superniko

Grow up - he might as well have been as he was horrific out there - far from a captain. To think he usually only starts a season well and regresses - would hate to see how he performs in a few months time if that’s the case

We signed players from a relegated Belgian team…..the Belgian league is the equivalent of the Championship, with a steeper regression as you go down it, so if you’re getting relegated from it, you’re probably league 1 level at best. Ditto signing Telalovic from the actual German 4th division, which is what, national league north level. Weirdos on social media love this shit as players are unknown, but anyone with half a brain cell can see this is risky, and has rarely paid off for us (Tronstad the exception that stands out) I said a while back throw enough shit and some will stick - well, I don’t think we’ve thrown enough shit, because this team looks utter dross. We haven’t improved in any areas we actually need to. Hedges and DeNeve as starting wingers, would that even be up to Bolton’s level in League 1?

It’s pretty easy to do as well Bazza, you just have to put your hand in your pocket and reinvest some of the £40m you recoup over the last few years.

A suspected we have zero attacking threat in this team. Solid enough, but no creativity at all. We need more quality not quantity up front

Absolutely shocking from Trav for their goal too. It’s textbook from him though. Too busy wanting to pull an arm or a shirt than actually be goalside of his man

English refereeing strikes again

Holy moly how bad is Ryan Hedges, the bloke can barely pass a football. How on earth is he still starting for Blackburn Rovers. 113 appearances

Out of curiosity Glen, and feel free to completely ignore this (probably not one for match day)….but do you ever get much in the form of replies from Balaji? I.e. could you turn the screw? Does he properly know that supporters (some not all) are disgruntled? Seperately, wondering if you’ve had any contact with Waggot since his departure? (I suspect not as he’s likely on gardening leave)

It’s just a scrape of the betting odds on the Betfair Exchange 22.2% = 7/2 in betting money - doesn’t seem crazy for us away from home to a decent enough team. I think we have a decent chance though, their team doesn’t look scary on paper and I’m not expecting Ryan Mason to do much as a manager

Well done all, great numbers. Been a while since I went to The Hawthorns, but WBA fans were always a nice bunch. Seem to remember a good pub (think it was neutral rather than away) which did a lovely curry, tikka on a charcoal bbq and kebabs. Think it was called The Vine

Cheers Duncan, Glen et al. The time and effort put in to what must be an incredibly frustrating situation doesn’t go un-noticed by the majority here.

Perhaps, but the whole Anderson thing was pretty high profile at a time when almost everyone was angry at our ownership (time and maybe the young ‘social media’ fan base has swayed that). But if it came to light that Anderson is still involved, and has been throughout I think that would cause waves. (I doubt it is true otherwise we’d surely hear more about it, but just after quoting Mike who said there are rumours)

If that came to light then I think even the ‘happy clappers’ (for want of a better phrase) would turn

Without sounding like a JDT fanboy (albeit that 1st season was the first bit of optimism I'd had for Rovers in a long time), when it all went sour in the 2nd season, he was the first person within the club to start name-dropping Suhail.

And looking at the minutes, part of this blokes remit is meant to be the academy. Absolute car crash stuff, they're so far out of their depth they're probably just laughing at us.

some absolute comedy in there I’ve underlined. Particularly like the wordplay that Yasir uses to state Hull were the only team to have cheaper season tickets ‘in all age groups’ cheers pal, our adults were some of the most expensive in the league in one of the most deprived areas of the country. As for Suhail, well I expected nothing less

Bloke who allegedly knows has named Trav now

Their ITK who posted it has ‘unleaded’ level status on there by the looks of it. I’d guess Travis or Myoshi

Edit - double post

Travis - he blows hot and cold, usually starts the season incredibly then tails off. Tronstad is far more consistent and important to us (on the pitch). That said, both are solid Championship midfielders so I’d rather not lose them to a rival, nor on a free transfer next year

I actually have relatively high expectations for the season. Perhaps due to the last 5 or so games under VI where we seemed to get our act together a bit (we always do when the pressure is off!) The signings are very much unknown, but if you throw enough shit then some will stick I guess. Have we adequately replaced Batth, Brittain, Dolan, Beck and to some extent Weimann? Time will tell. But we do appear to be targeting tall, athletic types, which we've sorely missed for years, hopefully an end to the rubber dinghy boys. We appear strong in CM, but I expect Travis or Tronstad to leave still. If (and it's a big if), we can get Carter and Wharton up to speed then at CB we have 4 capable Championship players, more than enough for this division. Where I'm 50/50 is Full Back. Will Miller slot in as good as Brittain, will we miss Beck on the left - Nobody can really answer this until we see a few games, but in reality I'd be happy enough if we were a club who reinvested funds (we don't). So the £3.5m for Brittain goes into the hole and we ask what the point of it all is. Where I'm worried now is sticking the ball in the back of the net. Kargbo, DeNeve, Cantwell, Hedges, Gueye, Ohashi and maybe Henriksson look to be our attacking threats - have we enough goals in this team? Anyway, I can't believe the season has rolled around already. I might be bucking the trend, but I'm hopefully for another play-off push, and I'd be disappointed with a bottom half finish in all honesty. No reason at all we shouldn't be competing/surpassing the likes of Boro, Charlton, Derby, Hull, Millwall, Norwich, Oxford, Pompey, PNE, QPR, Wednesday, Stoke, Swansea, Watford, West Brom, Wrexham. Ipswich, Saints, Leicester, Sheff Utd, Coventry look to be the teams to beat, and maybe Birmingham.

What on earth even is this? So do 'these people', by which I assume you mean yourself, have no interest in: Raducanu winning US Open as a complete unknown Jess Ennis winning Gold just 1 year after giving birth Ledecky winning Gold aged just 15 in one of the toughest swimming heats Simone Biles inventing god knows how many gymnastic moves now named after her Lionesses back-to-back Euros Women's first every Hockey Gold medal The year Fallon Sherrock chinned a few at Ally Pally Katie Taylor chinning plenty over the last 10 years If you like Sport, but have no interest in any of the above, well that tells me something about you for sure.

I'd imagine it'll be Travis, Trondstad, Tavares as the first 3 choices then we become reliant on Forshaw / Montgomery / Garrett / Buckley / maybe a loan. Travis and Tronstad made 38 appearances each out of 46 games - I can't be bothered looking but i'd imagine it's very rare that we'd be without BOTH of them. I think 3 with a good 4th option (Baker-esque) is where we realistically should be. We have the 3, it's whether the 4th choice of Forshaw / Montgomery is good enough (IMO probably not so would like to see someone come in perm or loan, and we ship out Buckley and Garrett).

I think this highlights just how few good options we have at the top end of the pitch. Any creativity is from De Neve downwards, and there is very little there. 7 players across 4 positions (assuming 4-2-3-1 formation), and that includes Leonard and assumes all are fit.

Question for those saying CB - are we not done there after signing the Hull lad? That will be 4 with him + Hyam, Carter, Wharton (yes fitness concerns for the latter two). But realistically signing a 5th will just stunt the development of the others - 5th choice CB should really be someone in the youth set-up. Also surely we'll have to dive into the loan bucket soon. I know it's marmite for people, but it's a crucial way to improve the starting 11 and teams with success in the league are often loaded with good loans (usually paying good wage for it though i'd add). We need more Beck, Elliott, Van Hecke, Baker types though and less Dennis, Woodrow, Mola. We should be realistically picking up 2 loans from higher divisions, who should be good enough to be in the starting 11 for a mid-table Championship side. For me, the essentials are the need for starting RW and ST. This is the bare minimum we should be expecting from ownership.