It's not been easy these last few years. We've either signed unknowns or guys who are a bit over the hill. I thought Bennett would turn out be a good signing. I also banged the drum for Nyambe and Raya when 90% of this board didn't rate them. Most of my optimism vanished when Coyle came through the door. I stopped watching football all together at that point. Were you jumping up and down when the likes of Gladwin, Caddis, Hart were being signed ? Who on here knew anything about Luetwiler, Downing, Smallwood or even Dack ?

I've watched him on Spanish TV when he was playing for Granada, he's come on a bit since his Rovers days.

If you look back on the Whittingham transfer thread you'll see a few of us weren't " buzzing ". I had a bad feeling about signing him, especially on a 2 year contract. I just had a feeling he'd hit the wall. Watching him play was pretty sad, his legs had gone. Didn't Cardiff only offer him a 1 year contract ?

I wouldn't touch anything that Murdoch has a hand in.

2-1 defeat Jim. Played on a mud bath of a pitch the like of which you never see these days.

Be a good replacement for Dack if he goes back down Saaf.

Looks like Shane Warne's flipper did him there. He was looking for the leg break.

He had it all really Den, He was pretty quick, two footed, could beat an opponent with ball at his feet, decent in the air, he could bring other players into the action, very cool in front of goal, his discipline was good and a Blackburn lad to top it off. Our loss was Bolton's gain. I believe he carried on the scoring streak against West Ham there, I remember seeing him score another 3 goals against them for Bolton in a League Cup tie. Unfortunately he was more or less finished when he came back to Rovers, just like Fred Pickering was. They should have never come back really.

It was the end of the road when he came to Rovers. He just got lucky with the deal. When I saw him play it was obvious he was playing from memory.

" Sense " and what the Chicken Chokers might do with a potential fee don't belong in the same sentence. The only predictable thing about them is that they are un-predictable. I've given up trying to predict how they'll react to any given situation a long while ago.

Or the midfield colossus that was Whittingham.

Goals would nice, starting games up front would be nice. Given he's cost more than the rest of the team put together I'd expect any £7 million signing to be the first name on the team sheet. The suspicion that this is some sort of " moneyball " type signing gets stronger with every cameo he puts in.

We beat Arsenal 3-0 at home in that cup run Jim, Byrom scoring 1. in the next round we drew 3-3 with West Ham away, Byrom scoring all 3. No wonder Bobby Moore hated the sight of him. Were you at that game Jim ? In the replay that Rovers won 4-1 he got another 1 and Andy Mac got another 3. Could it be that game you're thinking of ? Byrom got another 1 away at Norwich and 1 more in the home game with Sheff Wed in that years FA Cup. A very underrated player who incidentally made his debut for Rovers in the First Division at the age of 17 years and 4 months. Makes Brereton sound like a veteran.

I think if Samuel hadn't have got injured he would have gone out on loan. I reckon Doncaster would be first in the queue after tonight !

Could the Prem cope with him ? He can put it about when it's needed, not a problem there at all.

Britt was a world beater at West Ham as a young player. He more or less won the Youth Cup for them on his own scoring a hat trick in the final against Liverpool's Tommy Smith. We put the boat out to sign him as a last hope of staying up. Unfortunately he'd done his knee at West Ham and he achieved nothing at Ewood. Allegedly he could only jump for headers off one leg ! He retired at 21, that was a real shame. Gilliver was a top young centre forward at Huddersfield but he'd done a disc in his lower back before we signed him . The osteopath/physio that looked after me years later told me Gilliver had come to see him in secret for a second opinion because he wasn't impressed with the medical advice he was getting at Rovers. I believe he later had a disc fusion to " cure " the problem. He always ran a bit stiff backed after that op. Sadly we let John Byrom go to Bolton so we could pay for Gilliver. Byrom went on to score a hatful of goals for Bolton for about 6 seasons after ! Bobby Moore always hated playing against Byrom because he invariably scored against hm.

Yeah a replay would be great. I expect it to be full of Sunderland fans who'll be there to boo Rodwell !

Unfortunately we have previous in signing promising young strikers who didn't fit the bill - Britt, Gilliver, O'Mara from way back to name just three.

Give it a good go this time. Win, lose or draw lets see how far we can go. A tough draw but we've won there before a few times.

Going off those highlights Wednesday looked like a team going through the motions hoping the new manager gets fired soon.

When we're in the same position in the football pecking order as Dortmund then we could maybe start pinching kids off City. I don't think we're quite there yet.

If we were still living in the past with Shearer and Sutton playing up front and Jack was writing the cheques signing expensive ' projects ' could be seen as a decent transfer policy. The thing is our current recognised strike force consists of a very good player who is unfortunately at the wrong end of his career and is prone to injury so very rarely plays the whole 90 minutes. Back up is a young lad who seems to be going backwards and an experienced pro who won't play again this season. Until recently we've been drip fed funds to sign journeymen players were a fee of 750,000 pounds was seen as a mega bucks investment. In the light of that some of us find the Brereton signing strange to say the least. I don't think that's an unreasonable position to take. Anyway I need to finish the fence.

I've been on both ends of that analogy. Some kids I wouldn't even let them go to the chip shop to get my dinner.

Anybody else hear that the Bolton players didn't get paid at the end of November ?

Oh Yeah, I forgot to mention my apprentice is on megabucks. Do you still want him to do the re-wire or shall I pop around.