Found myself sitting next to Tayo Edun's family last night and had a chat with his dad - a very nice chap Says his favourite position is left midfield which is where he played in England's Under-19 European championship winning team

Edit - wrong thread

Running around alot for no purpose doesn't make him a footballer. He's poor on the ball. He doesn't seem to be improving or learning. As he is at the moment I think he'll struggle to stay in the professional game

Our lot were like statues last night and when the ball was eventually played forward none of them had the technique to hold it up or bring another player into play. Danny Graham was the last proper centre forward we had who could do it

You have to hand it to Ince - he looked at how we play and got his players to do a brilliant job on us. We were 2nd best from start to finish. It was like watching a Mowbray team - Ayala etc passing it around to no purpose at the back and Reading just sitting back and waiting for us to give the ball away The other managers in the league will have been watching and will have taken note.

He's not the weakest link - of the starting XI last night Vale and Dolan and Smodics (sp?) needn't have been on the pitch. The first 2 belong in non-league football: Vale in particular is like Butterworth, totally out of his depth

He's not bad but not great either - a good League One full back, certainly not the calibre of player who'll get you promoted. Ryan Giles was miles better - played in his best position. Boro-supporting friend is raving about him

Shall I start the relegation thread now or next week?

Tonight exposed the limitations of this Rovers squad. We need at least 4 good signings in the next 2 weeks (preferably permanent, not loans) or we can say goodbye to any hopes of a top 10 finish.

Some observations from the long trip to Reading last night - my first sight of Rovers live this season 1. Paul Ince did an excellent job on us. No doubt advised by his ex-ManU mate Steve Bruce after the West Brom match, he had Reading in our faces from the kick-off and they kept it up for the full 90 minutes. I've never seen a Rovers team bullied and intimidated like that in 50 years' watching. Our nice boys just sank back and wilted 2. We're in a false position at the top of the league. We need at least 4 or 5 signings (good ones) to sustain a promotion challenge over 40 plus games. The squad is too thin in both quality and quantity 3. The manager got his starting XI seriously wrong. Vale and Dolan are League 2 standard - and that's being kind. He made the right subs at half time (which Mowbray wouldn't have done) but if that's our best XI it's not good enough to get out of this league 4. I liked Nyambe but the new right back is clearly a better player. As for Zmodics (sp) what can you say except meh? He looks like a few other meh midfielders we've had in recent years. Travis was just about the only player who could hold his head up last night - the rest went missing in action 5. I'm not sure of the Rovers turnout but there were lots of empty spaces and I've never heard Rovers fans so quiet. We were/are top of the league so they had plenty to sing about but it was all very odd. Reading fans loved it....."top of the league, you're having a laugh"... Not a good night to be a Rover

Oh dear, oh dear Jim the albatross strikes again. That's 4 visits to Reading and 4 defeats. Tonight was the worst of the lot

Crawley needs to be dropped - for his own sake. His technique and mindset are all over the place.

That includes us. I’m at the match tonight and we are dire

That was awful as bad as anything under Mowbray Reading could be 3-0 up

Acid test may be whether Brereton is in the squad tonight If he's left out a deal would be in the offing and he'd be on his way

Sell Brereton and kiss goodbye to any promotion bid. Our goalscoring talisman would be gone and the transfer fee banked and unlikely to be reinvested in an adequate replacement. We’d be better keeping him in an all out effort to get in the PL and then let him go for free - assuming he wants to leave.

The money spent on those 2 isn't very much and is not the sort of serious money that funds serious promotion bids. Rovers desperately need more players - permanent ones,not loans - and that requires proper money to be spent. I don't see any sign of it so far So you're just guessing that Brighton would need to find another centre back before letting Van Hecke go which is a bit different from your previous statement

Who says we have the money? And even if someone has said we have money to spend there's precious little sign of any significant sums being spent so far If no serious money is spent this window the only assumption can be is that we don't have the money and it was never there in the first place Have Brighton said that in relation to Van Hecke?

In the Venky's era, we've won one and lost 5 in 6 games away to Reading. If it's not a hoodoo it's pretty poor.

Van Hecke still sitting on his hands at Brighton, nowhere near being a first pick, waiting to be picked up by any club that's interested. He said he loved it at Rovers and would jump at the chance to return. It's a complete no brainer for us to sign him permanently and you have to presume the money isn't available to sign him - which says everything about the owners' ambitions for the season ahead

Why are we messing about looking at unsatisfactory loans for the likes of (reportedly) Jones and the Liverpool lad and all the problems loans entail when the centre back problem could be solved by making Brighton an offer they cannot refuse for Van Hecke? The lad was immensely popular last year, looked an excellent prospect and he is reported to be keen on coming back to Ewood. How much would it take - £5 million? Whatever the figure, he would be a good investment for the future and a player only likely to increase in value if he continues to improve. Another Brereton. Time for our billionaire owners to get the cheque book out.

The Jones story sounds unlikely to me and I'm not sure why we'd want him. He's played a grand total of 6 league games in the past 4 seasons so there must be question marks over his match fitness and of course his general fitness given his poor injury record. .He's 30 now so his league career effectively finished at the age of 26. It's a great shame because he was a fantastic prospect at 18 - another Duncan Edwards according to some - but he will always be an unfulfilled talent.

Come home lad. You've served your time

Brereton is getting close to irreplaceable. He's scoring goals out of nothing and making them too. He's our matchwinner. Without him we'd have lost today and quite a few games over the past 12 months. He's just getting better and better. Surely we should be pulling out all the stops to keep him and what use is £15m if it blows a hole in our great start to the season?

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