Ben Brereton Diaz

[K-Hod]

4 minutes ago, 47er said:

The way we chased him for weeks and weeks and the price we paid, I thought he was some wunderkind.

I honestly can't see what TM sees in him. Would a kid from our under-23's have done any worse?

OK, he's had limited opportunities, but it looks like that's because we daren't give him anymore time on the pitch.

Really disappointed.

 

Have you watched Joe Nuttall?

It seems to me, that TM is being too loyal to the team from last season in general (which fundamentally is fine as they helped get us here). I think it was Revidge Blue that said it in the match thread (apologies if not), but BRFC 2018, if we are spending £7 Million on a player, they need a good run of games and it probably isn't helping his confidence just giving him cameos....

Problem is, TM is too cautious by nature, which sometimes is fine, but we need to let the lads off the leash sometimes. You see it with how conservative our full backs are. How much do they brick it when they get into the final third?

Edited October 4, 2018 by K-Hod

[Dreams of 1995]

Just now, K-Hod said:

Have you watched Joe Nuttall?

It seems to me, that TM is being too loyal to the team from last season (which fundamentally is fine as they helped get us here). I think it was Revidge Blue that said it in the match thread (apologies if not), but BRFC 2018, if we are spending £7 Million on a player, they need a good run in the game.

Problem is, TM is too cautious by nature, which sometimes is fine, but we need to let the lads off the leash sometimes. You see it with how conservative our full backs are. How much do they brick it when they get into the final third?

Yep. There's a fine line between being hard to beat and making it hard to win. We need to find that.

Ben Brereton has a long way to come to justify the money spent on him. He needs a long run in the team however, to do that, Graham would need dropping. It's a no brainer who starts for me.

[JHRover]

Two problems here.

The first is that there's no way we've coughed up or committed to cough up £7 million on him. It will be half of that or maybe slightly more with addons and bonuses taking it up to £7 million in years to come.

The second is that I think a very particular set of criteria would have had to be matched for Venkys to sanction that sort of outlay. It isn't going to be as simple as giving Mowbray 3,4,5,6 million for a striker and he's picked Brereton out of all those available. They would only have put that money on the table for a particular player if certain boxes were ticked, one being that the player had to be young with plenty of time and potential to improve and increase in value.

Mowbray's language around the signing and spending the money was strange. Seems he felt under some pressure to get it spent because he doubted whether it would be available again if not.

Early days for the lad but he's not exactly had opportunity galore coming on in the last 20 minutes either as we're trying to see a game out and hold on or as we're chasing a game and he's the lone striker.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

40 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Two problems here.

The first is that there's no way we've coughed up or committed to cough up £7 million on him. It will be half of that or maybe slightly more with addons and bonuses taking it up to £7 million in years to come.

The second is that I think a very particular set of criteria would have had to be matched for Venkys to sanction that sort of outlay. It isn't going to be as simple as giving Mowbray 3,4,5,6 million for a striker and he's picked Brereton out of all those available. They would only have put that money on the table for a particular player if certain boxes were ticked, one being that the player had to be young with plenty of time and potential to improve and increase in value.

Mowbray's language around the signing and spending the money was strange. Seems he felt under some pressure to get it spent because he doubted whether it would be available again if not.

Early days for the lad but he's not exactly had opportunity galore coming on in the last 20 minutes either as we're trying to see a game out and hold on or as we're chasing a game and he's the lone striker.

I've had the feeling all along that Mowbray was offered the chance of taking this lad on by whoever runs the show for Venkies. I'd be surprised if Mowbray had actually had him scouted at a serious level. It was a take it or leave it deal. He possibly thought " What have I got to lose ? " . Well we'll soon find out out. For that sort of money we needed somebody who was the first name on the team sheet, not somebody who was the first name on the subs list.

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, K-Hod said:

Have you watched Joe Nuttall?

It seems to me, that TM is being too loyal to the team from last season in general (which fundamentally is fine as they helped get us here). I think it was Revidge Blue that said it in the match thread (apologies if not), but BRFC 2018, if we are spending £7 Million on a player, they need a good run of games and it probably isn't helping his confidence just giving him cameos....

Problem is, TM is too cautious by nature, which sometimes is fine, but we need to let the lads off the leash sometimes. You see it with how conservative our full backs are. How much do they brick it when they get into the final third?

Agree with @Dreams of 1995 on this issue.

Graham has been as good as any Rovers player this season and Brereton has done nothing in his cameos to give any sort of credence to an argument of starting him over Graham.

[tomphil]

To me he looks like what he is a raw kid who probably should be playing in the U23s regularly to improve his game and build up his potential or should've been signed and loaned out to a league 1 or 2 team to get a few more mins than here and get up to speed with the physical rough and tumble at his tender age.  Rovers should've signed or loaned another striker to help Graham whilst BB get's some more development time away from the microscope.

What he's doing now is basically filling in the Samuel job of utility striker/sub and yes he's getting some mins and experience but it doesn't help the team and not sure how much it'll help him. Everyone wants him to do well and it'll be a long term thing but when you spend that kind of money of a kid he's going to be scrutinized particularly when the first team desperately needs that kind of investment.

Pinch the winner v Bolton on Saturday and he's an instant star and the new Rhodes however.........?

[K-Hod]

4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Agree with @Dreams of 1995 on this issue.

Graham has been as good as any Rovers player this season and Brereton has done nothing in his cameos to give any sort of credence to an argument of starting him over Graham.

I suppose they were more general points that I perhaps wasn't clear enough on. But fundamentally, as a club at the moment:

If we are spending £7 Million on a player, I'd expect them to be starting every week. (Under normal circumstances, I get that there may be fitness issues and he needs to get up to speed etc).

Graham isn't one from last season I think we should be dropping right now, he's someone I'm a big fan of and have been since he's been at the club. 

I do believe TM is too cautious and this shows in the displays of some of the players sometimes.

 

[JHRover]

2 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I've had the feeling all along that Mowbray was offered the chance of taking this lad on by whoever runs the show for Venkies. I'd be surprised if Mowbray had actually had him scouted at a serious level. It was a take it or leave it deal. He possibly thought " What have I got to lose ? " . Well we'll soon find out out. For that sort of money we needed somebody who was the first name on the team sheet, not somebody who was the first name on the subs list.

It's like with Bauer. Apparently we were keen on paying a fair bit for him, pursued him all summer, didn't get him but seemingly didn't have any other CB in place, then ended up turning to Rodwell on a short term contract with a view to converting him into a CB.

Brereton similar - pursued him for quite a while, a surprising amount of cash - I personally doubt that there were other irons in the fire on that one.

I've said before it has similar traits to the Rhodes deal - out of the blue unexpected amount of cash made available for one player - meanwhile the rest of the squad is still being built around loans and cheap deals.

I'm not going to slate Brereton yet. I think some are keen to label him as a waste of money, but I thought Dack was poor and unfit in his first couple of months last season and Graham didn't get going last season until December and now look at them.

[rigger]

I got the impression last night that no one wanted to pass to Brereton, he made loads of runs pointing to where he wanted the ball, only to see it end up with someone else.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Wow. Some wild over reactions here. The guy is 19. Of course Mowbray scouted him before signing him. He is also an England under 20 international who has played over 30 championship games. You would swear he was some random young lad we plucked from non league park football the way some are talking. He hasn't even started a game yet! 

I do think he should have started upfront against Bournemouth though. Plus the lace thing last night was odd. I think nerves got to him. He must feel the pressure. Imagine some team spent 7 million on ye when ye were 19. Players aren't robots 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Bigdoggsteel

[Mattyblue]

7 million quid is serious money for 2018 Blackburn Rovers.

For me, that should have been spent on two ready made Championship level pros. However, the new Venky model seemingly resolves around buying young English talent that can be improved and flipped for profit. 

No problem with that, at least we now have a plan, Armstrong at 1.7m is a good example of it. 

The issue is would the money have been available for 28 year old experienced pros? I personally doubt it, so it is what it is, it just seems very big money for a middling Championship club to outlay on such a raw lad.

[Mercer]

We've squandered some money on poor strikers over the years going back to the likes of Gilliver, O'Mara, Grabbi, Davies and now, in my opinion Brereton.

Think we paid £7million for Davies but at least he did have a record in the PL.  What has this lad Brereton done?  Can't recall the lad doing anything of note in our shirt.  A hugely strange signing.

Edited October 4, 2018 by Mercer

[arbitro]

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

It's like with Bauer. Apparently we were keen on paying a fair bit for him, pursued him all summer, didn't get him but seemingly didn't have any other CB in place, then ended up turning to Rodwell on a short term contract with a view to converting him into a CB.

Brereton similar - pursued him for quite a while, a surprising amount of cash - I personally doubt that there were other irons in the fire on that one.

I've said before it has similar traits to the Rhodes deal - out of the blue unexpected amount of cash made available for one player - meanwhile the rest of the squad is still being built around loans and cheap deals.

I'm not going to slate Brereton yet. I think some are keen to label him as a waste of money, but I thought Dack was poor and unfit in his first couple of months last season and Graham didn't get going last season until December and now look at them.

I understood it as we only bid for Brereton in the last hour of the transfer window when Forest circulated his name. As it was far too late to get a deal done the pursuit carried over into the loan window. If he was a summer target why wouldn't a bid have been placed early in the window?

My impression is that he was a panic buy when other targets didn't materialise.

[philipl]

Still hanging fire on this one.

Pushing Graham out of his position is a tough ask of any player in this league. 

[Mercer]

Would help if the manager stopped trying to put square pegs in round holes!

[JHRover]

5 minutes ago, arbitro said:

I understood it as we only bid for Brereton in the last hour of the transfer window when Forest circulated his name. As it was far too late to get a deal done the pursuit carried over into the loan window. If he was a summer target why wouldn't a bid have been placed early in the window?

My impression is that he was a panic buy when other targets didn't materialise.

Yes but then we stuck at it for a couple of weeks and got the deal done in the loan window, so we invested quite a bit of time and money into that deal and there were no rumours of other targets.

The whole thing is bizarre really. I'm not writing him on or off at this point but I am perplexed by our transfer dealings and spending. If we truly had £7-8 million to spend on players we'd have been far better splitting that into 4 and signing a CM and CB along with a winger and CF, but I get the impression that there's no way £2 million on 4 different players would have been authorised.

I think Mowbray knew he had an opportunity to spend some decent cash and knowing Venkys that cash might never appear again so he had to take the opportunity even if it meant disproportionate spending.

[Oldgregg86]

I agree that he's young, needs to settle,  learn how the team play and all the other things people have said and we shouldn't be writing him off. However, a young lad at a new club should be bursting a gut to impress with energy, attitude and desire. Anyone can play bad for numerous reasons but his body language doesn't scream Danny watch out, I'm coming for your shirt. He couldn't control the ball a few times which could be factored to nerves but his body language is concerning and I can't figure out what exactly his primary asset is. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

17 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yes but then we stuck at it for a couple of weeks and got the deal done in the loan window, so we invested quite a bit of time and money into that deal and there were no rumours of other targets.

The whole thing is bizarre really. I'm not writing him on or off at this point but I am perplexed by our transfer dealings and spending. If we truly had £7-8 million to spend on players we'd have been far better splitting that into 4 and signing a CM and CB along with a winger and CF, but I get the impression that there's no way £2 million on 4 different players would have been authorised.

I think Mowbray knew he had an opportunity to spend some decent cash and knowing Venkys that cash might never appear again so he had to take the opportunity even if it meant disproportionate spending.

In your opinion what players would have improved us who moved for 2 million during the summer? 

There were plenty of rumours of other targets

[Dreams of 1995]

26 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

In your opinion what players would have improved us who moved for 2 million during the summer? 

There were plenty of rumours of other targets

Marcus Maddison. 

[Mercer]

'Bright young things' stand out a mile.

If you've got it and you are good enough then you are old enough.

Yep, likes of Mbappe, Ampadu and Alexander-Arnold are exceptional talents but I haven't seen a shred of evidence to suggest Brereton is even going to be a decent Championship player, and certainly not worth a £7millionish deal, never mind blossoming into an exceptional talent.  I just don't get it and I'm totally bemused with his signing.

 

[Dreams of 1995]

50 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yes but then we stuck at it for a couple of weeks and got the deal done in the loan window, so we invested quite a bit of time and money into that deal and there were no rumours of other targets.

The whole thing is bizarre really. I'm not writing him on or off at this point but I am perplexed by our transfer dealings and spending. If we truly had £7-8 million to spend on players we'd have been far better splitting that into 4 and signing a CM and CB along with a winger and CF, but I get the impression that there's no way £2 million on 4 different players would have been authorised.

I think Mowbray knew he had an opportunity to spend some decent cash and knowing Venkys that cash might never appear again so he had to take the opportunity even if it meant disproportionate spending.

That is some leap and a rather unfair judgement on Mowbray. 

[islander200]

5 minutes ago, Mercer said:

'Bright young things' stand out a mile.

If you've got it and you are good enough then you are old enough.

Yep, likes of Mbappe, Ampadu and Alexander-Arnold are exceptional talents but I haven't seen a shred of evidence to suggest Brereton is even going to be a decent Championship player, and certainly not worth a £7millionish deal, never mind blossoming into an exceptional talent.  I just don't get it and I'm totally bemused with his signing.

 

Where have you been?Funny no posts of praise when we were picking up results and playing well?

Also be interesting to hear your thoughts on Dack and the fact the club reportedly turned down a deal with West Brom that could have potentially netted the club 15 million?Didn't you say you were 80% sure that Dack would be sold in the summer?

Edited October 4, 2018 by islander200

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 hour ago, philipl said:

Still hanging fire on this one.

Pushing Graham out of his position is a tough ask of any player in this league. 

Coming on and actually doing something when Graham goes off would be a good start.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

41 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

In your opinion what players would have improved us who moved for 2 million during the summer? 

There were plenty of rumours of other targets

Not that one again. How are we supposed to know who was available and who wasn't ? If you come around with a cheque for £1mill Joe Bloggs won't be available, come around with a cheque for £3mill and it can be another story.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

8 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Where have you been?Funny no posts of praise when we were picking up results and playing well?

Also be interesting to hear your thoughts on Dack and the fact the club reportedly turned down a deal with West Brom that could have potentially netted the club 15 million?Didn't you say you were 80% sure that Dack would be sold in the summer?

What has any bodies thoughts on Dack got to do with the signing of Brererton ?