Miller11

Massive problem with modern game mindsets. People don’t give a shit about fullbacks being defensive liabilities, as long as they can pass a bit.

Nice bit of play there, Hedges did well. Brereton should be burying that.

His effort and commitment levels make Danny Murphy look like Robbie Savage. Pulls out of 70:30 balls in his favour. Got his new deal at Liverpool so can’t be arsed to try.

Hopefully Wharton’s enforced absence will have given him time to sort his head out. Dolan unlucky not to start, Markanday can feel very aggrieved not even making the bench. Gallagher can have no complaints, but toothless Vale leading the line and bollockless Morton in the middle doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope.

The fact half the squad went straight to Manchester airport from Turf Moor suggests you are right. Hopefully we can have one of our inexplicable good days.

What’s one of them?

I haven’t slated Broughton over it. The root of the problem lies 4,000 miles away. I’m slating the club, and by association them based on the real outcomes - players leaving for nothing. The club failed to accept the bid. Assuming Brereton would’ve refused to move is as hypothetical as it gets.

That’s not the argument here at all. We have turned down bids for at least 2 of the players who have/looked like they will walk away for nothing. There was definitely something we could’ve done in those situations. For whatever reason we didn’t accept the bids. I don’t understand why people assume that the players would’ve dug their heels in and stayed. It wouldn’t be a logical decision, but if they did then it’s an entirely different discussion. Can anyone offer up any examples of one of our players refusing to be sold? I’ve never advocated the “let them rot” line. Rovers do enough cutting off their nose to spite their face. It’s not a scenario that’s relevant very often as usually players are sold to further their career and earnings. In a lot of ways I’m glad Brereton is still here - Saturday showed things look pretty bleak without him! As you say the problem is our short-termism. Players walking away for nothing is a huge issue for us. The fact it is happening again is far more irritating to me than the “incessant whingeing” about it. The model/project is not a new one. Mowbray went on for years about “polishing up” players and selling them on for a profit. When the model is repeatedly failing before our eyes there is obviously going to be complaints. You are absolutely right about us needing to improve the strategy long term, and I absolutely agree with your 12-24 month timescale being a fair point to judge the new regime. I’m probably slightly less impressed with them than you on what they’ve done so far, and quite a lot less optimistic as the root cause of our issues remains Venky’s - you know my opinion on them. Fingers crossed though.

So why is it acceptable to presume he didn’t want to leave?

No it isn’t. Anyway, if we’d encouraged or accepted bids then maybe it would be a valid discussion rather than an illogical assumption.

Agents aren’t exactly known for their patience. I doubt many would be pushing him to sit on 300k per year when he could be earning £3 million. He’d still be getting a signing on fee whenever he went. It’s a massive jump to presume that a player would refuse a move, especially a hugely lucrative one to a top league. It’s a massively flawed argument been treated as fact by people trying to defend the clubs dreadful handling of the situation.

Why is it suddenly becoming the narrative that Brereton did/would refuse a move? If we’d have accepted a bid in the summer from a team in a top division who’d have multiplied his wage at least tenfold I doubt he’d have turned his nose up at the move.

Because you say everyone will be a good signing before they come through the door, and you stick with it til they leave or look like they are about to, apart from a very select few. Jury is still out on Brittain as far as I’m concerned.

Plenty being Nyambe, Bell and Mola. Hirst was good enough though according to you. Questionable judgement, if we are being generous.

Agree. Looks like Undav knows where the goal is, he’d be genuinely exciting. Porteous would be a real bonus. Midfielder is key though, hopefully one (or more) is on the agenda. I’d love a fullback or two as well, certainly more than another keeper, but I expect that’s hoping for too much. LONG way to go with none through the door yet, but hopefully this will turn out to be the type of window we are entitled expect and shows a bit of desire to achieve something. Not getting too carried away just yet though, feels like we’ve been at this hopeful stage before.

Offer them better terms that they might agree to in a timely manner. If they don’t, sell them.

Until spokespeople for the club stop banging on about a project that is based around actually getting fees for our players, no, we can’t.

The two caveats being Ryan Nyambe and the half time pies.

That’s a lot of pieces to fall into place in less than 2 weeks. The longer everything drags on, the more likely a couple of last day uninspiring loans becomes.

Nobody at the club gives the remotest shit about supporters having meltdowns. They shrug off protest, planes, banners, music concerts, pitch invasions… I doubt fan reaction played any factor.

The Rovers Trust have a meeting with Waggott and members of the marketing team in the next few weeks. I’m on it.

I had a spell under Bowyer where I just walked away from it all. Barely paid attention to the results on a Saturday, I wasn’t enjoying games and felt totally detached. The only emotion was sadness at what Rovers had become and it was contributing to the difficult times I was having with my mental health. At that point it was fairly easy to switch off from everything, I walked out at half time one game and gave my season ticket to my Dad. I got interested again when I got angry again. The Lambert/Coyle fiasco did it. It reignited the passion, in a different way though. I’ve enjoyed very little about Rovers over the last 12 years, but I still care and desperately want things to get better, to get that enjoyment back. The other big factor for me is my nephew. I always go to games with my brother, and his son who is nearly 6 is absolutely football mad. He knows every fixture and result, will watch any game that’s on, and always wants to be playing. His Mum’s side are all big Burnley fans and season ticket holders. Amazingly he hasn’t sacked it off and decided to support City, he will tell you he supports Rovers and Burnley, and he does. He became quite famous amongst the staff at the National Football museum for this stance when I took him on a trip there. My brother and our side of the family have it much tougher. Burnley are an undeniably better team and have been since he was born. They also spanked us 3-0 in the first Derby he witnessed. His Christmas list was made up of a Rovers kit, a Burnley kit, and premier league cards… luckily my brother did his shopping early. He’s attended fairly regularly at both Ewood and Turf moor since last Christmas but this season has been asking if he could go to an away game. His first one was Burnley’s league cup game at Old Trafford. Obviously we couldn’t compete with going to a ground like that, but we thought Rotherham would be a good day out and a good chance for 3 points… He’s still convinced we will finish second (to Burnley, obviously). I’ve tried to temper his expectations a bit, but he’s just excited about the prospect of a trip to Wembley and a win in the playoffs. I really hope we can keep him interested once the optimism of youth wears off a bit. We’ll be up against it again next year with them back in the Premier League. The reversal of fortunes of the two clubs would’ve been unthinkable prior to Venky’s. That anger that brought me back still burns, and I’ve told Steve Waggott on several occasions that the angry ones are the people they need to attempt to re-engage with - they still care. If the anger gives way to apathy it’s a tough road back.

The whole “year option in our favour” has been an absolute disaster for us. All it’s done is encourage us to be complacent and penny pinching in our negotiations, not that the powers that be need any encouragement in that front. It’s not conducive to long term planning either. Timing has worked against us to a degree, but there is never any urgency. 2 years ago Brereton would’ve jumped at a 4 year extension on the same terms he was on. All of a sudden he is able to command ten times that. There was no way he was signing a new deal with us, but we opt to keep him round on a wage well below what he could expect elsewhere. While he’s shown no visible signs of resentment it must be at least mildly frustrating. The only way we salvage anything from this is getting a playoff spot - and that’s only a bit of face saving for us fans unless we go up.

Rumour has it that India’s far right prime minister Modi is putting pressure on them to stop pissing away hundreds of millions on their English football team. Might help bring this purgatory to an end.

I think he will be pretty unique in that he’ll be a cult hero with the fans, but a £7 million loss and nothing to show for it he will have to go down as one of our worst ever signings.