I’d suggest their power is pretty minimal. Remember Venky’s have installed Suhail at Ewood as their representative. Nothing happens without Venky’s green lighting it.

You are expecting a level of autonomy that only Alex Ferguson, Brian Clough, Dario Gradi and avid players of football manager games have had. “Who needs Zidane when we have Sherwood” springs to mind. Owners, chairmen, directors, recruitment teams, heads of recruitment, global advisors, trusted partners, agents and high profile disgruntled supporters have all had a say in transfers in recent years. Managers aren’t simply given a budget to spend as they wish.

Because every manager who has had a summer window under Venky’s (except Mowbray once) has struggled to bring in players in a timely manner. Come off it, you aren’t that naive to think the buck stops with him.

There is a big pattern here... Kean’s first full season in charge we started with N’Zonzi at centre half and Jerome’s son on the bench before we signed Vukcevic, Yakubu, Dann and Slew all after the season had started. The following Season was underway before we signed Rhodes. Following year and Cairney was very late, Marshall the season was already underway, and Gestede came in November. Duffy, Steele and Tunnicliffe all signed on deadline day the next year. The next year we were signings some real horror shows. Tom Lawrence was late, most of the others (Guthrie, Akpan, Delfouneso) were quite early. Mixed bag the next year with Stokes, Feeney and Greer being done pretty quickly, but Mulgrew, Williams and Brown all after kick off. Similar case with loan signings. League one was the only time our business was done in a timely manner. Back to form with Reed, Brereton and Rodwell. Then there was last year where despite being on the verge of signing for at least a month, Tosin wasn’t in in time to start the season. Then there was the whole Mulgrew and Cunningham deadline day stuff. This may go some way to explaining why we never start the season well. Clearly not something that can be blamed on Mowbray. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that since Venky’s came along our entire set up around transfers is clearly a bit off.

I think we can take the conspiracy theory a bit further. Remember Bowyer, Lambert, Coyle and Mowbray are all with the same agency - HSH. Guess where their registered office is?

Just catching up on the days antics... got to say I like these visual breakdowns Joe! more of these would be very welcome throughout the season! ?

You have literally cut out the rebuttals and answers to your questions to post those quotes.

To be honest I think it’s piss poor that our fullbacks are often the most advanced players in our attacks. I think it’s lunacy to expect it regularly. But, shock horror, you’ve missed the point. No, we shouldn’t consider selling him. He is worth more to us than we could hope to get. He is our only right back. We should not be in this situation and should’ve offered new terms ages ago, but it would appear we still haven’t got round to it. If Nyambe moves on then no doubt he will be viewed as ungrateful, disloyal and greedy by you and many others, just like Hoilett and King to name a couple. The fact of the matter is it will be the fault of the club. Of course his attacking game his improved. All aspects of his game have improved. My eyes tell me that. I trust my judgement over your single statistic. What on earth has the number of appearances Wilcox made got to do with anything? If anything you are just proving your own reliance on really over simplified statistics... Wilcox played in a more advanced position, for a free scoring team on their way to the title, with probably the best English centre forward of all time in his prime! By the standards you hold Nyambe to, his assist return is pitiful. I’ll presume you’ve missed the point. Again. I don’t think you’re clued up enough to be that deliberately obtuse, so I will explain it in simple terms. Jason Wilcox was extremely effective during the 94-95 season, just ask Alan Shearer. He was involved in setting up a lot of goals. He has only been credited with 4 assists. I expect Chris Sutton has a lot of assists and I expect many of these came from him nodding a Wilcox cross down to Shearer who put the ball in the net. Accredited assists are not an effective measure to solely base a players attacking contribution on.

Oh he’s definitely our first choice right back. He’s our only right back. It did take 10 games before he got a kick last year though, and he’s been inexplicably dropped on occasion since.

“I thought Joe Rankin-Costello warranted his place in the team and thought Elliott Bennett brings some character and personality to our team and takes the game-plan on to the pitch. “It was a balance of a few things, confidence levels, and the fact he’s played a lot of football, we decided to go with Elliott and Joe.” T. Mowbray 15th July 2020

This season presents an absolutely unique opportunity to blood young players. Probably the only benefit to playing in empty grounds is the fact players like Dolan can be introduced without getting overawed. Manage him effectively, and I’m not just talking Mowbray here, the senior players, coaches, his parents and all support staff play a part. Make sure he stays grounded, if he has a rough patch keep him off social media, be careful with him, but get him playing. The lad looks the real deal.

You only need to go back to the 14th of July, Millwall game, to see that’s not the case.

Funny you should mention the 94-95 season... I’ve just had a look at the stats for that season. Have a guess how many assists Jason Wilcox was credited with? 4 (four). I couldn’t possibly provide any better evidence to show that assist stats are utter bollocks.

I think it’s ridiculous that you seem absolutely fixated on an unquantifiable, bollocks statistic when assessing our right back. By your logic, Brereton contributed nothing to JRC’s goal yesterday. Despite the fact he ran the ball into a dangerous area and put the cross over, it took two players and a few defensive mishaps for the ball to end up in the net. He won’t be credited with the assist, but he was instrumental in the goal. You fail to acknowledge our strikers aren’t often in positions to get on the end of crosses. You fail to acknowledge Nyambe stays back for every single set piece... maybe because there is no simple statistic that you can trot out to suit your narrative. Here’s a decent one from last season... Points per game when Nyambe didn’t start: 1.25 Points per game when Nyambe did start: 1.54 I think you are preparing yourself for him leaving, in the knowledge he is in his final year and Mowbray seems to scapegoat him, so you can say ”I said all along we should get rid Nyambe he not assists enough”

Brereton looked better today, admittedly he’s set himself a very low bar. But @joey_big_nose and @Stuart are spot on. He’s never an effective centre forward in a million years. He only seems to want to pick the ball up wide and deep and run with it, doesn’t seem willing, able or inclined to get in goal scoring positions. While he was effective on occasion today, Armstrong, Rothwell, Dack and now Dolan are all better at doing what he does than him. If we are going to play this 4-3-3 we need a focal point to our attack. It’s certainly not Brereton.

Both full backs did well going forward but were poor defensively. Sound like a broken record, but we expect a lot from them. We basically play wing backs with a back 4 and the midfielders don’t drop in readily enough. Hopefully we get these new defenders in quickly and we can start trying to build a solid foundation. Horror show at the back at times today. Brereton did alright, but it looks like he wants to pick the ball up deep and drive at players. He did this reasonably well and had a bit of joy, but we have at least 4 players who do this better than him. For a forward his positioning is incredibly poor, can’t ever see him getting a decent goal return. Nothing more needs saying about the open goal. It’s so typical it’s stopped becoming worth talking about. One attack, Bell got forward really well and got beyond all the front three. He put in a shite cross that flew straight out of play, but the thing that really stood out to me here was that Armstrong, Brereton and Chapman were all hanging back at the left hand corner of the box within about 5 feet of each other. Nobody in the middle, nobody attacking the far post apart from a deep (too late) run from Rankin-Costello... our right back. The attack needs a focal point. Travis and Armstrong were quiet. Johnson and Chapman anonymous. I’d make Rothwell play two touch every day in training for a while, he always wants to play it first time or has to take at least 27 touches. For me the brightest spark of the game was Dolan. What a player he looks. Seems to have a tremendous attitude, reads the game so naturally. He might be short, but he’s not physically lacking... blown Chapman out of the water. I’d like to see him blooded straight away, starting games. Nyambe, JRC and Dolan down that right hand side would terrify opponents.

Some players over the last few years have genuine cause to gripe at how they have been treated. Mulgrew is not one of them.

Interesting interview with Brereton in the Telegraph today https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18682460.brereton-looks-back-forward-two-years-rovers/ Doesn’t really come across as the quiet, unassuming, delicate little flower a lot of people like to paint him as. He seems confident, enjoys being here, is mates with everyone, and slightly worryingly, thinks he is doing well. All this talk of him being a confidence player, I really don’t get. I think he needs telling that he’s approaching last chance saloon and we need infinitely more than we’ve seen from him thus far, and quickly.

Let’s get #BlockedByNixon trending

He shouldn’t have a career and can fuck right off.

As a vocal cynic and critic, I must say I’m getting excited about Kipre. Trying not to get carried away, but he’s just what we need. Signing him for less than a million is a steal. Please pull this off!! I’d really like to hear some talk of a new deal for Nyambe. That is essential business this summer.

Bell or Rankin-Costello. Yes, I’d Definitely prefer a new left back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one didn’t materialise.

We’ve done some good deadwood clearing so far and offloading Williams for a fee would be a great bit of business. I can’t see Mulgrew giving up his hefty wage, so I think we will be lumbered with him. We have good youth options all over the pitch, but obviously we need another first choice centre back and we are after (at least) one. I’m hoping against hope that Venky’s break the habit of their reign of terror and actually spend a bit of money on one, I don’t think we’d be in bad shape at all if we just got one really decent centre half and no other signings. If we are baulking at 1.5 mil for Kipre though it doesn’t bode well.

Aye... mores the pity, because I think a proper winger or two would help Gallagher immensely, and give us a bit more balance. A lot of names there, and unless Schmidt is good enough to be starting most weeks I don’t think we should bother.