Luckily, my opinion is worth very little.

Credit where it’s due, that was very good play from Jack Vale, the control on that ball and then the awareness were really excellent.

That’s two corners from the set piece specialist that are not exactly what we’re looking for, either. Give him a pass because of it being a debut, but it’s beginning to feel like it won’t be our night.

I’d love to, but I’m 34.

You can see Wigan are more energised but they still look a poor side. We look alarmingly poor, really. Brereton puts that away and we’d be building into it but it looks very disjointed still. I hate to give a young lad grief but Vale is miler away from convincing me he’s cut out for this level. Postionally poor, visibly lazy and just no strength/power about him. Not smart enough to be a small, poacher-type either. Must be pulling up forests in training as he’s not shown me much on the pitch ever. This’ll be a draw, but both teams look vulnerable to conceding.

Mark Harris as the striker target is pretty uninspiring. Who am I to assess a striker from Cardiff? Nobody, that much is true. It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand the exact reasoning and mechanisms behind decisions and actions on the recruitment front. I get the Welsh association but it’s not a cutting-edge approach. Brittain, Hyam and now Thomas aside (assuming he makes a contribution and I feel he will) it doesn’t seem laser-focused, as yet. I hope we can be more creative in the coming months to uncover genuinely exciting prospects or proven players. I hope hard work is being done in the background to ready the youngsters to make big contributions next year. Hope is essentially all I’ve got to work with. With a few days’ time to process the end of the window, the early excitement of the season has waned and I’m increasingly thinking of next season. A lot has to happen to shift that (not least in terms of quality performances on the pitch). With that in mind, though, the summer window is going to have to be genuinely solid - borderline undeniable, even - to get me fully on board with Project Rovers. I’m a fan of the model and I believe JDT can deliver with time and assets at disposal, but my dissent towards it is forthcoming and I think that’s my deadline for it. Missed opportunity this season is very clearly true, but it’s a very big ask, when you look at the state of the club.

We moan about our pitch, but the Stamford Bridge pitch is a real state for a premiership outfit

It’s only Waggott and Pasha that were at the match, from what I’ve read.

Morecambe about to be bought by a 20-year-old from Birmingham. For those of a certain inclination, the companies house searches make for odd reading. Honestly feel for Morecambe, I think it’s gonna end up as a weird YouTube/crypto grift.

I think they actually have more of a case asking that than what they asked.

This is a total rollercoaster and I’m giving up trying to figure out what happens next. Who in their right mind asks “what happens if they get relegated?” without catching themselves and saying, “ah yes, the exact same thing that happens if they don’t get relegated and don’t get promoted.“ Talk about beyond your sodding remit.

Calling an all-hands on virtually no notice is not the action of someone who thinks they have control of a situation. Something - and I have to doubt it’s a few Twitter replies - has spooked the exec level. If we want something out of this, the fanbase has to press the advantage. Monday could be a huge evening in the recent history of the club, if the fanbase does make themselves heard.

Why are you on such a wind-up?

He even says “we followed the same process the club has followed for ten years… but the process didn’t (work, or something similar).” How long has Sylvester been here, again? It could be very subtly pointing at him, might just be a slip, but it does lead the conclusion to that point.

If I’m being blunt, the point of taking that shit is because when I sell this business, I’d likely never need to work again and everyone we pay to work here will get a comparatively smaller slice. They’re contributing to it and doing things to enable me to grow that pie elsewhere. You don’t let them get covered in shit in the process, if you’re actually a leader and can recognise contributions. In my view, at least.

In a similar position to yourself. Day-to-day is for delegation, deadlines/crunch time are for coordinating and leading. Trying to avoid those situations through observation, communication and leadership in the day-to-day are the remit of a business leader. Sh*t does hit the fan though and your job at exec level is to step in and eat as much of that for your staff, by being a leader and deploying yourself. I’m aware people are split on this board, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think this should be pinned on Broughton. This is a symptom of a chronic condition and that condition is the ownership. By extension, Suhail is the ownership’s ops point person. Waggott is a yes man. I think those three factors, bundled, are the root of the issue. Indeed, so cack-handed was the managerial appointment by the in-situ administration, they were appointing a manager before the DoF, or at least aiming to. Only when Broughton was appointed do JDT come into the picture. I don’t think it’s worth debating that the board/exec leadership were about to make an absolute blinder of an appointment. Wasn’t it Big Dunc and David Unsworth Dream Team at one point? 😐 I’m confident Broughton’s out in public, eating sh*t because he recognises the frustration and that nobody else is going to. For me, that’s leadership. He’s setting an example that nobody else has done before under this ownership and essentially challenging those that he’s covering for. Frustrations are at ownership and long-standing executive level and that’s where all the ire should go.

Doubt very much there’s any legal recourse for the player and I’d prefer my agent to be sourcing a viable alternative for a loan abroad at a reputable club, rather than putting a speculative case out to tender with ambulance chasers. Reputationally, while there’s probably some sympathy among the administrative teams at other clubs, if I were an agent, I wouldn’t be engaging with the club on deadline day for the foreseeable or until there appears to be some progress on our facilities to handle a transfer on that day. That’s a bit of a blow as we seem to only be able to move deals forward as the last one with our hat in the ring. It’s impossible not to be cross at this as a fan, but it is interesting that this seems to be a lot of peoples’ final straw. I wonder if it’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back after 12 years or particularly egregious. I’m simply unable to travel from London to Ewood on Monday. I would be willing to buy someone a ticket as my proxy, so long as they agree to participate in some coordinated action/disobedience/dissent before during and after the game. Also happy to participate in offline discussion about action.

Honestly, not really, from my reading. Agents brinksmanshipped the future contract negotiations based on need to get everything done very quickly for deadline and created a rush/panic, which leads to confusion and then a mistake on a form. I have no idea about the grounds on which the EFL would allow this to go through, but it’s one form, that was probably signed in time, hopefully wouldn’t materially change the nature of the registration and should be looked at as a small admin error. If there’s enough conclusive evidence of agreement and adherence to the rules otherwise, you’d hope it goes through… he says, as a total layman with no experience in football administration.

Rules are rules and if we haven’t followed them, I don’t understand the grounds for appeal, save for desperation. it sounds as though it’s a f*ck-up on our end, which is basically inexcusable, as the buying entity. I’ve not got experience of a deal with a firm, third-party deadline, but I’ve experienced deals that have fallen through from taking too long and a competitor comes in. In the majority of cases, someone lost their job over it (or with it as a major contributing factor). I’m not even saying it should definitely happen here, without understanding exactly what happened. But if it doesn’t come off, I fail to see another outcome in any other, rational industry. There has to be an explanation and there has to be pressure to elicit that explanation.

I’m not currently a rational thinker, because it’s Rovers. However, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s an air of “who’s gonna tell them?” to the silence, an effect of people shirking announcing bad news. For balance, the rational part of my brain is saying, “he did the medical yesterday afternoon, there’s no way they don’t file the paperwork immediately.”

If they’re holding off to announce a novice from Rochdale, that’s me checked out.

Rovers have tweeted a match report from last night, which is both expected and somewhat unexpected, as first tweet of the day.

I suspect that there’s media being done/been done and it’ll be released in a barrage. I have to assume only O’Brien and the Rochdale youngster, unless there’s a free transfer happening. Disappointing, really. We need goals.

My thoughts as well.

You/me/everyone on this board right now.