Miller11

Any player can and will make a mistake, unfortunately we have 3 players who are prone to having games where their head completely falls off. Pears has looked like a disaster waiting to happen in these first 2 games, no doubt he will save the really massive clangers for Burnley. Hyam and Brittain both had more than one 0/10 performance last season and generally make more errors than is forgivable, irrespective of other upsides to their games. All three have questionable mentalities in my opinion, and the resilience which was apparently a big target in our recruitment this summer is something the two outfield players certainly lack. Our defence will never be solid with these three making up the majority of our back 5.

Yep. Clever player, but slow.

We’d instantly become a better side if we switched JRC and Brittain round. JRC not quick enough for the wing and drifts inside, Brittain woefully bad defensively.

Yeah, nobody to blame but ourselves there. Hopefully with all the blood pouring out of his nose it won’t be rushing to Pears head quite so much in the second half. Keep it tight for now and there’s a breakaway goal or two in this for Yuki when he comes on.

It’s really refreshing seeing two proper centre forwards. They are both different but they both seem to understand what their job is. After years of Gallagher running away from goal and wanting to be a winger it really is a sight for sore eyes. Despite their goals Brereton (played wide) and Armstrong (get ball, shoot on sight) weren’t really it. I think we’d definitely see the best of Gueye with an old school crossing winger. Mightn’t be the most natural finisher, but he’s an absolute animal in the air.

These early league cup games have become really enjoyable over the last few years. Was good to see more of the two new forwards, both look very useful in different ways. Batth was immense defensively, could’ve used the ball a bit more bravely but that will probably come soon enough. Buckley absolutely superb, doesn’t matter about the level of opposition, his level of intensity and commitment was great - we need from him every time he plays. Similar thoughts in Sigurdsson. Weimann looks a real shrewd bit of business. Nice to see Duru make his debut, it’s easy to see what he offers. Still not sure Vale has any future at Rovers, but that goal was fantastic and I’d love to be proven wrong.

Burnley with a very dominant and ruthless performance. They will be right up there again. Luton on the other hand have looked dreadful. Derby would’ve beaten them tonight.

Believe me, they were. Some of “Greg’s boys” were very chatty about what a good job they were doing to anyone who would listen at any given opportunity.

I think most players do have a market value, unfortunately it’s dictated by two things: Idiots who obsessively pour over poorly quantified data, and the youth system the player progressed through. One thing I think the club have got massively right this summer is binning off almost the entire previous recruitment team - The ones who were massively patting themselves on the back for getting Telalovic whose “numbers mean he’s a £2 million pound player”. It’s common knowledge that teams other than Palace were reluctant to come in for Wharton because “the data” didn’t support what anyone with eyes and a little bit of football knowledge could see - that 18 million was an absolute steal. Broughton was more self congratulatory than anyone regarding that particular fee. In a world where James Trafford, after solid but unspectacular spells in League one with Stanley and Bolton and an absolute disaster in the Premier league, is worth nearly twice what Sammie Szmodics is, we need to disregard the status quo completely. We’ve obviously done this in terms of incomings, we need to buck the trend with sales too. Szmodics should only be going if the offer is too good for us to turn down.

Massively agree with this. They have also spent £15 million on a crap goalkeeper from Burnley, purely because he came through City’s youth ranks. We got badly taken to the cleaners on the Wharton deal because of the stupid, formulaic, arbitrary habits the football recruitment industry. Letting the likes of Ipswich and Palace steamroll us and nick our best players for a song is completely unacceptable. We need to aspire to being more than a Cat 1 Crewe. If we’ve doubled our asking price, good.

Or to placate Barry Fry cos Sammie is staying and he won’t get any sell on 🤞🤞

In the vast majority of cases step one of a professional footballers starter kit will be an incredibly expensive watch, probably even before a really flash motor. With all due respect to Peter Jackson I doubt he was dishing out a Rolex or Audemars Piguet every other week. I expect they will be just as happy/underwhelmed with a token bottle of Vodka as they were a watch they wouldn’t dream of wearing. Of course the biggest issue appears to be how this was communicated to Peter Jackson, which doesn’t sound great by their account and seems really avoidable. Perhaps a bit pedantic but the timeline in their account doesn’t add up. I distinctly remember hearing “Your McEwan’s MOTM is Alan Shearer” a great many times, and in David Batty’s book he mentions how he got so many crates of lager in his first season he had to ask them for a case of bitter for a change. 35 years seems a bit out.

Just before that first frame you can see Carter pointing to their number 35, and I presume he is shouting that he has been left free. Brittain was absolutely all over the place for the corner that nearly went straight in. We need somebody in there organising better from set pieces, whether that be a new keeper or a Batth/McFadzean. We also need to be stronger and braver for this not to become an achillles heel.

If we do bring in a new winger it’ll need to be one who is going to be one of the first names on the team sheet, as we actually have plenty of bodies there. Took off both our starting wingers on 60 minutes but Markanday and Sigurdsson both remained unused subs. If we get another in I can see both of them going. I still think there is a bit of business to do. Vale shouldn’t be anywhere near our bench - I’d much rather have seen Duru and Tyjon on there last night before Vale and Markanday. Once Leonard is fit he’s even further down the pecking order. Gilsenan should also be another option in that 3 behind the centre forward meaning Markanday (not up to it) and Sigurdsson (might command a fee) are very expendable. Keeper this week with a bit of luck.

Even if Szmodics has only trained a quarter of the amount of the rest of our squad I’d bet he’s still the fittest player in the group.

I think they will do something. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Waggott do an interview with Andy Bayes again over the next week or so. Whether it satisfies the supporters or not is another matter, and I’m pretty sure that whatever is said there will be a number of questions from a wide range of fans. Hopefully they can then be asked at a consultation meeting which is fully minuted and broadcast.

Me too. It’s exactly what we are asking them to do.

The outcome of the meeting is that Suhail will now be attending our official MOU meetings, and that EFL mandated Supporter Consultation meetings (not “another fan forum”) will be occurring with the first one hopefully very soon. It wouldn’t be right or appropriate for the clubs entire strategy to be communicated to two supporters in what was effectively an initial introductions meeting, for us to then relay to our members. This is the sort of communication that needs to be coming directly from the CEO and COO, not through any conduit. It needs to be detailed, it needs to address wider supporter concerns, and it mends to be honest. This is exactly what we have impressed upon them. The January signings fiasco has been done to death. I’d say people have been held to account judging by the complete demolition of the previous recruitment team and exits of previous club officials, whether you personally believe they were the right people, I don’t know. There isn’t a mic drop question that is suddenly going to make Venky’s decide to sell up, or Waggott and Suhail to suddenly drop £15 million on a new centre forward. If you can think of one I’m all ears. Your last paragraph is exactly what we are trying to get beyond. The communications void won’t be fixed overnight.

The delay is proving my point above. It’s an absolute priority for WATR to get this message out ASAP.

Personally I feel a good level of comfort that this won’t be the case. It’s not for me to try and persuade anyone else of that though. The fact it’s a concern is, in my opinion, a direct result of their communication and the lack of trust it inspires.

Without completely jumping the gun on our official response, one thing that is massively problematic at the club is (lack of) communication with the fans. Whatever questions we ask, we are never going to please everyone. Some people think we don’t ask the right ones, some people think we don’t question the answers enough, some people think we shouldn’t engage at all, some people think we should be slinging round abuse. We have to act in a way that we feel best represents our membership, at the moment much of this is driven by the MOU we have with the club. What is currently beyond our remit is to get all the answers everyone wants, or to put across the clubs messages for them. We do however recognise we are in a “privileged” position as we have more access to ask questions than most. As a result a big part of what we discussed was around generally improving both communication and wider fan engagement, hopefully leading to an opportunity for everyone who frequently reminds us we don’t represent them to have their say.

1. Winners of the Championship Luton 2. Runners-up in the Championship Leeds 3. Championship Play-off final winners Bristol City 4. Where will Rovers finish the season? 19th 5. Which 3 clubs will be relegated from the Championship? Stoke, Oxford, Plymouth 6. Who will be the first club in the Championship to change manager? (For whatever reason) Watford 7. Who will be the BRFCS Player of the Season? (As voted for in the Match Centre on BRFCS) Tronstad 8. A wildcard prediction for something (possibly quite mad) that will happen to or at Rovers during this coming season Completely left field, last minute “Marquee” signing of at least £5 million.

Yes, there was a meeting with Suhail on Friday. Obviously there will be a full report of what we discussed and the agreed outcomes from it. I’m expecting to be giving up a lot (more) of my free (and not so free) time to answering questions and carrying out our agreed follow up actions as a result of it, no problem with that, but it wasn’t possible yesterday or today due to other demands on my time. We had planned to update the wider fanbase tomorrow. One of the actions I’ve taken is to contact representatives of all fan groups to brief them fully on what we discussed, obviously this includes the BRFCS ownership. @J*BYour inference that we wouldn’t have discussed this had Glen not brought it up is pretty wide of the mark. Glen is aware of the meeting due to the fact I discussed it on the phone with him yesterday.

Yes, Gary resigned on August 1st.

Nope. What would an example of a hard question be you’d like asked?