Turns out we're bloody brilliant! Dunno how we're not top of this league, we'll piss it next season E-I-E-I-E-I-O..... etc etc

Two bald men fighting over a comb then

Eyup Rovers. Almost forgot we were playing today until just now. Crucial game for you, absolutely fuck all in it for us as our wet pump of a season trickles to a soggy end. So I'll go for a comfortable 0-2 to us 😉

In that case I can understand the logic of the risk but you might well end up with an hour of a leggy ineffective player rather than 25 minutes of someone who can afford to be a bit more explosive and influence the game. Tricky one

You’d be mad to start him on Saturday. You can’t come back from two months of no football and immediately perform to your best level in two games in five days, on different sides of the world, with a 14-hour flight sandwiched in the middle. It was the wrong decision to start him last night, smacked of desperation. Give him 25 mins from the bench on Sat.

And they kept him on for 80 minutes 😂

Well. He’s starting

Hello all. All the talk coming from the camp is that they're hopeful he'll play to tonight. Recovery going well, Brazil was a bit too early but he's trained really well, etc etc. The gaffer has even said they'll "wait until the very last minute" in the hope of including him. If I had to bet I'd say he'll get on the pitch at some point.

Much better the last few games. Very comfortable tonight in a 2 with Jagielka, who I think is helping him along a lot.

Caught out playing from the back last night for the only goal of the game. Fans not very happy. He's been alright so far but has made at least two or three sloppy errors which have led to goals or good chances. Coupled with our awful form and inexorable drift towards a standard anonymous mid-table finish, it's been a pretty inauspicious start. I think he's a good player, hope he can sharpen up and do well but it's only a half-season loan so it needs to be soon...

Well he’s finally signed. Sounds like just what we need, but good to read some moderating opinions there as well so we don’t get too carried away... Seems like he'll slot in on the left of our three, which unfortunately still leaves us with big bad Batth in the middle. But still a definite improvement. Cheers for the feedback, I’ll let you know how he gets on.

Sounds perfect. Where in the 3 did he play?

Haha, cheeky swine. The Pulis reputation tends to stick with us, although as it happens one of the most fun memories from that era was making a sport of regularly battering Mowbray's self-styled Brazil-esque WBA team, leaving him most sour about it. 😉 A ball-player is exactly what we need tbh, we started the season with a very young back 3 of Souttar, Ostigard and Wilmot, all of whom are modern ball-playing defenders, and we played decent football out from the back, which is O'Neill's preference all things being equal. Then we got hit by injuries and form fluctuations and had to revert back to the errm.. "traditional" style of defending Danny Batth generally inspires. Sounds like THB should help us get back to a bit more dynamism coming from the back, lord knows we need it.

Hello Rovers, I hope this is ok for a new thread, I had a good search round and couldn't find one on him. Appears he's signing on loan for Stoke today, we're very thin on the ground for centre-halves, Harry Souttar being long-term injured and us having slightly mysteriously cut Ostigard's loan from Brighton short. And we were supposedly in for John Souttar along with yourselves, although that seems to have gone a bit cold. Just thought I'd ask for a bit of insight on Taylor.. he seemed to be well-liked here, any particular strengths to look forward to or weaknesses to be aware of? Did he play in a 3 or a 4 with you? Cheers 😀

I don’t think he’d need you to, it’s got a shoulder strap

Dead to me since then 😉

Yeah he’s had loans at various lower league clubs over the last couple of seasons. Still a bit rough round the edges but he’s young, and well established in the England setup. He’s certainly got the attributes to have a top career, shame for him to get injured now.

Missed this before sorry. First-teamers missing today were Bursik, Souttar, Powell, Allen.. then Thompson and Clucas who would have been in with a shout of starting but also have knocks. The midfield was really threadbare. I expect we'll add in January - ideally an extra centre half and a strong DM, plus we have the return of Tom Edwards from a loan.. with that, and players coming back from injury, hopefully we can still have a tilt at it. But today was pretty abject and didn’t give much hope.

Well given how it ended up he was making it whether he wanted to or not 🙂

MON still has credit in the bank but he’s frustrating, on the one hand cautious and reluctant to change things but also won’t add any steel in the midfield for some bizarre reason. Today wasn’t a good day to judge our tactics because of the injuries we have, we played some super quick passing football earlier in the season and scored some lovely goals from it. Sawyers is talented but so flaky. Waste of a shirt today, I think the fact he got MoM from our corporates has to have been someone on a wind-up.

I think exactly the point he was making was that Stoke aren't a good side either

Piss and shit bag of wank. We're going nowhere. Shite game decided by a crap mistake and a good shot. That's about all I've got in me for a Stoke perspective review. Congratulations to you lot like, deserved the points 🙂😑

I’m the end we went with: Davies Wilmot Batth Chester Smith Sawyers Tymon Vrancic Fox Campbell Brown Nice to see Campbell back in the starting XI but very worried about BBD getting at Chester and Fox, as well as our midfield.

BBD talks about his boyhood heroes Fuller and Delap https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19745609.ben-brereton-relishing-hometown-return-blackburn-rovers/ Hoping his Stokie blood compels him to “accidentally” sky all his chances today 😉