation in India won't affect our transfer dealings this summer.
It's not like he'd intentionally mislead fans, is it...?

17 hours ago, wilsdenrover said:

Sutton was joint top scorer in 97-98 when we finished 13th but only 2 points off the drop.

We finished 6th in the '97-'98 season, 5 points off 4th under Roy (qualifying for the UEFA Cup).

Relegated the next season.

Edit: Just checked, it was the season before where we finished 2 above the drop zone.

9 minutes ago, neophox said:

We won with a back four 🙂

We had 3 CBs (Pickering, McFadz, Carter), with Brittain and Chrisene at wing backs.
But we defended excellently today.
Pears made some good saves, whilst not forgetting the points his errors have cost us this season.

Had to be SS, didn't it?

If I'm being honest, I didn't feel relief today. Frustration at being in that position and almost an acceptance that we were going down once B'ham had scored.

I wish I could be optimistic about a refresh in the summer, but the last 12-13 years have shown that it's going to be the same old.