Tyrone Shoelaces

I can't say I was impressed. I wouldn't swap him for Nyambe for instance.

And then you woke up and realised you'd been dreaming.

Why would he do that ? We don't look at players from abroad.

I see that Graham Coughlan who I remember playing in Rovers Youth Team along with James Beattie and Damien Duff in the mid 1990's has just been appointed manager of Bristol Rovers. Good luck with that Graham.

Yeah the days of us being able to afford the sort of Steve Archibold style marquee loan signings are long gone.

We could have been where Cardiff are now.

Warnock saved Rotherham when they were dead and buried.

Yeah I agree with that, was Rothwell a back up for Palmer or Gladwin ?

Before we starting splashing out on Brereton etc I was expecting us to finish in the bottom third. Having seen the standard I'd say we could hopefully finish in mid table. We aren't set up to get promotion at the moment. Promoted teams can either score plenty of goals like Souey's promotion team or keep clean sheets on a weekly basis whilst pinching the odd goal like Howard Kendall's team. We are neither of those.

In the 1960's Wolves, Spurs, Spurs, Man Utd, West Ham, Liverpool, Everton, Spurs, West Brom, Man City, all won the FA Cup.

I saw him play the full 90 minutes at Rochdale in that egg cup game. He started out playing wide left in a sort of 4-4-2 with Samuel and Nuttall up front., When Wharton got sent off after 20 minutes and we had to play with 10 men he played a bit deeper on the left with Nuttall playing up front on his own, Samuel got the hook to allow Platt to take Wharton's place. I thought he was our best player that night but that isn't saying a great deal. We were pretty poor even before we went down to 10. He had a good touch on the ball, he could beat a man and he could go either side. Average pace wise but a bit like Dack he had a change of pace. He ran well with the ball. He got his head up in possession and he was looking to make things happen. Plus he kept going right to the end. Strangely enough he didn't appear to be injured during the game but as far as I know that was his last game before he climbed onto the treatment table.

Simple question, what do you see when he makes it out onto the pitch ?

Could name me one that cost £7 million that's warming the bench ?

How highly do you rate him so far ?

The lad is playing like he doesn't want to be here. Lack of skill is acceptable, lack of effort isn't.

Dead right and that ship sailed a long time ago at Rovers.

I don't know wether we would or not. I don't think we'd be trampled in the rush to sign either of them to be honest. Dack was a snip, Armstrong I'm not so sure. As I said at the time, the new Matt Derbyshire only not as good.

How do you know what Armstrong would go for now ? The juries out for me. I had my doubts about him thriving at this level and so far he hasn't.

I doubt that very much. Rodwell will be lucky to get another club on a free if he flops at Rovers. None of the others have exactly set the World on fire at this level. I'd say on a good day we'd get our money back with the rest.

The officials in our game have made a rod for their own backs. Sometimes I wonder if they've ever played the game. At the moment it seems that every coming together, no matter how insignificant, in the penalty area is either a free kick to the defence or a penalty to the attacking team.

I would have thought the Chicken Chokers would be loathe to part with significant funds given our most recent transfer dealings. How many of our recent signings would we be able to make a profit on ? I make it 1, Bradley Dack.

Premier League clubs are interested in him according to my paper.

I don't think Gallagher is the answer. Reed is obviously the sort of player we need to be signing.

I remember playing left back on a very wet and windy day. I'd be about 15 then. The oppositions goal keeper gave the ball an almighty hoof out of his hands from the edge of the penalty area . The ball was heading right for me so I had to head it on the full. I honestly saw stars when I made contact with that wet " casey. " I never liked making that sort of header after. When we had " crossing and heading " drills I was always doing the crossing ! A very good pal of mine was a brilliant header of the ball. He could play centre half or centre forward. The sort of player that was equally good in either role. He was good enough to play pro but he hadn't got the aggression and desire to take the opportunities. I bumped into his wife the other day- he's got Parkinsons pretty bad now. I wonder if all that heading in old days has had bearing on that.

Yep, even Big Brad was sometimes guilty of being beaten by headers from inside the 6 yd box.