Roy struggles anywhere that has expectation of success. Put him in an underdog scenario and he'll almost always overachieve, put him in the opposite situation and he'll generally fail miserably. Even during his time at Inter they'd been struggling massively prior to his arrival, hence the relative success he had there.

RIP Anvil. Considering his lifestyle during the heydey of the 80's it's a miracle he got to 63 in all honesty.

I think you could make a pretty good case for either. I'd say Eddie was better at promos than AJ, which might push him marginally ahead. Both exceptional talents though. Eddie's best match (imo): AJ's best (again imo):

Well Dack wasn't injured, so he either wasn't fit enough to play the full match or we decided to go defensive and settle for 2-1, despite that mentality repeatedly costing us points over the past decade or so. Pick whichever one you're happier with, I'm not impressed with either of them. As for which Championship teams can keep up a decent level for 90 minutes, we'll know that by who is up at the top end in a few months time.

Don't kid yourself into thinking it was all down to luck. The goal itself was a bit of a fluke, but the reason Ipswich scored is because we reverted to type and allowed them to come closer and closer to our goal. Had we been less cowardly and kept Dack on we likely would have won and maybe scored another. We saw another Mowbray special on Saturday during the first half - a Rovers team that looks like they stumbled out of a pub for the first 45 then suddenly hugely improve for the second half. That has been happening since Mowbray arrived and it's concerning that he evidently still hadn't worked out how to fix it. We got away with it last season because we were playing shit teams, and yesterday we had luck and the post on our side. As the season goes on though we will get found out if we aren't able to play for the full 90 minutes. It'll be no good starting to play in the second half if we're already two or three down.

Bennett is a great player to have in the team, but his position is clearly in the middle. He hasn't really got the pace or crossing ability to be effective out wide, but in the middle his constant running never gives the opposition a second to think. He's got a decent footballing brain on him as well so tends to make good passes rather than poor ones. The main advantage to playing him out wide is that obviously he provides good cover for the full back, due to his stamina and good reading of the game, but it essentially leaves us void of any real wide threat on whatever side he's on - save for when the full backs overlap.

Same old story, one good half and one bad half. A shame we threw two points away last week, as it would have made this result seem a lot better. No choice now but to put this one behind us and move on.

5/10 so far. Squad not good enough for a full season, not enough ambition shown for my liking so far and very confused as to why we started panic bidding towards the end. Does not fill me with confidence. Could end up a 7-8/10 by Sept 1 if we bring in some top quality loans with a view to buy. Not holding my breath at this point though and won't be paying much attention to what Mowbray says in the press about transfers going forward. His comments have thus far been disappointedly at odds with reality.

The market has been inflated for years now - can't use that as an excuse or we'll be signing League 1 and below players forever. Will be interested to see what Mowbray says. Let's see how the loan window pans out. If we still have nobody decent by September 1 then we'll know exactly where we stand with both the manager and the owners.

"Short notice" ? Other than most of June and the entirety of July? OK. I'm not that bothered about us not signing players (I fully expected as much) but I can't help but feel we had a real chance here to put out a statement of intent, and have instead broadcast that we're happy with just surviving with the squad we have. It's an achievable aim if our first eleven stay fit for the majority of the season, particularly Mulgrew, Dack and Graham. I suppose we'll find out in due course whether Tony's faith in our L1 squad is justified. We can always play the loan w/option to buy game, too, but I think the quality of our loan signings will depend on the results we get leading up to the deadline. Millwall (H), Hull (A), Reading (H) and Brentford (H)... if we're aiming for safety this year we're realistically going to want to be winning two of those.

I have that concern too, and it is worrying as at least two of those four aren't good enough for this level and none of Armstrong, Samuel or Nuttall can play the role that Graham plays. We're also completely screwed if any of the back four get injured. We might get away with Bell replacing Williams and Bennett shifting to right back if Nyambe has a spell on the sidelines, but an injury to Mulgrew or Lenihan makes us much, much weaker. Being loaned back for the first half of the season at least, so it won't make them weaker immediately.

The extended loan window makes everything a bit murky. and gives TM and his team an 'out' should we fail to get anything over the line today. Problem is the season has already started, and we're currently going into games under-strength because the club doesn't see fit to get its business done early. Any new signings will now have no pre-season training with the Rovers squad and will essentially be expected to hit the ground running. That's the main and only reason I would prefer for business to be done early. Obviously you can expect the odd one or two signings to be done near the end, but you don't want the bulk of your signings all left until the final minute. IMV we're still in need of a decent back up keeper, competition for Williams and Nyambe, a decent centre-midfielder, a wide man (ideally two but we'll be lucky to get in one) and back up for Graham. That's a lot of players to bed in with the season already underway.

Staying at Chelsea according to the papers.

Gives me nightmare flashbacks to that period when we were relying on the likes of Jake Kean and Simon Eastwood.

Interesting, thanks for this. Shows that our back line (Lenihan excepted) are all prone to mistakes, which we knew going into the season. That's why I would have liked to have seen some strengthening there but we seem obsessed with central midfielders instead. Palmer's contribution really was poor when he came on - nonexistent save for that glaring miss. Even Nuttall had more impact and he was getting a lot more criticism. I suppose if Palmer had fitness problems going into the match that might explain it, but then why bring him on at all if he wasn't ready?

Well, at the very least they'll have a competitive League 1 squad should they take the drop.

Yeah, for the record I called retaining Moore a mistake months ago when they first announced it. Not saying he'll definitely be a failure but early signs aren't good. Losing to Bolton at home was atrocious, first game or not, and tonight they looked lethargic and unorganised for most of the game. If Forest's attackers weren't so panicked in front of goal it would have been over by half time. Still time for Moore to turn it around obviously, but I think they're going to struggle.

Giving inexperienced managers a chance is fine in certain situations, but not when you're trying to get up to the PL at the first attempt. There are a lot of issues to deal with at a recently relegated club and it's pretty foolish to leave it all in the hands of a novice.

Forest made to pay for wasting chance after chance. For all the money they've spent they still look dodgy all over the pitch.

Well, not really. Since Anderson left in an official capacity we sold all of our best players, stripped the squad bare of any talent, hired Owen Coyle and got relegated. Granted the last year and a bit have been alright and JA brought nothing positive to the club, but Venky's majorly screwed us over as recently as summer 2016 so we shouldn't get too carried away. I wouldn't put it past them to bring Kean back if Mowbray got the boot in the future. "He thinks well", said Desai...

WBA looking abysmal. They'll regret not getting in a proper manager.

Anyone remember when we randomly tried signing George John from the MLS years ago? http://www.ekathimerini.com/135506/article/ekathimerini/sports/blackburn-makes-bid-for-george-john Probably best that one never went through...

Yeah, of course. D'oh. He was alright.

Do you mean Tim Payne? Was picked up from a club in New Zealand in 2012. As with every other signing from that horrendous era he amounted to nothing and is now back in New Zealand according to wiki. Think he had issues getting a work permit whilst he was here.

He'd do a better job than Evans or Smallwood in the centre. Surely it'll be a loan? Why would Bournemouth release him on a free?