We shouldnt turn our nose up at loans as long as they improve us. To be fair, if you took out Elliott and Harwood Bellis last season, we might have been in real trouble. Weve had some crap loans in recent years though too. Palmer, Trybull, Douglas, Branthwaite and Walton in 3 years.

If that is the case, considering the frustration that a lack of prices or indeed communication about season tickets has already cause, (and indeed about anything) it would surely be another PR own goal to delay it further due to bollocks like this!

If there was a protest, it would surely be at the owners. Mowbray is just a symptom.

I think as ever, we are in our usual post season lull where nothing gets done for ages. Budgets, transfers, kits, season tickets, nothing. The links all seem like the above, eager agents touting their players out to numerous teams. Throw in the stagnation on the pitch and its easy to see why no one is getting excited.

Is it really bad that Scotland fans are getting exciting considering how few and far between an appearance at a major tournament is for them? I would be the same I am sure. We can take for granted qualification, albeit more often than not we are on our way home early. This would be a stupid tactical decision by Southgate if there is any truth: https://talksport.com/football/892753/gareth-southgate-full-backs-england-euro-2020-croatia-man-utd-luke-shaw-centre-back/ 4 full backs, Shaw at CB where he has never played, and totally changing the formation to try and protect one player. Why have 3 other centre backs in the squad?

With possession, often once a team scores first (and most likely goes onto win) they may happily concede possession to sit back or indeed because of less urgency to probe for a goal. In such regular situations, it would make correlating possession with results almost meaningless. Take the Derby game, we was 3 up after 20 minutes, it wasnt a win built on a lack of possession, the stat due to the way that the game went was essentially arbitrary.

Lets be honest, the points system and brexit are not the thing stopping us from assembling a team of hidden gems fron across the continent. Last summer we had the supposed scouting network set up and signed one senior player from Europe, Kaminski was the exception amidst signing the son of a managers friend, a player that the manager had signed previously, a last minute favour to lend us a kid and a couple of other last ditch loans of unwanted cast offs.

I think thats a somewhat understandable opinion to an extent. What riles is when people actively appreciate and praise Venkys for simply issuing share capital in their parent company which is what they have to do to offset the self inflicted losses that Rovers as a business generate. Willing to tolerate out of necessity, fine, appreciate and praise, totally unwarranted.

He is very much an amateur "journalist" who tries to cover the whole of the football league with clearly a very limited knowledge of individual clubs, as I suppose it is difficult not to have if you are trying to be an expert on 72 clubs, so he covers that up with the sort of terminology littered within this thread to seem like he knows what he is talking about. Caused a stir the other week when he dismissed Armstrong and said that we should sell him for 10m and reinvest, unaware that he clearly could fetch more of a fee and that a big chunk will go to Newcastle.

I suspect that at least some of them are created by the aforementioned pundits and supporters and never used within the game.

We could speculate as to what is said on the training ground but in the main amongst supporters, this sort of nonsense tends to be used to try and appear more knowledgeable. Agree with your last sentence for sure, jargon indeed.

"Ball recyclers" and "verticality" added to the phrasebook of unnecessary nonsense.

The travel is an irrelevance, indeed if it is an issue then obviously dont declare yourself for a country so far away. An international manager cant and shouldnt factor that into their thinking. The manager wont know if he isnt good enough, and indeed a qualifier is perhaps not the time for experimentation, but he will have at least seen him in training. The whole squad never features during an international qualifying break, but the players who dont appear cant and shouldnt feel like they needn't have bothered. Sorry Alexis, I know you have travelled from Italy, but Ben has travelled a long way too so I'd better not waste his time.

If he has an issue with "being dragged half way across the globe to not give him a minute" then maybe international football is not for him. Can't be expected to be given minutes purely because he travelled, all the players did, a number from Europe.

I think there is plenty of fawning over the attacking talent that we have, its competitive with all teams really in the competition and no one is doubting that. But there are obvious cracks beyond that and questions over the manager which are very valid. Its not about being positive/negative/ready and eager to slate them, although ultimately repeated past failures naturally do create a tinge of fear and wariness.

But then why would it ever be mentioned on this forum in the first place if you or anyone else felt that others lacked the full understanding/knowledge to be able to discuss it? Thats not me in any way discouraging talking about it but I dont think that the brick laying comparison is a like for like one.

Jorginho is a good player, and for me better than Rice. If we was to face Italy, I suspect that as in the past, we would struggle to get much of the ball and they look like a dark horse to me (if they arent too big to be called that!) with some very technical players. I don't think that we have a central midfield that can control games, our key players are all ahead of that.

I think technology less than data is divisive, and the ones that I have highlighted are not really data in the sense that people are talking about it. Watching training and matches back is something that clearly has happened for a while and of course has been aided with further technology, I can't see much scope for why anyone would doubt that as being useful. Analysing opposition and indeed yourself to improve and to do different tactical things, you cant argue with that really. The sports bras are a good point, and for me that is good use of data, essentially you can monitor players to try and keep them as fit as possible to try and avoid muscular injuries. Not an exact science but will be of massive help to physios and fitness staff. Recruitment is seemingly more of a complex issue, but as I mention below, the data is not the key IMO, I maintain that the main variable (the same data is available to everyone) is the people and always will be. You mention our club, we are clearly sorely lacking in competence in the recruitment team headed by our manager. My main issue with data is that it is constantly taken out of context to make what people believe are objective conclusions. Reading Andy's document, it was a lengthy piece of work but for example, it said that "purely based on his defensive output and ridiculous stats" before going onto recommend signing Trybull. Thats a personal opinion and a personal interpretation on data, as is the assumption that Rovers are performing (based on data) at a level far exceeding our league finish. With Trybull for example, he has played in a team that has a specific "style" to keep the ball so his passing stats will be above the norm, the data wont show how he slows everything down and kills any momentum. Similarly, on the Not The Top 20 podcast, it said about Swansea that they cant expect to "run away" from the underlying data for too long, on the back of a second successive play off push. Its this nonsencial idea that the data is factual when all collated together, thats not true. It also sometimes then leads to patronising/condescending comments, you clearly dont understand the data etc.

To be fair, this thread wouldnt be active for a long while yet if we stick rigidly on topic!

To be fair, the rumour seems to be a busy agent at work. And with the usual yearly dilly dallying seemingly making any proactive transfer business a pipe dream, and that a manager who has outstayed his welcome and with the recruitment team have a shoddy record at bringing players in for the last few years, you can appreciate any natural pessimism.

Clutching at straws. As if it needed confirming, at the fans forum the CEO confirmed that the owners had confirmed that he is remaining. Plus there is a piece from an interview today. No point getting your hopes up.

Every player? Do you think that Ayala, Gallagher and Johnson were signed based on data? Also, you are implying that we would be the exception if we didnt use data. Surely the fact that all teams at this level have access to similar data proves that the variable is the people that use it.

Data alone is pretty worthless. Its having savvy people to utilise it that is key, thats when it becomes useful.

Data is obviously used in football. That doesnt mean that people cant question it or doubt it, VAR is also used in football, the fact that it is used in football doesnt make it unquestionable. That doesnt mean that all data is useful or indeed relevant either. It also doesnt guarantee to be of benefit to anyone, it could be used (and often I am sure will be) used out of content, conclusions could be taken that are misleading, there are all sorts of variables. The key to Brentford's use for example is the people that use it, not the fact that they presumably are so data focused.

The idea of Mings playing for England at CB at a major tournament is a frightening one.