Probably the Mulgrew days, and half the time he had to put those in the net directly from the corner... (Nah not really, I remember Wharton heading one or two in...did he have one earlier this season, I wanna say in the cup against Hartlepool?)

Those are usually based on numbers of appearances and goals, not whether fans think he's 'one of the worst ever'. Over 100 appearances and over 20 league goals...he has probably triggered some or most, if that was indeed how the deal was structured. There might be something based on the club's performance though (making the playoffs, getting promoted) and those won't have been touched.

We don't actually know the payment arrangements or actual final fee of any player we sign. You're quoting something you've heard or has been reported, there's nothing from official channels. The fact there's a 500k area of uncertainty on the initial fee shows whoever has heard it doesn't actually know. Personally I think clubs should have to put all transfer fee breakdowns into the public domain. I hate this 'undisclosed' nonsense, stakeholders deserve to know.

Looks like this is our 'good' half. Need to make this pressure pay soon or we're open to a sucker punch.

Precisely why it was fairly pointless signing Thomas without signing a striker.

One of the most overpriced strikers we've ever had is a fair debate for him to be entered into. You've still got your Kevin Davies, Ashley Wards, Nathan Blakes and Ciccio Grabbis to compete with though, but they had to play at Premiership level so the comparison wouldn't be quite fair.

🤣Well that's one way to do it!!

I'm starting to form the impression you think this is the usual tripe, and that you're hoping something resembling football will break out in the 2nd half.

Horses for courses. He will have had the best budget in Sweden and been able to mould the team how he wanted. Here, he has to rely on a few loans and the academy.

Christ, who predicted 5-0? Let me guess, starts with M, ends with R?

In fairness, it's how we turned them over at their place. We'll see at the end of the game whether it's the right approach, whether it's boring or not. Is it still the same tosser manager they had early in the season? Thought they'd ditched him.

I don't know what it is about this club in the last two seasons that we've gone 'ooh we can get one of the league's best assist makers on loan...let's bring them in and shunt them into a different position'. Hopefully this one is just because JRC and Brittain are both fresh from injuries. Hopefully a stop-gap until one of them is deemed ready to start again.

Vale is 22, he's not that young. In his time in our first team he has demonstrably offered less than Gallagher. It's a fair comparison. Campbell was better, with his 0 goals in 17 games for us? How can you not agree about Brereton's first two seasons when he was utterly useless and scored 1 goal a season? Obviously since then he has stepped it up a lot. You might not class Butterworth as an out and out striker, but that isn't where Gallagher normally plays either. And your initial point was 'players' not strikers, so I don't think it's relevant unless you want to downgrade your assertion to that of roverandout's. I didn't even have to think for long to come up with worse strikers in the Venkys era. If we stretch it to our entire nearly 150 year history and include players in other positions (Lowe, Murphy, Etuhu, Williamson, ewww) then 'one of the worst' is still an exaggeration unless you consider a large list to fit that definition. Just for the sake of anyone popping into this late, I'm not saying Gallagher is a good player. He does have his uses though at times. Highly frustrating player who we need to upgrade on as a starter if we are ever going up.

You're shifting the goalposts, repeatedly. The initial point I was responding to was about worst 'players'. Then you moved it to strikers, and now it's out and out number 9s over a length of time. By the time we are done it will be 6 ft 3 number 9s who have been here at least 4 seasons and can't jump effectively for headers who are called Sam. We have barely had any 'out and out number 9s' in recent years, and Gallagher himself hasn't been played as one for the vast majority of his time here. I believe someone said he has 38 goals for us.

I didn't say a team of worse Rovers strikers, I said a worse team. Worse strikers though off my head include Vale, Brown, DJ Campbell, Brereton's first two seasons, and Butterworth.

When statements like 'one of the worst players to ever pull on a Rovers shirt' come up, it really, really is. There are worse players in this current squad. Morton for one. Vale for another. I know people are fond of a bit of hyperbole, but sensible people normally accept that's what they were doing when called on it instead of doubling down.

Classic game. One of what should have been several wins over them in those days if the refs weren't crooked as fuck. Anybody know if this Rovers shirt replica (well, or the one from the next, title-winning season) can still be bought from the club? Mine from back then is long gone if it's not hidden somewhere at my mum's. Watching the video has given me nostalgic hankerings.

I could name a full team of players worse than him just in the Venkys era. He isn't really good enough for our ambitions, but his crapness is hugely exaggerated.

Their owners are already billionaires. So are ours. It's not about the money, it's how you use it. Whatever the case, I hope their new owners are crap.

No, what I'm saying is the quality of the squad as it stands is not much different to the quality of the squad as it was. Which appeared to be the contested point between you and RF99. How Mowbray spent money is fairly immaterial to that. After business was done, we weren't really any weaker. Those players not being in the picture last year is why they should be considered now in any list.

It's a bit disingenuous though to list who left, not list replacements and other factors, then deem the result a shambles of a squad. Defence: Lenihan replaced by Hyam. Nyambe replaced by Brittain. Van Hecke (quality but no longer play 3 at the back), Giles (barely placed in defence, criminally misused as a right-sided forward, not an effective contributor as a result), Zeefuik (barely played, injured a lot, not very good...usefulness of Carter and JRC as RBs now more than compensate for him) Midfield: Davenport (barely played, Garrett coming through), Johnson (wasn't good enough IMO, emergence of Wharton preferable, who the manager really should play more), Clarkson (useless, replaced by Morton who isn't much better). Rothwell left. (This one hasn't been replaced. We did bring in Szmodics, but he plays further forward.) Attack: Poveda (useless, didn't need replacing, we have plenty of players who can fill that role and I'd rather see Dolan there). Khadra (not really replaced, Hedges didn't look like a footballer last season but looks useful now...doesn't have that pace though, but probably isn't much less useful overall as Khadra was pretty hit and miss). All in all, we're only really down Rothwell and the mercurial element of Khadra. A few signings, some of the players you mentioned being as useful as a thumb on a foot, and the emergence or re-emergence of some players already here has made the squad strength roughly equivalent to last season's. Some replacements are a bit stronger, some are a bit weaker. There's also our access to a fully fit Dack now I didn't mention.

More likely Berty.

In fairness, I'd expect an Academy goalkeeper's game to improve under him. If he isn't better than JFC 'coaches' it really is a poor do. The lad and his dad likely didn't have much of a frame of reference. Even if he had been at other youth setups (Had he?) he probably wouldn't have had GK coaches who were also deemed good enough for a senior team. I think, anyway, as I assume it's not too common for the senior GK coaches to coach the young kids. Nonetheless, good to hear a positive about him.

Czech footballer Jakub Jankto comes out as gay This one really does strike me as brave. I dunno about the Czech Republic specifically, but Eastern Europe in general has a bit of a reputation for homophobia (and as we've seen from the treatment out there at times towards black players, can let their bigotry show in very nasty fashion). Takes even more guts to come out there I should think. He's a Czech international, and currently playing at Sparta Prague on loan from Getafe. He could have waited til the end of the season when he probably won't be playing in the Czech Republic, but has done it now with months of potential abuse left in the season (I think, anyway, not too familiar with the Czech league!). The club have been supportive of him, which is good. Hopefully he doesn't get too hard a time of it.

Benson may be shite, he may be good. We really don't know, because we don't see him in training and even if we did, we don't know enough about how top level coaching works to judge. Great coaching doesn't always produce great players, and vice versa. But to counter your points anyway 😉 ...sometimes someone just has natural talent. Raya's shot-stopping reflexes have always been his best attribute, and I'm not sure how much that can be coached. Other aspects of his game, the kind that I feel sure can be coached, were weaker. Decision-making, coming for crosses etc. Kaminski was already 27 I think when he got here, most of his coaching had been done. Nonetheless he seems to have regressed recently and isn't as good a keeper as the one that turned up here initially. Presently anyway - form can come and go of course. Raya has improved since going to Brentford, turning from a player we got 3 million for into one quoted as an 8 million, 15 million, and most recently a 40 million player. And lastly, if Ben Benson was such a good goalkeeping coach, and a lot of Raya's success was down to him, how have we managed to retain him when half our staff have buggered off in recent years? Anybody with an ounce of talent in the setup seems to get poached, sometimes by lower league clubs. We even lost somebody to a women's team didn't we? Like I say though, he may be a good coach, who knows. Combining the above with his lack of experience in the game though, I can see why people have a negative impression of his credentials and achievements.