That's the important part for me - if he stays with us, he plays competitive games this season. And if he's as good as he seemingly has the potential to be, he'll stay in the team. Continue to do well and you earn your big move. Go to Spurs and you're gracing the U23 league, or (at the very best) being loaned out for a number of years.

Good move, seems the natural choice.

The Phillips rumour is no more than the Styles, Bowler or JPvH rumours. Let’s just see how it pans out. For all we know, he might be ready to press the button on his pro contract with Rovers and is looking forward to making his debut for us this season.

1. Where will Rovers finish? 5th 2. Who will be the Rovers (official) Player Of The Season? Lewis Travis 3. Who do you think will be the breakout/breakthrough academy player this season ? (Let’s say under 23 at season start & fewer than 10 1st team appearances to be eligible) Jack Vale 4. Who will win the Championship? Norwich 5. Where will Burnley finish? 8th

2-0 win for us, an early goal settling us down and enabling us to play some nice 2-touch, high tempo stuff. Couple of youngsters to make their debuts in the 2nd half. Looking forward to it, taking my two little lads (their highlight is usually the crap Rollover hotdog at HT...).

They did - and their fans were desperate to keep him, as they saw the potential. Think he won the U23 player of the season, didn't he? Either way, he was very highly rated and regarded and I believe he'll turn into a superb player for us in time. Delap is also highly rated, but didn't see or hear of any Rovers interest in Jan, not sure where that's popped up from?

From a business perspective, there is little risk involved with Styles and (especially) Van Hecke. Invest a couple of million on each now and quadruple (if not more) your money in a couple of years. The trick then, of course, is to make sure they don’t walk away for free at the end of their contracts…

So, hang on, Brighton have JPvH available to them and they play Shane Duffy ahead of him? Literally not a shred of logic applied there.

TM’s involvement with player contracts would have been limited to a brief chat on the training ground (ie - ‘are you signing a new one then, lad?’). Contract negotiations are handled by the likes of Waggott and numerous agents. Plenty to beat TM up about; players contracts is not one of them.

Hedges does have a very decent long shot on him - seen him do it a number of times since he joined. Really like the look of Harlock, seems to be something different to what we have (eg more of a dribbler than Dack). Albeit against Lincoln, it's encouraging to see the young lads impress.

I was thinking exactly the same. It's easy for rumour or misconception to become truth, as we've seen so many times. Having an open channel of (honest) communication would make a massive amount of difference for all of us. I'd love to be involved in something like this.

I've only watched from HT, but lovely cross from the new boy and Dack will eat those up all day long, as would Gallagher. Think A.Wharton has been tidy and first time I've seen Harlock play, couple of nice touches. Travis doing a good job of linking things together and Hedges seems to be doing well also.

If it's coming down to salary - at £8kpw, surely this is the one to push the boat out for?

I don't think we should sell SG at all - he's linked up really well with Vale in pre-season so far and I have faith in JDT's ability as a former world class striker, to get more out of him. Mistake to get rid, in my opinion.

They have got history with the ‘money for a marquee signing’ thing, to be fair. Rhodes was the first, BB was in that bracket and I suspect Gallagher probably was as well. We could certainly do with one this summer, as a signal of intent…

Your grammar is fine Glen - the only thing you do need to remember (as it makes you sound like a Cockney 😂) is 'we were' instead of 'we was'. Sorry, sounds a petty thing, but a personal peeve 🙂 Thanks for sharing so far, I actually think he comes across quite well so far - albeit based on text and not being able to look into his eyes and read his body language. Interested to read the rest, when you get chance.

Guess who we'll get more service out of - not to mention profit - in a couple of years?

Brittain and Styles would be an excellent start to our summer business, with the indication of a couple more to follow (as well as a couple of loans, ideally). Goes to prove that patience is required, particularly where a new management team is involved. As most of us said, judge at the end of the window, not before.

Really pleased to see Vale on the scoresheet again - lad looks handy and could play a decent part this season (hopefully).

Completely agree. No logic in jumping up and down right now, when the work is ongoing. As much as we like to believe we understand what’s going on, the truth is it’s 99% guesswork. Let’s see how the squad looks once the window closes; that’s the time to judge.

Couldn’t disagree more. Revisit this in May and see how daft it looked.

We can't just whitewash history and completely disregard the work TM did during that initial period. Firstly, we were doomed and we all knew it - the Coyle disaster was heading in no other direction. We had an ageing (shit) squad, amateur coaching sessions all season and we were a shambles backstage (no scouting team, etc, etc). TM's immediate impact was almost keeping us up. We were much better from the point of him arriving. And then he played a massive part in turning the nosediving plane of a club in the other direction. Put staff into key positions, gave us some semblance of a 'normal' club and then, of course, replacing that shitshow of a squad with a much, much younger exciting squad with resale value. Yes, he had many failings and - yes, he should have been potted on a few occasions. But let's not start pretending the good things that he was undoubtedly central to didn't happen.

He's bang on the money as well. That piece of shit agent was the central catalyst for everything bad that followed him filling his pockets.

+1,000

Gallagher has never played ‘on the wing’, he’s been deployed as a wide striker and it was part of his development plan, as it had (successfully) been for Armstrong and Brereton. All different players, but the end game was to have a nuisance of a forward cutting in and being dangerous from out wide, with a false 9 linking the forward play from the middle. Not Gallagher’s strength, in my opinion - I’d have him central and fire balls into him. However the last couple of seasons as a wide forward will have made him more of a rounded player and if JDT can use his knowledge and experience to get more out of SG, I honestly think he’ll have an excellent season this year. The interesting bit is that Vale may well be the ‘false 9’ in the middle, based on how well he’s done in pre season.