Lack of pace in this squad is a real issue. Duru stands out in this regard.

Rovers former academy defensive recruit, Flavien Boyomo, who turned down a contract to move to Spain, kept out Kylian Mbappe during Vallodolid's game against Real Madrid. However, couldn't prevent Valverde, Brahim and Endrick scoring for Real.

Take it back. 1 goal, 0 assists in 21 league appearances last season for Markanday last season, mostly sub appearances. 2 goals in 6 appearances in cup competitions.

Have the management overstretched with these non-league loans? Time will no doubt tell but it’s seems an early concern to me as even if there is no relegation in U21s (I think), you want a competitive side for players to develop in. For one, I thought, from the outside, it was a season too early to send out Boggan, the striker. Let him prove himself at U21s, and then move out. Edit; Not heard anything of defender, Max Davies, for a long time. Another long-term injury?

Agree keeping him as a back-up may be better than a loan. With Gilsenan & Leonard out, we may need forwards. If he does go on loan without a decent replacement it will be more evidence that the club are using loans as a cost-saving exercise, at the expense of building a decent squad.

Re. Jack Vale's rumoured loan move to Motherwell, reprising role from last season - I really think the club should be looking to sell. My expectation is that his valuation will only decline the more he plays and his level is better known - and his contract winds down. Perhaps, he's close to a peak valuation. I could be wrong, of course, as he's a player that does seem to have some fight in him. He came back from a disappointing and injury-disrupted loan sojourn somewhere in non-league with Halifax and did ok last year in the SPL.

I do wonder if Chelsea is primarily a publicity tool for Boehly at the moment, to get attention for himself in Europe. It seems like that's what X/Twitter is for Musk, whilst he concentrates on his 'serious' businesses more quietly.

If his confidence improves from a good loan season, he could come back and break into the team. It does seem unlikely at the moment, especially as, last season, as far as I know, he finished with no goals or assists (could be wrong but vaguely remember seeing that) - albeit, didn't play much and did ok once Eustace gave him a chance. It'll be interesting to see where he plays for Chesterfield and if he can establish himself as a central player, where his decent shooting ability comes into play. Interesting that, already, he's been recognised as a set-piece taker by their management, when we saw none of that here. Let's face, it if Ohashi scores 15-20 goals this season and we stay in the league, he'll very likely be on the move, so Markanday and others will have chances in the future, if they do ok and stay at the club.

He played in the League Cup defeat to Cardiff and apparently did very well as a DM (incidentally, as did, apparently, Clinton Mola, at left back). However, it does look as if he's got a job to get into the line-up in midfield. It seems their first choice pairing is Kamil Conteh, a 21 year-old player with caps for Sierra Leone and the experienced, Grant Ward.

He does seem quite stocky and, perhaps, in the Adam Armstrong kind of way but smaller and not as fast but more skilful and likes to run with the ball. i think he’d do a decent job as a strike partner to Gueye in a little and large combination. He has a good strike on him and can wriggle into space. His career might get going a bit if he is ever fielded centrally with a support striker. The return to fashion of target men forwards might give him a chance. Edit: For those not wanting to scroll - Markanday in loan talks, thought to be Chesterfield. “Dilan is away talking to another club at the moment to go on loan," Eustace told The Lancashire Telegraph. "I think it's important that he gets a real run of games to keep his development going. Hopefully, we can see that get sorted.”

Best wishes for the rest of the season and hope the squad recovers soon from the injury crisis. A shame for your side that they couldn't at least field a near strength side. Perhaps, a creditable score given that County had a 16 year old at centre back and youth players throughout. Whilst you are around, I wonder what you know about the loan dealings of clubs in Conference/League 2/League 1. Back in the day, Rovers youngsters would, it seemed, quite easily find loan moves to those levels, quite often staying within the football league. Nowadays, it's a rarity, with most of them heading to National League North. I think even SPL is more likely to take them these days than those leagues and it seems somewhat puzzling, even taking into account Rovers are a far lesser club these days. On Rovers, giving Buckley the captaincy is potentially a masterstroke. I feel that whether for lack of confidence or self-belief - or other reasons - he's been hesitant to take a leading role. He really needs to do it this season to save his Rovers career.

Stockport fans and management weren't happy with Travis' niggling swipes at one of their young loanees in the recent friendly. The player allegedly was injured as a result. I can't verify if he did get injured from these challenges (he is now out for weeks with a knee injury) but looking at them out of context of the match, they look very unnecessary for a friendly match. https://x.com/jkanalysis7/status/1820173451501461809 I think Travis has a lot to prove to Rovers fans. For whatever reason, he wanted to leave under JDT and then found that he wasn't really needed by Ipswich, once he got there. He didn't play much, as far as I know. As a senior player, he's been pretty poor/average for some time - arguably, since his major injury in, I think, a cup match against Newcastle seasons ago. And that injury arose from him jumping in unnecessarily, I think.

I do understand the desire to have an English person in charge of the national team, just like the desire to see local people playing for Rovers. When once it might have been unheard of, now the idea of having club teams without any local players is normalised. However, it becomes very arbitrary, in my opinion, when you become fixated on national ancestry (though, of course, ancestry is the crux of the national squad selection). What counts for me is connection with the local game. I would rather someone deeply connected with the society, even if they might not have British ancestry, be the manager than a descendant of an English emigrant who has no other connection whatsoever.

Sensible appointment, it seems to me, though I don't know his record that well (except that he was our penalty king for a while, back in the day) but he won the U21 Euros last year, which is promising. I feel more-or-less apathy about England and look back to the hue and cry during the Euros with some embarrassment. Are we all duped into a frenzy over nothing every time? Seems to me that too much national pride is placed on a group of footballers, egged on by the financially self-interested. Thinking about all those endless commercials with every other player from the squad, and some not even in the squad, still makes me feel rather ill.

Sounds promising from the new signings. I won't get too excited about them yet because I remember certain very promising debuts which turned out to be a false dawn...Egil Ostenstad for one, who scored maybe two on his debut. What I find amusing is the fickleness of the football world. For a while, big target men were going extinct and the future was false 9's (and in the case of Rovers, Very false 9's) and now, with Erling Haaland at City, everyone is out looking for the big striker again. I can't help but feel that selling Gent, for whatever reason it was, will be costly for the club. He's one to whip a ball in from the flank and could play anywhere there, from LB to LW. Having fast wide players would compensate for the plodding rest of team, as they can soak up the pressure and then the forwards can pounce. This is also where Szmodics will be missed, though Dolan could try to fill his boots. I think it's fair to say that counter-attack will be the best bet for this team.

First goal of his senior career? For all the Gallagher doubters, remember the goal against Wrexham! He didn’t do it often but that was a goal.

The mystery of Jalil Saadi continues. He gets no squad number after being given a contract deal/extension at the age of 22 years. And the club haven't, as far as I've seen - though may be wrong, even announced he's staying or for how long. That said, all the best to him and hope he has a decent season. Who knows what's going on. Maybe, he'll be the 'experienced' head in the U23s to help the younger players adapt. A couple of other things jump out to me - the complete lack of pace amongst all the defensive players, excluding Leo Duru. And, no Jordan Eastham which I hope he is finally allowed to properly move on somewhere long-term. In pre-season he's been on the bench for the U23s at times and was left behind during the pre-season Austria programme.

1. Winners of the Championship Burnley 2. Runners-up in the Championship Middlesbrough 3. Championship Play-off final winners Sheffield United 4. Where will Rovers finish the season? 22nd 5. Which 3 clubs will be relegated from the Championship? Rovers, Oxford, Millwall 6. Who will be the first club in the Championship to change manager? (For whatever reason) West Brom 7. Who will be the BRFCS Player of the Season? (As voted for in the Match Centre on BRFCS) Gueye 8. A wildcard prediction for something (possibly quite mad) that will happen to or at Rovers during this coming season Eustace will go and Gestede will be interim manager

Very convincing point and I had forgotten about the Wharton fee. It would appear that FFP wouldn't be a concern - though don't know what the outgoings are for this year. However, there is something going on financially, I think, given the odd loan moves for Buckley, in January, and Garrett now and the Gent sale. We're a relegation threatened club that needed Ben Chrisene to come in and help us over the line in the last match of the season, so the casual moving on of young squad players without replacements doesn't seem normal. (I haven't followed the club finances at all, so I may well be missing something obvious with Venkys situation). But, bringing in back on topic, I don't dismiss Maresca's complaint about the impact of FFP on academy graduates out of hand. The bigger question for me is whether the movement will give these players a better chances to play and breakthrough, or hinder them through instability and being treated as financial commodities rather than football players. The Omari Kellyman signing by Chelsea for 19 million is an interesting one. As far as I can tell, and please correct me if wrong but it was a mutually beneficial deal which helped both clubs with FFP, so Villa could sign Maatsen and Chelsea can go on with their crazy spending. Kellyman is now on a 6 year deal as, I guess, primarily a financial makeweight. Though, again, I could be wrong and Kellyman might happen to be a great prospect - a hadn't heard of him before.

Could this be part of the reason why Rovers sold George Gent? His fee would possibly cover most of this year's 'installment' for a Gueye in the accounts for the purposes of FFP, or whatever it's called now. As far as I can tell, the FFP requires clubs to cut their cloth and the intense short-termism of the game means that clubs are more willing to sacrifice young players than curtail their transfer signings. If Markanday was an academy graduate, I wonder if he would still be at the club now. Markanday signed, in Jan 2022, for a rumoured £500k, rising to £1m with add ons, and a sell-on clause. It's not verified but for argument's sake, I'll take the fee as £500k, with a 20% sell on clause. By my calculations (caveat!), therefore, if the club sold Markanday today for £200k, as Gent was sold for, the club could only add an FFP income to the books on the sale of around £45k, as they would deduct the amortised remaining transfer value and the sell on fee. Meanwhile, Gent enables the club to put £200k straight on the books to offset expenditure. That's as far as I understand it, and be wrong, as I've only dipped into the whole FFP situation. And, it's true, the real problem is expenditure and transfer fees for signings, especially, at a club like Chelsea. Moreover, it might benefit some of these young players to move elsewhere and get games.

If toughening up was the only order of the day, Premier League clubs would be sending their star youth players to National League North etc. They don’t because it’s generally understood that they want their players developing in a team whose style and standard is as similar to their own as possible. Carter and Lenihan cut their teeth in League One/Two. Scott Wharton in League Two, I believe, on numerous very successful loan deals. For whatever reason, these days our players can’t get experience at that level, though a SPL has been an occasional option. Usually, it’s been 6th tier - and the non-league experience has rarely been a springboard, least of all the strange 1 mth deals. Certain players have come back injured very quickly. That said, Jalil Saadi, has earned a new deal on the back of a loan spell at Marine, so who knows. At least half a season gives the players a chance to acclimatise. It’d be interesting to know why it seems that much harder to snag League One/Two loan spells these days. Even National League. Ethan Walker did go out on loan to Morecambe, so does happen. Perhaps, finances or a glut of players at that level are factors - and maybe the U21s revamp that replaced reserve football.

The Premier League have got it down to a fine art. They even use varying sell-on percentage clauses within a transfer to incentivise buying clubs not to later sell on to a rival.

Interesting story about Rovers former youth winger, Aaron Doran, who played for Inverness Caledonian Thistle for 13 years and suffered an ACL injury shortly before his contract expired this year. Scottish clubs don't include post-contract insurance for such scenarios, according to this Irish Mirror article, for players, so once Doran was out-of-contract, he needed to fund his own surgery - and required a crowd funding effort, including donations from former colleagues, to pay for it. https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/irish-wingers-scottish-plight-highlights-33129100

Had a quick look at how a few other clubs are going about pre-season and it struck me how much higher level of opposition some of the teams of our league have played. It is to be expected, to some degree, because some friendlies are planned well in advance and the higher finishing and stronger Championship teams can attract and (afford?) certain opponents. Luton Town have played a variety of continental/overseas teams, including AGF, Goztepe and Celta Vigo. Leeds United, for some reason, have only got two friendly results published, one against Harrogate and the other is Valencia. WBA have played Mallorca. Sheff Wed have finished pre-season against Salzburg and Leganes. I have no idea what makes for a good pre-season for a financially embattled and less than stable club and maybe low key is right for our somewhat chaotic situation. Plymouth seem to have also gone for a League 1/2 route. And, maybe, there's been helpful closed-door games as well. The proof will be in the season but I think it's fair to question if we have had sufficient standard in opposition in our preparation. It's notable that Premier League clubs don't seem to feature in any of the fixtures I've seen of other Championship clubs. I can't recall if this is normal or a sign of the ever shifting away of the Premier League towards the bigger markets, including in pre-season.

A Mowbray-era thread but jumping onboard to discuss the midfield. Eustace has joined the club narrative to say Jake Garrett is off on loan to further his experience for a Rovers return. It’s clearly a snub, given the weakness of the squad and, notably, the midfield. Garrett hinted as much when he told media that he ‘had a point to prove.” My guess is that we may have seen the last of him - he’ll do well at Bristol Rovers in less famous blue and white and feel worthy of a more competitive club by the end. It’ll suit the club too who are quite eager to cash in these days. I hope I’m wrong and he does well and returns to be a key player. It’s healthy to have academy players established in the team and performing. Garrett is no world beater but I do feel he has some promise and allowed to knuckle down in one midfield role, he could be decent at this level. He really starred in the Carabao Cup and, though only a sub in that tie v. Newcastle, I thought he woke the team up with a crunching tackle and we subsequently went on to get back in the game after being all but buried. He has the sort of spirit that Travis once had, though not yet shown that ability. He also has played CB and LB at U21s/U18s. We were already looking short in midfield, with the departure of Finneran. Now we have Tronstad, Travis, JRC and Buckley. Travis is, as far as I can tell, a fraction of the player he once was before injuries took their toll. JRC is injury-prone and might play wide. Buckley is in last chance saloon to mature and be the player his ability suggests - so Tronstad seems to be the one that might be relied on but offers little going forward. After them are, as far as I can remember, Saadi, Montgomery and, maybe, Caddick?