I feel Andy Morrison belongs in this thread. Bought by Kenny in 93(?) but only lasted the one season. On the short side for a centre half, but almost as broad as he was tall, even as a young lad. Seem to recall he enjoyed a skinfull and a scrap pretty regularly, and had a justified hard man reputation. Went on to become somewhat of a legend at both Blackpool and then Man City, where he led them out of the third tier as their captain. I’m sure I saw he was managing an obscure national side these days having spent time in the welsh league. Edit… He is currently managing Sri Lanka, but nearly had a go at managing Seychelles a few years back. The below is from the Wikipedia page of an Andrew Amers-Morrison: In September 2010 he was appointed as manager of the Seychelles national football team. He was appointed after visiting the country on holiday and the Seychellois football officials mistakenly believed him to be Scottish former Manchester City player Andy Morrison. Suketu Patel, chairman of the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) conceded "We thought we were getting the real Andy Morrison".

They have had over a decade and shown no interest in doing any of this. I know some people, even some of our own fanbase, like to push the narrative that this is all down to the nasty, ungrateful, hooligan-like, racist thugs that go to Ewood… but it’s complete and utter bollocks. The only thing stopping them is their own lack of interest.

Me neither. I initially thought we’d got a free kick (I think everyone on the pitch did too!), but you’ll see on the highlights that it was well over the line. My confusion shifted to pure anger at our shit defending.

I was very confused about that goal. But watching it back the ball had crossed the line when Kaminski “saved” the second effort. Ref will have blown as soon as the goal line technology beeped in his ear or whatever it does.

I though he showed some promise. Had to do better with that one opportunity he had, but he worked hard. Tough being a focal point when we created so little for him.

The following phrase needs banishing. No Rovers fan should ever utter it again: ”(insert midfielder/centre half name) can play right back” Why is it the only position where people are happy with poorly equipped, non-specialist players playing there? Days like today show you why teams were unwilling to meet the Brereton valuation. Granted I missed his goal, so I’m basing it on his performance up until then, but he looked more like an ineffective winger today than a 20 goal a season man. Pickering is a mostly tidy footballer, but a terrible defender. His positional sense is dreadful. Wharton showed glimpses but was hamstrung a bit with an early yellow that should never have been. Lack of creativity was a massive problem today. Hedges with by far his worst performance. Dolan the only bright spark.

He gives just as good as he gets. And it’s often quite sinister how he does it. He’s also prone to a bit of poverty shaming amongst the giving it the big un.

Agree with all of that. Absolutely no apology necessary, room for all opinions and debate on here. As you can probably tell I’m one of the 15% I referenced. I think before there is any thought of them stepping foot near Ewood they need to start with some communication - and importantly remember communication is a 2 way process.

What makes you think they’d be remotely interested in doing so? Their attitude to us is like my attitude to the Netflix subscription that I have but don’t use. I think you are wrong on your 50/50 judgement. A lot of people who would like to throw a snowball/brick/hand grenade at them are gone now. As a percentage of our vastly reduced crowd, it’d be about 15%. You’d have a slightly higher percentage who would cheer them and give them the heroes welcome they’d arrogantly expect; Some due to a desire to be the superest of fan, some like the tweeter mentioned above, because they genuinely think that by lavishing Venky’s with praise they will be allowed to run the club with their old school pals. The vast majority would display total indifference though. I’ll tell you what is a shame - that they were ever allowed anywhere near our club. They should feel ashamed every day.

I think it’s worth bearing in mind that all the fees this window went on replacing the first teamers we lost for nothing. We will likely have a similar situation with Brereton next year, but I hope that in coming windows we have a bit of cash to add to the squad rather than rebuild or plug it. Would be nice to be in a position in January where we could spend a few quid and kick on for the run in. I’m praying the New Year collapse/death spirals are a thing of the past.

Best view is towards the back of the Riverside, central. The vantage point is much better than in the Jack Walker, you aren’t looking down on the pitch and get a great view of the whole pitch.

I’m glad Brereton is still here, we need his goals. Obviously the prospect of losing him on a free isn’t ideal, but I’m far more gutted at losing academy products for nothing/peanuts. I’m past worrying about Venky’s pissing money away, and they’ve pissed away far more on much worse ideas. Maybe I’m just feeling vindicated that my prediction of a few years ago - that we’d never recoup our outlay on him - might actually come true! (Joking, obviously). Dembele would have been awesome, and I think we are really light at right back, so I hope Brittain is back sooner rather than later. Jury is obviously out on signings for the time being, but I’m pretty pleased. Mola is an intriguing one. I think my excitement around Adam Wharton also paints the window in a better light. There’s a new era feeling about it all. That’s a definite positive.

Don Goodman did the summarising on Sky, he’s excellent… comes across really knowledgeable and balanced and not one for hyperbole. Described Wharton’s performance as “possibly the best debut I’ve ever seen”, or words to that effect.

Good result that. There’s only really one player I want to talk about, but I have to give Pickering credit after battering him lately. Did well tonight. Bowler a lot quieter than feared. Also really hope Brereton stays. On to the main man though. Adam Wharton. Fucking hell. What a performance. Not only flawless, but absolute quality. We are witnessing a very very special player here.

Looks like JRC is done. Bowler starting for them. Worried about that.

Selling players is definitely something we need to get better at. We seem to command rubbish fees, and maybe that contributed to why we hung on to Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell for too long in the end. I find it incredible that nobody has been willing to take a punt on Brereton yet at 15-20 million all things considered. I’m still really pissed off that we only got £3 million for Raya. That’s criminal really. Wasn’t helped by our then manager publicly running him down and dropping him for Leutweiler (who is now on the bench for Oldham in the Conference while Raya is a full Spanish international). There are other examples, Cairney a glaring one. Combination of a poor board who struggle negotiating, and a lingering reputation as a basket case club must contribute to this.

I’m surprised so many are ok with starting a centre back at right back, even in an emergency. The general consensus was we needed someone better at attacking than Nyambe… you certainly aren’t getting that with Carter. So early into the season we shouldn’t be relying on emergency cover anyway. Essential we bring a right back in as I think we can all agree JRC is not any sort of option and we don’t seem to have a youngster breaking through.

I’m obviously pleased we have spent some money so far. While it’s early to be passing judgement, 2 of the 3 we’ve paid a fee for seem astute business initially. Unfortunately the 4-6 million we’ve spent on fees so far has been on direct replacements for the three first teamers we lost for nothing. That’s the long term project here, to get the supposed model actually workable. Another cash signing would show there is some intent to progress, but of course the Brereton saga is the big one at the minute and nobody has a clue yet how that will play out. Every single window under Venky’s falls somewhere in the category of “Better than I feared but worse than I hoped”. Big 36 hours or so to see which end of the scale we are nearest to.

He went to Ipswich and ended up doing a short prison stretch for pretending to be Dennis Taylor’s son when he got pulled over driving while on a ban. Was the first player to play with an electronic tag. Sticking with the legal trouble theme, Lee Makel who I’ve seen mentioned a bit further up on this thread has admitted to threatening to kill his wife, according to reports today.

Wonder if we will see any late bids from Sunderland now? It’s not just Mowbray but also Stuart Harvey and a fair chunk of his old team too. Wouldn't be surprised if they tried for Dack.

Yeah, of course an option is our option. The obligation removes our ability to walk away if he’s shit/gets injured. Glen and Callum are saying two different things. Glen is stating we have the option to buy - makes perfect sense. Callum is stating we have an obligation to buy - doesn’t make sense.

But we wouldn’t be trying before buying if we were obligated to buy him, we’d be performing a pointless exercise. Having an option to buy makes sense for all the reasons you state.

Hirst may well have an option to buy (like Zeefuik), but it certainly won’t be an obligation to buy (like Brereton). If we were committed to buying him we’d just be buying him now. The only reason we didn’t get Brereton immediately and had to do the initial loan was because that season the loan window was longer than the transfer window, and the deal happened late.

Kaminski Phillips Hyam Ayala Buckley Edun Travis Morton Wharton Dack Hedges Presuming Brereton is gone and Hirst isn’t signed up in time.

True, but that would be to do with our piss poor attempts at marketing as anything else. The tiniest bit of imagination and we could’ve capitalised on it. Rovers should have been working with the council, push the town as “the home of the English game”. Get Netflix down for a follow up. They love real story behind the story content, and as previously mentioned Rovers were approached to do something on the Brereton tale. Why not use some of our cavernous empty spaces at Ewood for some displays and exhibitions, the club has (or at least used to have) good links with the national football museum. Just do something really bloody basic like make an 1880s replica shirt to sell.