Agree with this. Our goal should be to be the most attractive club to join in the country for young promising players. I would say we can't be far off that atm, given the amount of graduates getting into the team, and showing we treat unsuccessful graduates well is a big part of it too.

I mostly agree with this but I think that Travis cant do the central sitting play maker thing. He needs to be box to box. So if he plays JRC cant be in midfield imo as they will both want the same inside right channel. Options would be play Adam Wharton in the central role and Szmodics on the left (bring in Dolan LW) or bring in Buckley to play the play maker role as a straight swap for Travis (my preferred). I guess Tronstad could be used instead of Buckley but Im not sure from seeing him if hes the right guy to dictate the play. Could be but not seen enough yet to know. Wahlstedt Brittain Carter Hyam Pickering Rankin-Costello Buckley A. Wharton Hedges Ennis Smodzics

We're playing well at the moment, controlling possession, creating chances and scoring goals. So on the offensive side we are doing pretty well imo. The worry is we are conceding easily on the break. Hard to really make any sort of confident prediction. Could see any of a 2-0 win or 3-2 loss or a 2-2 all draw imo.

I was thinking more the inverse - Buckley sits deep in the role Wharton has had recently, while JRC and Wharton focus on getting forward and into the "half spaces". Wharton, Pickering and Szmodics combine down the left channel, while JRC, Brittain and Hedges do the same down the right. When weve got those triple combinations right it's incredibly hard for the opposition full back. When we get it right ots absolutely devastating like Leicester away in the cup last year. What makes JDT probably my favourite manager by miles since Hughes (and I am wondering if he could actually compete with Hughes and Souness if he sticks around for a few years) is that he throws so many bodies forward and prioritises overloading the opposition full back over good defensive shape. He likes taking risks which makes us, imo, a pretty good watch.

Based on what I've seen so far this season I would quite like us to line up like this... Think the combinations down the left and right will be great. Pears Brittain. Hyam. Carter. Pickering JRC. Buckley Wharton Hedges. Ennis. Szmodics

Early days to judge on Tronstad. My assumption is that he will be more aggressive and physical in the tackle. What I did like yesterday though is how stuck in Wharton gets. He isnt a creative focussed passenger in the midfield, he wins quite a few tackles. If we took Travis or Tronstad out of the midfield and played Wharton and JRC / Buckley I'm not sure we would actually lose that much in terms of robustness. Something I hope we give a shot to.

Not sure we can play 12 players?

I like our bench too. I cant really say Im looking at the eighteen and wishing BBD and Dack were in it. Maybe naive, but think we have a better balanced team without them.

Could be wrong, its only been two games, but think goal scoring may be less of an issue for us already. Compared to start of last season we get so many players forward now (6 to 8 into the final third every attack), and while Gallagher and BBD wanted to spend all their time fannying around near the touchlines Leonard and Ennis look keen to get in the box. We still need an established goal scoring striker, but I fancy us to score a couple on Saturday nonetheless.

Great game to see how we compare to last year. I imagine same side as against WBA,. with Ennis and Hedges coming on around the hour mark. One advantage we have this season is in Ennis and Leonard it looks like we have some strikers who we can play it up to centrally and they can make it work in a congested penalty box when the opposition is sitting deep. Against the Rotherham and Lutons of the world you really need that.

Great to hear about Gilsenan. Not even factored in my vaguest thinking. If he can really offer a breakthrough this year thats a massive bonus. Also reports on Ennis very encouraging. Sounds like the focal point we need. And Garett's strong performance gives us six strong contenders for three midfield slots (Garrett, Travis, Tronstad, Buckley, Szmodics, A Wharton). Our academy really is something else. Womder if we could break some records this year in terms of number of academy graduates on the pitch? Looking forward to Saturday!

Personally I would still play the same "spine" as we need to settle into a way of playing and everyone is fresh after the summer. Also as we have no world cup we have nothing like as many mid week game (only three mid week Championship games between now and end of November). Pears Brittain. Hyam. Wharton. Pickering Travis Buckley. Wharton Markanday Leonard. Szmodics

Leonard might be missing a couple of them but we went all of the last two seasons without anyone making those runs. He looks really good to me.

I know theres a lot of moaning about us but for me were a really good watch. The numbers we commit forward is ridiculous. Carter was up on the edge of the box with I think 8 of 11 in the final third. Said it a lot back end of last season but we are tactically the most attacking Rovers side ive seen in 30 years.

Weve gone into the last three seasons expecting to do worse but actually done better. Im hoping we keep that up. It boils down to the young lads doing better than expected, and as of half time first game of the season signs look good on that again. Ill say sixth if we keep JDT.

Not playing well but winning against the balance of play is something we did first half of last season, including doing WBA in August. I cant really figure out why but JDT seems good at the team clinically winning games.

Anyone getting ifollow to work okay? Im just getting a black screen

Reckon it will be this. The way things have been recent seasons we could be incredibly jammy again and Leonard and Markanday come in and look the part. Similar to Carter, JRC and Adam Wharton. Hopes not really a plan, but recent history suggests the young players could do a lot more than is reasonable to expect. If Leonard and Markanday do struggle we have Ennis and Dolan to come on. Realistically were not going to have that much of an idea on how they all work together until four or so games in.

Not bad for a £900k a year contract for each England player! I intermittently watch cricket, but got completely absorbed by this years ashes which was outrageous in terms of how much the games turned back and forth each day. Never seen anything like it. I am now looking forward to watching the India away series which compared to an Australia/NZ away series will be on at quite a watchable time (4pm to 12am UK time). Will also get tickets for Old Trafford for the Sri Lanka test next year. Think England going for the ultra aggressive batting approach makes sense. The more they play it the better they get, and it will pull the crowds in. On the whole I think a neutral would look across the Ashes series and say England's batting approach looked more competitive. After Australia India are the team to beat so will be interesting to see how Bazball works against a high class side on sub continent pitches.

Glad to hear hes done well. First genuinely exciting striker prospect from the academy since Derbyshire? Or Gallagher? Or I suppose Joe Garner but I dont think he was ever seriously in the first squad picture? Weve turned out a decent amount of gks, mids and defenders who have gone on to.have good careers in the last 20 years or so. But really struggled with strikers... Found this interesting while thinking about this topic. Tracker of Rovers graduates. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/blackburn-rovers/jugendarbeit/verein/164

Get that as a general strategy with older players who are receding. But someone who just won your player of the season? No way. Must be more going on we don't know about.

Still dont get it at all... Why does a club let their player of the season under contract leave for free?

We have to make top six this year. Just outside two years in a row, seemingly good manager who is demanding more quality goal scoring signings. I am assuming if the club had not assured the manager that we are bringing in a quality goal scorer (or two) JDT would have left by now. The squad is, imo, very good in every department except putting the ball in the net. If we get that sorted then we should be confident. That said Championship is an absolute bastard of a league - I am sure Norwich and West Brom etc went into last season similarly confident and it blew up in their face. That's what I like about it really, unlike the Prem everyone goes into the first fixture with no real idea on how things will pan out. But anything outside top six will be an unambiguous failure in my eyes. I do harbour hopes that we will be competitive for the top two.

I still can't see a sufficiently attractive club really wanting JDT yet. He just hasn't done enough. If we'd finished third or something then maybe. But we finished 7th with a huge winless run across the last two months of the season. I just can't see any big hitters (Leicester, Leeds, Eindhoven etc) looking at that and thinking "this is our guy". I am a big fan of JDT, and can see him getting a lot of interest end of next season, but as it stands he's not proven enough for any really to go for him.

Well he won an FA cup and finished 5th twice so think he will feel like he had a decent enough stint tbh.