Eddie

Yes, I mean Buckley. As for BBD, of course he'd be a useful addition, although I do believe that Sigurdsson is an upgrade.

I don't think we're exactly missing him. His best asset at the moment is being a warm body.

I question many aspects of the club, but not all aspects.

It's very clear that our fitness standards are pretty high. Our style of play requires a high level of fitness and we've signed a number of players who have been deemed to not meet that requirement in their first few weeks. There's a difference between his match fitness and his fitness for a medical. JDT has not implied that he was unfit to sign.

So you think the medical team is now cutting corners? Do you think the owners are instructing them to do so? The reaction to some things on here is often mind-boggling.

Few things are more pointless than next manager betting markets. There's so little liquidity in them and such close monitoring from bookmakers that any small bets shift the market considerably.

I'm not actually sure that was quite as bad as it first looked. Don't think he really could have got there, but the half-move made it look worse.

Never want to see a player suffer an injury, but this Pears knock could be just what we need to resolve the keeping debate.

I think we've got two players of real class in Moran and Sigurdsson. I really look forward to watching them as they grow into the team (and fitness improves).

We turn down far too many opportunities to shoot.

They pay the bills. Isn't that the basic level of competence? I'm not defending them, they've made a huge mess of owning us and continue to make the simple things hard, but they also haven't been quite as disastrous as some would like to make out.

We've never had money to recirculate. On what planet do you live? Even in the Walker Trust era when we managed to sell players for high fees we were still operating at a loss. Think about how much money we are losing enough and then try to put together a slate of transactions that balances the books.

Yet they are paying some pretty big bills. How entitled is that?

I'll take your points one at a time. 1 - Ultimately, if they're paying the bills, then I think it's hard to say that they owe more than that. 2 - I think a lot of fans say this, but when the reality of administration or multiple relegations hit they would change their tune. Yes, some will point to clubs that have managed to handle the situation relatively well (Bolton), but they are the exception. 3 - It is entitled because it assumes that every owner not only has to run a sensible business, but also operate at a huge personal loss. 4 - That is an issue that can't really be dressed at the individual club level. The business model for football is broken. Instead of supporters protesting that, we pick on individual owners who decide that they don't want to lose tens of millions (or more) owning a club. Every supporter on here is calling for more summer signings and asking why we aren't spending more money. We also operate at a huge loss in a way that virtually no other business would. It seems odd to me that supporters would be 'so happy' to go through the relegation route through some sort of nuclear implosion, yet are incredibly upset when the same results occur as a result of financial limitations when it comes to signings and wages. There's a degree of inconsistency and hypocrisy there. I don't really want to get into a debate where we single out individual clubs or examples, because there will always be bad owners. But many clubs complain about owners who do nothing worse than keep a business running.

Disagree. There's an entitled mentality creeping (or even sprinting) into football fan mentality when it comes to what they can demand from owners. At the absolute worst end of the scale you see things like Ajax last weekend and just the general behaviour of Manchester United fans over the last decade - but it is permeating most clubs. Many of our complaints about Venkys are fully justified, but even here we see fans expressing some expectation that an owner should be writing blank cheques to fund their own footballing wet dream.

I think the combination of a relatively successful season and developing an identity of playing a good brand of football will likely increase his reputation regardless of the results (assuming that they aren't absolutely catastrophic). We're only a few weeks into the season, but I've already had more non-Rovers supporting contacts mention our good style of football than I had comments last season about us being in the playoff places. People will see encouraging highlights and see the stats breakdown about our attacking style and they'll think that this is translatable to a higher level and that he would deliver better results with a better squad. The managers that get the most attention now are those that have a clearly recognisable style and system. JDT is establishing that here and it will garner attention even if we are midtable.

You can disagree with it, but not sure exactly how it can 'sound like nonsense'. Recent history would show that managers that play with a certain style tend to get more media attention.

Whilst I mostly agree, do we really want Wahlstedt to make his league debut against a team that we will ship a bare minimum of 2 goals against? JDT seems reluctant to drop keepers, but a 5-0 drubbing might make him rethink his choice. Then again, if Pears somehow pulled off a clean sheet he would be undroppable.

Couldn't agree more, to the point that I can barely believe that it is real.

I didn't say it was about making him look good, just that this style might make him look good.

I love this idea. It's the flaw in most conspiracy theories. It relies on perfect incompetence paired with incredible foresight.

I don't buy all of the conspiracy theories about JDT being on the verge of leaving. That being said, I can slightly believe that he may see this season as a bit of a lost cause and may have identified some value in being a manager who gets a side to play a certain 'brand' of football. He will get more attention out of us playing good football and finishing 12th than he will out of us playing Allardyce-esque football and finishing 5th and going out in the playoff semis. I still enjoy it. I want to be entertained by the club that I support and I know that I am guaranteed value for my time when a match rolls around...although I would like Pears dropped.

No more Pears, please. Please.

🙄

We are often overly harsh when assessing our performances. Thought we were excellent for large parts of the game. Created more than enough chances and we were entirely comfortable until a shocking officiating decision changed the game. Still could have put the game to bed and did ride our luck a bit late on, but overall a well-deserved 3 points. As for judging new signings based on 30 minutes when we were on the backfoot? Give players time and a proper opportunity.