Forget Bidwell, Rovers should pick up Haitam Aleesami on a free. His contract just expired with Palermo. Has a good pedigree with Palermo in Serie A/B and regular for the Norwegian national team. Modern left back that can defend and attack. 27 years and wages within our structure. Doubt the scouting team are aware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitam_Aleesami

Bristol City sold Loyd Kelly to Bournemouth for 13 million which explains where their money is coming from. The information from interviews and Rich Sharpe suggests: - We have a similar transfer budget as last year (Which means at leat 6-7 million) - Our wage structure is mid-table. (Steve Waggott was recently quoted on this) Which means while we are probably one of the few clubs that can spend without selling, we are going to have a hard time convincing players on good contracts (PL, upper Championship) to take a wage cut to come here. Leaving us with lower league, smaller Championship clubs and foreign players. It's fairly obvious that we need to get the scouting network up and running. Brentford and Norwich has really utilized the foreign market to good effect. I think The Championship is the 6th biggest league in Europe now and much easier to attract talent. Here in Scandinavia you can probably take your pick between 500k - 2mill for any player. Wages not an issue.

He might in a back three, unsure of him as a centre half. He struggles in the air and not sure of his positional awareness in that position. Magloire is quite similar, very quick and good one-vs-one. I saw Magloire totally dominate Rhyan Brewster at Liverpool in U-23 football, but struggled badly against Joe Garner/Steven Fletcher in the air.

My thought so far: - Raya. I like him, he's quick, agile and a modern keeper. Also think his kicking is decent. However ironicly he's probably better suited to Premier League or another less physical European league. Championship will a lot of times be battle, and he doesn't have the stature to command the area. Unfortunatly Leutwiler is even worse. He will not come of his line and was well known for this when we bought him. We need another keeper who can command the area, but at least shouldn't let Raya go without a better option lined up. - Charlie Adam. Doesn't take the rumour too seriously. With Downing signed I think we have the experienced playmaker covered. Downing is still quite mobile, Adam is not. Much rather have someone like Reed who can do box-to-box and worked very well with Travis. Probably hard to find. - Gallagher. Yes please. I liked him last time and think he will be a good option considering what we got. Not sure if there are any better options for our budget out there, unless we get unearth a foreign gem. - Mowbray. Pretty disappointed he is backtracking on the defensive needs. It wasn't just a blip, without Lenihan we are going to ship a lot of goals. Mulgrew can't defend and unless one of the youngsters like Wharton really step up, we are paperthin. I think he's a great honest man, but could be more tactical when selling the club. Why could he tell Bauer he would compete for a place on the same line as others? - Few rumours are probably a good thing. The club is a lot better keeping the transfer work under radar now. They probably have enquired about 10-20 players for each position, very little is leaked. It all comes down to actually comes in the door, which judging by last year is an everchanging landscape as they further down the list. In general it seems like there is very few transfers going on both in the Premier League and Championship. Will probably be mayhem the last two weeks before the deadline when desperation hits.

Yes you are right, I don't think Gallagher is being brought back as winger. Our "new" passing game would mean less reliant on a target man, and I think someone like Gallagher would be seen as a more mobile option to lead the line. Knowing how Mowbray likes his players to cover several position, I would also expect to see him deployed on the right wing as well at times. I know he was deployed as winger at times in his Birmingham spell too.

Yeah I think you are right. Seem to remeber the last match against Brentford we played Mulgrew as a left back pinging cross field balls to Gallagher at the right wing. He dominated the full back in the air. Probably more suited to the wing than Brereton, but needs to be Grahams understudy. Gallagher is quite mobile, good pace and decent in the air infront of the goal. Doesn't have Grahams know how as a target man, but more potential in that role than Brereton. Would be a decent buy IMO.

Don't think it's true Twitter account is generating random rumours: Football Rumour Bot Tired of football rumours generated by people "in the know"? Why not see if a random number generator is any better?!

Big yes from me. Big, strong and commanding. Very good championship quality and knows the club. Not sure how much better we can do given our status. He might be similar to Lenighan, but that's what we need. Our downfall occured when Lenighan was injured and we need at least one more centre back with strength.

I think it's more to do with it's harder to compete on wages. We are a medium Championship club and pay medium wages, how do you convince better than medium players to come here? Last summer was an example where Celina went to Swansea who had parachute money and McGinn went to Villa insted of us even if we could afford the transfer fee. The bigger clubs get first picks because of size/wages. Sounds like we have a similar budget to last year, where there is a sizable amount available for transfer fee, but the wage/attraction challenge remains. Brentford seems to have their scouting spot on. They are selling their best players all the time, but are able to replace the exciting players like Ollie Watkins and Benharama

I'm probably considered a "happy clapper" at times, but I expected more from Brereton. He had quite a lot of first team experience for 19 year old (53 championship games, 38 of them starts and 8 league goals for Forest). He was basicly involved in every game from his breakthrough in January 2017 untill we bought him in August. There is obviously potential and a player there if we can get it out. Still I think it's fair to question if the money could've been spent more wisely. My suspicion is that is was a last dance at the disco scenario, where you have to settle on what's available before the light go out.

You can only coach the players available to you. How do you think you aquire the best players and coaches? Money.. In the modern football world ruled by agents, 95% of footballers goes to the biggest paycheck. You can certainly spend Money poorly as you mention, but as a general rule the league table reflect the wage budget. The reason I find the Championship so entertaing is that it's probably the league with most upsets against the Money rule. The Premier League has become so boring and predictable with the top clubs so far ahead. Villa went up because they blew us out of the water on wages to McGinn and could afford the massive wages to Tammy Abraham. They underperformed but it is easier to turn things around when you have a massive squad.

If you are going to compare and rate managers, you should use the wage budget as metric. It's the strongest correlation to results you will find. In our premier years under Allardyce and Hughes we were about 10-14 th place in wage budget. Top 10 meant we were doing better than expected, bottom 5 meant worse. We didn't spend a lot on transfers, but had a competitve wage budget. John Williams only weakness was probably handing out too generous contracts. Salgado springs to mind, great guy but you don't give 60k a week to someone who's legs are gone. Mowbray delivered last year with us and Wigan having the greatest wage budgets. Similar this season with a midsize budget, led to a midtable position. Neither better or worse than expected. Sheff Utd showed that is possible to punch above your weight, but it's a rare exception. People usually make too much of what a club spends on transfer fees, it's the wage budget that will determine success. It will make you keep hold of players, secure the best loans and frees. It doesn't matter if we can pay the tranfer fees if we can't get them within our wage budget. I think we learned that last year with players like McGinn and several other enquired about.

I think Mowbray has to be ruthless for us to progress. A more dominant goalkeeper and a physical centre back alongside Lenighan is needed. Williams and Mulgrew as backups. We also need a box-to-box midfielder alongside Travis. Evans can be a squad player, while Smallwood needs to go, to slow for this level. We need more goals from midfield. Vaulks a decent options, but not sure he's more than decent Championship level. I also hope Davenport might step up. He has potential to be good. We're in desperate need for an alternative to Graham upfront as well. Doesn't have to be a target man, Pukki at Norwich showed you can lead the line with great movement and aggresion without being dominant in the air. Rhodes is surely not the answer. Also sceptical about Toney and Lyle Taylor making the step, although I like both. Most strikers fail to make an impact coming from League One or Two. Ipswich tried with Kayden Jackson and Ellit Harrison for probably close to 3 million combined. Both failed. Omar Bogle also springs to mind. Ollie Watkins is probably the only one I can think of that has made a successful impact the last seasons and he's probably more a winger. 2-3 million will get you a lot more value in Europe. Full international players with European experience from Scandianavia for example. Belgium, Ligue 2, Eastern Europe are also places with value for money for a Championship club. I also think there are several players that still has a lot of potential to harvest like Nyambe, Travis, Dack, Rothwell, Armstrong and Davenport. Brereton hard to call. Big fan of Buckley and Butterworth but they would probably benefit from a loan first. Magloire likewise. 3-4 first teams players and keeping the core should give a decent chance to try for play offs.

Rovers in full control won 2-1. Liverpool manager says it was the worst performance of the season so we must have done something well Gave away a sloppy goal 10 min before the end. Keeper came flapping and missed on a corner very much like Raya and Leutwiller. Blackburn bossed the game although the second half was more flat than first. Liverpool had a strong lineup with Brewster, Curtis Jones, Camacho and Woodburn. Netiher impressed. Magloire was a monster at the back with power and pace. He pressed all over the pitch which a 3 man defence might allow. Rankin-Costello great at right back. Good on the ball and pretty good defensive. Davenport was the pick of the midfield. Bossed with his passing and good defensive awareness. Vale also impressive a lone striker. Clever movement and uses his body well. Butterworth scored a great goal on the break and has a "Dack" edge about him. All the other looks great as well.

Just watched a wonderful first half against Liverpool. Up 2-0 after goals from Rankin-Costello and Butterworth. Hard to single out anybody as a great effort from everybody so far. Been dominant and could be more up, fun to hear Liverpool commentators trying and failing to find hightlight from the home team.

Agreed. Thought Rothwell did well when moved into the middle. Leutwiler had some excellent saves, but kicking is worse than Raya and won't come off his line. What was up with Lenihan today? Worst performance of the season. Poor positioning all game, looked hesitant and nervous.

Probably, since Mowbray claims nobody can beat Magloire in a foot race. I think the most stunning thing with Rothwell is how fast he is with the ball. He would outrun Smallwood controlling 2 balls. Magloire is promising but like a lot of young players needs to learn how to handle themselves physically in this league. He was dominated in the air in his two appearances. Biggest difference from U23 football is the physical, positioning and strength in senior football. Playes like Joe Garner, Billy Sharp, Steven Fletcher and our own Graham will bully a young centre back even if they are not the tallest.

I think it's been well reported that some of the U23's are training with the first team regularly. Magloire, Butterworth and Buckley has been mentioned by the LET. Mowbray has indicated he will blood some of them, esp if(when) our season falters. Just saw an interview with Buckley. He's been at the club since he was 6(!), and also said he has been training regularly with the seniors

That's great news! I have watches 4-5 games and he has probably the best overall. Seems to have a bit of everything you look for in a midfielder. Can drive forward with pace and go past people, passing is good but also have a very high workrate defensively. Not suprised to see him linked with larger clubs, so delighted to see him commit. Expect him to be given his debut before the end of season.

What's happened to Mulgrew??? No coincidence our poor run has come after he came back in after Lenighan's injury. He looks so far off match fitness.

Travis proving to be our best midfielder. Had a hand in both goals with his forward play. Seems to found the right balance in not overcommiting tackles as well. Also thought Nuttall had a decent game. Great work rate and won quite a few challenges against some very big centre halfs. Not everything came off, put got in the right position to grab a scrappy goal. Has a knack for scrappy goals. Will be hard to judge whether to send him on loan now. Brave call of subbing Dack, but Armstrong really paid off and credit to Mowbray for going for the win when it was written 0-0 all over it.

I think we all hoped he would hit ground running, which he hasn't. Still he is very young for that type of striker and they usually never peak untill mid-twenties. Graham was only a bit-part player out on loan scoring very little untill he dropped down to league one with Carlisle at 22. First then he carved a good career for himself. Brereton desperatly need a goal to get going, you can clearly tell from his interview: https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2019/january/ben-delighted-to-pen-permanent-deal/

Biggest improvement today was probably no Smallwood. He's a great grafter, but for a side inspiring to be top half in the Championship he is too limited. Travis proved certainly proved what we have been missing. Best thing for me was how constructive he was in posession. Smallwood either just hooks it away or passes back to defence. Travis would go past people or pass it forward. Very refreshing!

I think he's head was turned refusing to sign a professional contract with us and Leicester is paying upwards to 1 mill for him (probably a lot of clauses). Very highly rated and a big blow to lose someone that young.

I can't remember him having to make a save. Must be a first time this season. Other than that looked the part, kicking was good, claimed a couple of dead ball and sniffed out a couple of situations clearing the ball. He's a bigger unit than Raya so he looks a bit more imposing. Still impossible to judge, the centre-backs kept him very well protected. Both Williams and Lenighan was excellent. Williams even dominated Matt Smith in the air which was quite impressive.