Quite hopeful for 3 points here. Play Dolan and get the front three pressing and I can see us forcing them into mistakes. We tend to do better against possession based teams who play out from the back regardless.

I agree. However living on the south coast there days that is a bargin and a half. Struggle to find a pint less than £5.50 - £6.00 these days. It's insane.

Yup. And challenges multiple times on it. Repeatedly said his legs have gone and he's not the same player anymore even though Dack was getting zero game time and therefore zero evidence to back up his opinion. Its clear to see now that Dack is back in the fold that he's the best footballer in our squad. And that's been the case since the day he signed.

I tend to agree with you here Chaddy. Even if we take who is right and who is wrong out of the equation, O'brien (and potentially the club if we win) suffer because of the appeals process set out by the EFL. It seems their appeals process is purposefully cumbersome to put clubs off going to the lengths we are going too. The stage one appeal should be independent. It feels like a time wasting loop clubs have to jump through to reach a genuine appeal through arbitration. We've already seen in the media that the club were hoping the arbitration appeal would be sped up, but the EFL are reportedly sticking to the time scale of a maximum of two weeks for them to put forward an independent representative, when putting someone forward at speed is within their control. By the time a genuine, independent resolution has been found we'll be close to a month and potentially 6 or 7 games missed should we win. Without getting into the nitty gritty of where accountability lies, this process is evidence enough that the EFL are not managing situations such as these well and not treating the player at the centre of it all with any kind of professionalism. Their process lacks any accountability to their stakeholders.

I think it's Whartons biggest weakness. He can hit a decent diagonal but if that's not on he's very likely to play a dangerous pass into the middle of the pitch and not find his man. He's also pretty slow decision maker and I always feel he's liable to have the ball stolen from him. Hyam isn't going to pull up any trees with the ball at his feet but he's significantly better than Wharton in my opinion.

He's grabbed his chance. He's a huge step ahead of where he was at when he got a few games at the start of last season. Regular playing time at this level is only going to develop him further. When comparing him with Wharton two things stand out for me. He's more comfortable on the ball. I feel a lot of teams press our Right Centre Back more to pressure them into playing it to Wharton. I'm always nervous when he's on the ball as there is always a suicide pass in him. Secondly he is more composed than Wharton. Wharton seems to have a way of playing and that is to constantly engage his opponent into a battle, leading to him being caught out of position a lot. Carter seems a better judge of when to apply pressure and when to drop. I'd be happy for Carter and Hyam to be our centre back pairing for now and seeing how the relationship develops. Outside of Carter I thought Jrc was good again last night until his injury. At one point he moved for a few minutes into a deep lying DM almost dropping in-between the centre backs. It was only for a couple of minutes but in that time he showed the type of play I'd expect from Morton. He also shows some fight, which is so important in the middle of the park. Jrc is a good footballer. Both his and Carter's recent form have been major bright spots for us. The more I see him, the more I'd like to see Jrc start instead of Morton. Morton has some talent but he needs time out the side. He's been utterly abysmal for months now.

I'd stick with Dolan up top for the majority of the rest of the season, possibly interchanged with Gallagher if he ever finds something closely resembling a big of form. Dolan doesn't look a threat but he does bring something to the party. His development has been interesting and for me he's really matured as a footballer. He knows when to press and always puts a shift in, whilsy he's so agile that if a defender drops a shoulder he can react quick enough to still steal the ball. On the ball, he's got a good touch and can twist and turn with his back to goal so the ball actually sticks to him. Get it into his feet and he's actually not bad at linking up our play. We all went from who's this incredible kid we've stolen from Preston, then a lot (myself included) thought he became a bit of an ineffective step over merchant. His maturing play has gone slightly under the radar. If he can develop more and become a threat with goals and assists he'll be a real asset. He's not the answer to our striking woes right now but considering the alternatives he's the best we have. Credit where its due though and hopefully he can continue to grow as a player.

It's clear that Pears has actually become a decent goalkeeper. Probably our best player on the night. The rest were pretty average except for Travis and Morton. I couldn't decide who was worse until Mortons stupid flick leading to their goal, obviously compounded by Trav having a winge on the floor rather than doing his bloody job. I actually think a draw was a fair result. West Brom weren't all that, but we are devoid of creativity. I thought we had no chance of an equaliser.

Personally I think Wharton has looked shakey. He's getting pulled into a battle with their number 9 and needs to be a bit smarter. He's already lost a couple and when he does there's no cover. We've been workmanlike. It's a poor game which is compounded by there seemingly only being one ball in the stadium. Every single restart is taking forever.

You called?

It's groundhog day. I always know I'm going to get a little less work done on deadline day. I can't stop myself checking on here and Rovers have kept it going for 15 days now. And it's annual review time. Do the EFL not understand the impact they're having 😂

GB came out and said there are things we can do better. I think he likened it to a player getting a harsh red card, in that we may not agree with the decision but we can't give the officials the option in the first place. Quite right and quite right that he took responsibility. I do think part of that was a PR exercise too. He went onto say we wouldn't be appealing if we didn't think we had a strong case. The amount of time this is dragging on for suggests we do otherwise it would have been turned down by now. I'm sure you knew all this anyway, but GB and the club being entirely to blame fits straight in with the narrative you seem to search for in many things relating to the club, in that you love to criticise. Don't get me wrong, there's been plenty to be unhappy about in recent years even if it was better than the atrocity of the half decade preceeding it, but some people's views just aren't objective. For me the structure we're putting in place and having an ambitious, communicative DOF is a big step forwards. But that doesn't fit into the, everything is negative narrative. Criticism is important when valid, but it loses its impact if the club can do no right.

My thinking exactly. Say they'd made the decision last Thursday or even end of day Friday, there's a good chance we'd have been willing to move on and not seek compensation should the deal be approved. As it stands if it were approved I'd be quite annoyed if we didn't seek compensation for the games missed. Like you say, if it wasn't going to go through, surely we would have heard by now. The only other option I can think of is that behind closed doors the EFL have hinted to us they were going to turn it down and we've let them know we'd be bringing in lawyers and taking things further which has spooked the EFL, thus causing a longer delay. Its the only scenario I can think of which makes any semblance of sense right now.

The EFL have messed this up so badly. They are making it worse for themselves with every passing day. The only way they can get out of this is if they can come up with a genuine reason the transfer shouldn't have gone through and logic says if there was one, it would have been rejected long ago. Right now, if they block the transfer, they risk being taken to court. Allow the transfer to go through and we are well within our rights to seek compensation for three games missed because of their error. It's not been mentioned much yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the PFA get involved on O'brien behalf. He is also well within his right to seek compensation. Everyday that passes this just gets more and more messy.

Agreed. The parameters for what is offside clearly need to change. Having it as any part of the body which the player can score a goal with is ridiculous. A player can be clearly onside but if the stride of the attacker and defender are opposites then the attacker can be adjudged offside when in reality if the shot was 0.1 seconds earlier or later they'd be onside. Same with players angling their bodies when pushing off for a sprint. Daylight would be a good option. Or make the line about 3x fatter to give a fairer degree of flex. Another option would be for players to wear some kind of tracker around their hips. This being their central point where power comes from which is more representative of where the player is positioned, instead of a toe being marginally offside. I'm sure this could be automated too, stopping all this faff of drawing lines on the pitch. That should only exist for fan communication to stop us all being in the dark around decisions.

How on earth is this still rumbling on? The EFL will have had a week to review our appeal. A week! The initial mess reflected badly on us. This process is reflecting badly on them. What on earth are they trying to do... negotiate with us? It should either be approved or not. Nothing inbetween. Clearly there is some accountability on their part, as they'd have rejected it by now if it were that simple. It strikes me as they want nothing more than to reject it but are struggling to do so. I wish they'd just be transparent and accept or reject it. There is a strong human element to deadline day. People cock up. If they've cocked up just fess up, approve it, review their process and we all move on.

I actually think JRC's biggest asset is his ability when going forward. In an attacking sense he interprets space superbly. I'm not comparing the ability of the players but Thomas Muller has become a Bayern and Germany great, all without the ability to beat a man, having amazing technique or being particularly strong. He christened himself the space interpreter or something along those lines. I constantly see JRC making intelligent runs and popping up in places you don't expect him too. I do agree with you though, that his improved defensive work and concentration has seen him become an important team player as previously he was a liability when we didn't have the ball.

That's what I'm thinking. It could give the EFL the option of ratifying the deal whilst saving face. An option which suits all parties. If that is the outcome it would be peculiar, given the EFL's constant fear of litigation from other clubs.

If by some miracle he is approved I think our lawyers should be onto the EFL around compensation. Three games without a top player simply isn't fair on us should they admit their mistake.

Nixon goes through phases. And it's often pretty clear which phase he is in by the language he uses. He goes from very vague and hedging his bets to be very sure that something has happened. When he's in that mode he often has an inside line with a club or agent. It goes with the territory of being an old school hack. He still has his uses in modern day football when a club or individual purposefully want to leak something. When they don't has to portray an illusion that he's still got his finger on the button.

Hypothetically, had the EFL met the predicted timeline for their decision and the deal been approved we could have had O'brien in the squad today. If it is rubber stamped that's two games he'll have missed due to their ineptitude.

I'm not totally disagreeing with you. We don't make enough chances. However Xg is calculated on shots taken. At times we do get the ball into dangerous areas but our striker's have no instincts and don't anticipate. A decent striker would mean our Xg would be far higher as they'd anticipate chances and thus take more shots.

Nixon is obviously getting his line from inside the club. I'm certain we purposefully leaked a couple of details to him. The club are still waiting therefore he'll know nothing. Even if it's been rejected I'm sure with the appeal being over the club would handle the press release themselves. I said this yesterday, but I'm astounded this is still ongoing, but with completely the opposite feeling to deadline day when the more time elapsed the more certain I was that it wasn't going to go through, now the more time that elapses the more hopeful I am that it will.

Could this be our get out of jail free card. If he goes for the kind of money Brentford are looking for then it could net us up to about £8million. Even if just some of that was made available to reinvest it could cushion the blow of losing Diaz for free. One thing is for certain. I can't see Brentford being as illogical as we are and refusing to sell an asset when their contract is running down.

Fast forward 10 years and Bournemouth could be worth more than say AC Milan. The disparity is getting bigger and bigger.