Fair enough. It's a fair trip from Spain just to watch matches though, I imagine in this day and age a club like Sevilla has a UK-based scout and/or makes use of footage. They've certainly been linked hard and long enough to him for me to think there either is, or was something in it. That they don't seem to have made a bid and have been reported to want to take him on a free suggests to me they don't rate him highly enough for a big money move but do still want him. Personally if I were Ben I'd be really wary of any club who wants him on a free and wasn't willing to come in with decent money (upwards of 10 mill) this summer. Which seems to be all of them. It's a recipe for sitting on someone's bench and watching his career fade away.

You can't see the point? Where else are they all going to play whilst they develop? They can't all get loans to Championship sides at 18.

If the rumours are true, their scouts don't agree.

That's all an immense exaggeration. He started out with half an hour cameos for a while. That first season he only came on for 5 minutes or less on 4 occasions in his 28 appearances. He got half an hour or more on 10 occasions. He played 832 minutes total, equivalent to just over 9 full matches. The next season he came on for 5 minutes or less on 3 occasions, and 30+ minutes on 12 occasions (8 of which were 60+ minutes). Almost nobody seems to be able to confirm he was widely booed against Birmingham. I thought that had been thoroughly debunked on here by now. If this is the mini documentary that was out last year I'm pretty sure that's just some judicious editing, a spurious claim, and nothing to back it up if I recall rightly. Twitter is just a general cess pool where people troll for fun. He got no 'backlash' and certainly wasn't bullied. I think he is on record thanking the fans for standing by him when he wasn't playing well, but I'd have to dig around to back that up.

He has his own sky documentary? Don't see any reason for anyone to change their username or feel embarrassed. He was poor for 2 seasons, it would have been bizarre beyond belief if nobody had given that opinion in that period. The only reason anybody might want to feel a bit squeamish is if they predicted he was absolutely never gonna make it. But even then, after two whole seasons of being poor, that wouldn't have been an entirely unreasonable conclusion to have come to.

It isn't the data that's the problem there anyway. It's the use of it. Work rate and athleticism are important, but nobody should be picked on that basis alone. Sounds like Jason Lowe would have got in the Manure team before Mourinho came along! Since Mourinho was the one picking, it seems slightly odd that he got rid of it for that reason. Maybe he thought it was affecting advice from his staff too much.

Starts just after 2:35. The ball didn't even look like it could have crossed the line, even the commentator immediately says blocked on the line by Tevez. Tevez being on the line was obviously offside when it was hit at him. Think you could also argue Tevez collided enough with Friedel for a foul. And the replay doesn't show it well but whilst it wasn't a punch, I'm sure the multi angle replays at the time revealed a potential handball contact, I think it's from after Tevez goes for the ball the first time and it flicks up at another West Ham player. And of course, Tevez shouldn't have been playing. I consider it the most illegal goal I've ever seen and I still talk about it. I was telling a Newcastle fan about it just yesterday. As the highlights show, Bentley then later got sent off for a second yellow because Lucash pushed him on the fringe of the penalty area and it caused his arm to come up and connect with the ball. West Ham put that video up 2 years ago, and I think they've got some bloody cheek doing so! I'd expect them to hide footage of that game forevermore.

Lovely assist and a goal today. That's more the contributions we want. I missed most of the game through work today, how'd he do outside of the goal moments?

Right before I posted that, the ref gave us a free kick when we had immediately moved the ball forward into possession about 20+ yards ahead. Right after I posted it, he played advantage after we got fouled and had passed it backwards about 20 yards. Gonna be one of those refs again isn't he.

Refs in this league don't seem to know what advantage is.

Sorry but I'm struggling to see why Adam Wharton is struggling to get in this team.

I'm still aghast that Hirst was chosen/allowed to take that penalty. Youngish lad, for what would have been his first goal for his new club, and a goal that would have almost certainly rescued a point, away from home...it was always going to be a bit much pressure and if he missed it, could wreck his confidence. It certainly seems to have made up most fans' minds about him. With what I said above, and when the stat popped up under their goalie's name saying he had saved 0 out of 10 penalties, and the sheer fucking injustice of it being a penalty rather than a goal already, I felt a sinking certainty that it wasn't going in the back of the net.

Did he get a football in the groin?

Surely our having not won the league for even longer would have been as bad or worse for us?

I can't remember ever losing our star player for free though. Let alone one who cost 6-7 million and in a strict FFP environment.

I'd say they're worse than the odds of signing Ronaldinho were. We put a pretty hefty offer on the table by all accounts, and he went to a Brazilian side for what I'm sure I heard was less money. If he had just followed the money like most footballers, he would probably have signed here. Funnily enough he ended up suing Flamengo for not paying him for four months. There's a lot to be said against Venkys, but they'd have paid his wages. With Brereton, our offer isn't going to be anywhere near the best money he gets.

You mean the 2 minute highlights though?

Sky website or tv? I don't have Sky. I don't usually want to watch the full match again when I know the result either, although it's good that's available for those who do, or live overseas and can bear to avoid knowing the result first. If we are allowed to show the entire match again then we are definitely just being lazy about putting an extended highlights together.

I think 6 minutes is enough, though longer would be nice of course. Hell, if the first team beat Manure we would probably still only get the usual 2 minutes of highlights, so 6 is a serious improvement! On that note, it does bug me that we do such meagre highlights for senior games, and with no replays. Some other clubs post 5+ minutes as extended highlights of our matches with them, but we never do. I'm curious why. Perhaps we have to pay a tiny bit more to the league or whoever to post longer highlights? Or just our staff can't be arsed to compile it? Or Waggott trying to keep as much of the 'product' behind the paywall as he can under the misguided impression it will help generate more sales?

Best I can come up with... Loyalty to a club who took a big financial risk on him (which they'll lose out on if he leaves for free), kept faith with him even when he couldn't finish his dinner for two seasons and was only 'decent' for the third. He is still probably getting offered a substantial pay increase here even if it won't be as much as elsewhere. A new manager in the building who has fresh ideas and has us in 6th place even though he hasn't been here long. None of these big rich clubs fancied him enough to stretch to even £10 million this summer (don't tell me about how 'well they could get him for free next summer' because only one club can do that..if they really did rate him they'd have been bidding at least 10-15 million and they didn't...he will likely be someone's bench option if they're signing him for free). It took him two years to start settling properly here, could there be a risk of a similar issue again, especially abroad? And he clearly loves it at the club, loves his teammates etc. And no, I don't expect any or all of that combined to be close to enough for him to stay. The only way I see that we might keep him is if we somehow get promoted. Even that will hinge on him having not signed a pre-contract in January (even if we are 2nd in January, he has seen us drop out of the playoffs from there).

He means that my comment was a joke. The day I see you predict a Rovers loss, let alone 3-0, I will pinch myself to check I'm awake.

Nah I don't think Cardiff will win by that much.

He scored on his debut then had 4 pretty shit performances. He's our most expensive summer signing. It's a bit premature, but it's hardly laughable. It's pretty standard fare for this situation at any club up and down the country. There's not something special and negative about Rovers fans. Go on the FB page and ask them about Szmodics and I'm sure you'll get a very different response you'll be happier with. Here, things are allowed to be criticised, it's not just a suck-off-the-club's-decisions jamboree.

Truly shocking confession from Chaddy there.

Millwall finished below us actually, albeit only by one GD.