Miller11

I’d start Dack tomorrow. Sub him off at half time if needs be, but if we don’t score first we won’t win. And if we don’t score relatively early we won’t score at all.

Kaminski, so long as his distribution wasn’t relied upon. Nyambe, in a team that plays with a back 4. Lenihan in a team that plays 3 centre backs. Brereton has the physicality and eye for a goal (I would never have believed I’d say that 18 months ago). Buckley and Wharton possibly with another year under their belts. I think Rothwell will end up in the Prem next year, so we may see how he gets on.

Don’t disagree with any of this, but it just goes to show how far our expectations have been dumbed down under these dreadful owners. Seeing being the 26th best team in the country as a major achievement for Blackburn Rovers is pathetic really. So much for respecting Jack’s legacy.

Then less than 24 hours later…

Wasn’t given long enough. By the time he came on Millwall had a back 7. Very uneventful cameo, but not the lads fault.

Ostentatious enough to gold plate the taps in a multi million pound house they never use, but can’t be arsed with the most basic of upkeep for the ground. Venky’s all over. And Waggott and co are desperate for the Riverside to be condemned.

Some predictions… Mowbray will go. He looked like he’d had enough 18 months ago. We will be linked with loads of managers but will take ages before inevitably raiding the HSH scrapheap. My money is on Pulis. We will lose Nyambe, Rothwell and Lenihan. All will get far better deals than we offered, and at least one will be a premier league squad player. People will deludedly start saying “I bet he regrets leaving, he hardly plays for them”, completely ignoring the fact they are now firmly in millionaire territory. We will sell Ash Phillips for a couple or three million plus add ons to a big club, which will be enough for some people to excuse losing the three mentioned above for nothing. We will sign Harry Chapman up for another year and play him in the first couple of games next season before loaning him out to Doncaster. Bradley Johnson will sign a new deal in November. Talks with Travis over a new deal will stall, and our entire transfer budget will go on Zeefuik. There will be a Brereton Saga. He will be linked with half a dozen clubs throughout the summer before joining one of them on deadline day for half the initial fee that was rumoured. Season tickets will go up in price and go on sale 48 hours before the opening game. There will be no kits in the club shop until the end of September. We really do need to get promoted.

We’ve played over 12 hours of football without scoring a goal from open play. The one set piece goal we managed during that time owed a great deal to some dodgy goalkeeping. There’s no dressing it up, it’s disgraceful. There are no attempts to address it, we just keep hearing “I’m not worried, goals will come, we are creating chances”. That’s the kind of clichéd tripe normally reserved for managers whose teams are hurtling towards relegation and they don’t have a clue how to stop it. We probably blew our chance to do anything about it with our nonsensical January business. We have about 10 “wide forwards” on our books, none of which (except Diaz recently) look capable of any more than the very occasional goal. The situation is now desperate. We need to rush Dack back. We should also be scouting the free agent market for someone who actually knows where the goal is. I’d take Joe Nuttall or Dominic Samuel back at this point.

Absolutely fuming with that. Supposedly doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Well, it’s also the sign of a stubborn old man. Unbalanced, toothless and predictable. Felt for the subs tonight. Far too late and only made once Millwall had shut up shop. Gallagher cannot play in this system. At all. I don’t know if it’s through instruction or instinct, but he seems totally reluctant to get in scoring positions. Seems to hate playing facing their goal and looks scared to enter the penalty area. Giles played so wide it neutralised Rankin-Costello and his one footedness was evident. Might have had some more joy on the other side. Buckley started well, but another dreadful miss. Travis played well and Van Hecke was immense. Our lack of goals is now absolutely fucking ridiculous.

We are really going to have to buck some trends tonight. Millwall are looking good at the moment, just quietly going about their business, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them make the playoffs. They aren’t a side who like to have loads of possession, so our counterattacking game isn’t necessarily going to work… not that it has done lately anyway. We have yet to keep a clean sheet in any game where Nyambe hasn’t started this season. We need to break that record pretty sharpish, because if they score one I can’t see us getting 2 on recent form.

He’s terribly inconsistent with who needs to learn the way we play too. Didn’t matter with Zeefuik, didn’t matter with Elliott for the entirety of last season.

I’d change the system slightly. Gallagher as a centre forward, reluctant as he seems to be to play there, no false anything’s. . Kaminski Lenihan Van Hecke Wharton Buckley Giles Travis Johnson Dolan Gallagher Hedges Pears, Brown, Pickering, Rothwell, Vale, JRC, Dack

I’d definitely give him a start. We need to change something round.

If Mowbray doesn’t get us in the playoffs this year he never will. We might be performing above start of season expectations, but those expectations have been reassessed and failure to get in the playoffs is failure full stop. I’m clinging to the hope that we can not only make them, but also win them. If not, next season doesn’t bear thinking about.

Find a narrative you like and relentlessly repeat. It’s all you ever do. No, I hadn’t missed the fact we’ve brought players through from the academy. Being aware of the fact was pretty central to the point I’m making - A point you seem determined to miss. Whatever the reasons for the current situation with Nyambe, Lenihan and Rothwell, the fact is if we lose them for nothing our “model” has failed badly.

We are led to believe that the club have decided to operate with a model wherein we invest in the academy and/or “polish up”, in Mowbray’s own words, cheap signings, and sell them on at a profit. Any comparisons to PSG or anyone else are irrelevant. The situation we are currently in represents a fundamental failure for us as a club to execute the basics of our supposed long term strategy. Again. If we lose three of our best prospects for nothing while still stuck in the Championship we can’t just shrug it off.

Didn’t expect anything here, but we were the architects of our own downfall today. Two really poor goals to gift them. They are a horrible side. When players dive that much I just wish one of our players would send one of them off on a stretcher. Ref was at best unforgivably inconsistent and weak. Pickering was awful, particularly in the first half. Nobody really covered themselves in glory. Dolan tried, Gallagher looked decent until it came to actually doing the job of a centre forward… he was unlucky with the chalked off goal though. Johnson and JRC really sloppy to give away such a cheap offside. Our January business looks more horrific by the week. Unless we get some/all of Nyambe, Brereton and Dack back soon, our season will peter out into nothingness very quickly.

On a par with his performance at Huddersfield earlier in the season.

That’s true. The positive is though he’s as quick with the ball as without it. I thought he did really well against QPR, we didn’t miss Rothwell driving us forward from deep or Buckley’s closing down - Dolan did both.

The same could also be said for the manager, who despite being out of contract in 3 months looks far more interested lately than he has at any point in the last 3 years.

I’m not sure your understanding is as good as you think it is. Why would a loan to buy be a consideration for either us or any potential buyer when he is available on a free at the end of the season? I expect his agent has a far better inside track on who may be interested in signing him than anyone else. For all we know he has a deal lined up already. I also expect his agent isn’t the only person in the world who owns a pen. You mention how Rovers have offered a “good deal”, but that’s literally just parroting Waggott’s long standing line. What is the deal being judged against? I believe he is now (eventually) being offered a significant improvement on his existing terms, but it’s still not commensurate with his status, ability or importance. He is still being treated like an academy graduate rather than an established first teamer. Obviously clubs with parachute payments (and there’s enough of them) have bigger spending power… but look at the wages Bristol City, who have barely ever played top flight football, and not since 1980, pay currently. No doubt they will have to cut back next year, but they pay Nakhi Wells nearly twice what we pay our highest earners. There are plenty of clubs who don’t have parachute payments that will pay more than us. Worth also noting that we’ve had the fat end of a quarter of a billion quid in owner subsidies over the last decade, so moaning about the inequalities of parachute payments is a bit rich. Your summary of his performances is way off. Statistically we pick up far more points when Nyambe plays than when he doesn’t. Over the last 3 years it’s really very clear. This year we have failed to keep a clean sheet when he hasn’t played, and we conceded more than twice as frequently when he’s not on the pitch.

So you are calculating your average from a starting point of him being 17/18 years old. Mowbray stated after the QPR game that Nyambe “has never really had injuries”, when talking about the knee problem he picked up being his first proper one. He’s missed games this season through concussion - hardly preventable or likely recurring. Last season only Kaminski, Lenihan and Armstrong managed more starts than him. The season before he managed 30 starts despite being sat on the bench for the first 10 games of the season where Elliott Bennett was inexplicably preferred. Hamstring niggles happen (see Pickering this year, and Zeefuik has already missed games because of it), but it’s only in Nyambe’s case that it’s made out to be a long term issue. The fact he is closing in on 200 games having just turned 24 makes a mockery of it. It’s another example of Nyambe, for some reason, being held to different standards and judged differently to other players. This thread is absolutely full of it… it’s supposed to be about the contract situation, but with at least 5 players with deals expiring, at least half this thread is people disparaging one single player.

Having got the latest copy of the magazine, I’m not surprised it isn’t selling. At 6 quid it works out at about 20 pence per word. It’s really poor.

From the fans forum minutes…

Every time there has been any reports about contract discussions over the last 2 years we’ve been told that he is being offered a “very competitive deal” that we can’t improve upon.