Tyrone Shoelaces

Looking back over the history of football management not being able to improve a successful team has got plenty of managers the sack. I was reading about Bill Shankly the other day, a great manager but totally ruthless when it came to moving players on, as club legends like Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Ronnie Yeats all found out

Johnny Byrom was only 17 when he was playing for the Rovers first team in the First Division. Stuart Metcalfe would have been about that age when he made his debut.

I thought he was the sort of player who can dominate youth team games because of his size advantage but when they get up against blokes their own size they lose that advantage. Maybe he just didn't fancy it at Rovers and his heart wasn't in the move ?

Yeah I saw that, I know he's only a young lad but he looked deeply average when I saw him play.

I agree, the minute you start standing still in this game is the minute you actually start going backwards.

Most centre halves are vulnerable to the sort of ball that gets them turning sharply. That's why they are centre halves and not strikers. An ideal pairing is one centre half that dominates in the air and a quicker guy that gets everything on the ground.

He was on the verge of a big move a couple of years ago, then he broke his leg. He's hardly played since then. Quite a gamble there, I hope it comes good for him.

I see just as we recall Wharton because he wasn't playing at Lincoln Jason Shackell, who I assume Wharton would have covered for, got himself sent off yesterday.

I agree with a lot of that Ben. Lot's of very tall guys are not great at heading the ball. You can see that Crouch wasn't a natural. It's not just about being brave, I loved a tackle as a player but I didn't relish a contested header. There's always an exception to the rule though, Mike England was 6 ft 3inches tall with a fantastic spring. I've seen him attack a corner with a running leap and head the ball down into the top corner of the goal ! One of the reasons why he's still be best centre half I've ever seen.

Players who can carry the ball from the defensive third of the pitch into the attacking third are a nightmare for defenders to play against.

It's a bit too early to say yet but there's a class player in there. He just needs to show us some more.

The first time I saw Tugay play for us he launched a fantastic pass through for Matt Jansen to run onto. The weight and direction of the pass was perfect and he'd put back spin on the ball so when it bounced it sat up perfectly for Jansen to chip the goalkeeper who'd come racing off his line. I thought then " This lad's some player, only top class footballers can play that sort of pass ".

Douglas was Tugay with added pace.

I think you could be right Bazza. My lap top isn't that clear in that area of the photos.

I just named them.

Are you sure that was him ? I can't see any spelling mistakes.

Some great photographs there from the era when I first started going to Ewood. Bimpson, Dobing, Ferguson, Lawther. Taylor, Vernon, Woods, Bimpson. Bray, Harrison, McEvoy, Byrom. Lawther, Newton, Whelan, McGrath.

No, it's Latin.

Where would we play him ? We only play 1up front and Rhodes proved he can't play that role. He can't play out wide and he can't play the " Dack " role. In that list of players who left and came back only Berg did well, I'd say David Dunn did OK when he came back.

He had plenty of ability but only seemed to play when he felt like it. Another " nice lad " when we had a team of nice lads who got pushed around by other teams too much for my liking. I'd leave well alone.

That's an interesting line up.

There's a good article in todays " Guardian " by David Conn regarding events at Bolton. It's a shambles basically, The new guy sounds a real dodge pot. If you shook hands with him you'd need to count your fingers afterwards. They have tee shirts that say - "No Ken Do" . I'd modify it to " No Ken, Do One ".

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.