AspRover

'The former Generation Next Football Club (GNFC) player, together with Bermudian Under-20 international Kennahz Fray, joined the Backburn Rovers Under-21 squad on December 9.'

Says that we also have a Bermudan u20 player on trial - it's all part of linking up with a development program rather than a serious look at the players I'd imagine. That said, does look like he's got a scholarship to play football at a US university and the last player we signed who took that path was Ryan Nelsen. He's also got some (moderately) competitive international experience, world cup qualifying caps vs Cuba and Honduras. Admittedly they lost both of them, but not heavily and I'd imagine that they were fairly hefty underdogs vs Honduras at least. Played CB and LB. Doesn't hurt to have a look.

Late to the party but happy to see Pryde making the list - So a bit of family history here but 'Big Bob' Pryde and my Grandad served in the same regiment for a bit during the war and they were mates - though funnily not the Grandad from the side of my family that comes from/supports Blackburn. Because of his status as a professional footballer Bob was given the job of PT instructor, and apparently his tendency was to get the men running, get outside of view of the camp and then tell them to have a sit down and a smoke break for 20 mins before jogging them back. Grandad didn't smoke (and would have been a sergeant or possibly acting staff sergeant at that point), so he got chatting to Pryde instead. This would have been (off the top of my head) Royal Artillery in Italy - Grandad got moved about a fair bit - probably about the time Vesuvius erupted (which he saw). Quite likely they were both at Monte Cassino. I'd have to double check with the family though. Grandad had a Pryde cigarette card which we ended up framing - not sure where it is now, it's got buried over the course of two or three house moves. I'm not sure how many years Pryde was off fighting during the war, but it's probably fair to say that he'd have otherwise got more than the 320 games he played for us and could have been up towards the top end of all time appearances - probably not right at the top but could have conceivably cracked 400.

This is surely the club laying the groundwork for not spending in January (as always intended) - 'we had a healthy budget and intended to make 3 or 4 signings but circumstances outside of our control...' etc. No need to sabotage a fax machine on Jan 31st that way.

Championship Reddit just has many photos of Ismael holding up pictures of clouds. I think that after fifteen odd years some fans of other clubs are beginning to twig that our situation might not be normal.

Not a bad game for someone to step up into midfield though - Wednesday aren't overrunning us, goal up, good performance under the belt for Baradji and he might kick on

I mean lets see how he does, if he looks dead after 20 mins or gets sent off or something it would back up Ismael's opinion. But yes, I'm sure there is someone out there who could come in and do a job, unfortunately they'd probably want paying.

We need this to be the one battling, blood and thunder, leave everything on the pitch and die at the end of the game performance that Forshaw manages all season to justify his signing.

Once again I will bang the drum on my one man campaign for us to give Pickering a try as a left sided defensive midfielder because I think he has all the attributes to play there and it won't expose his lack of pace like wing back.

had a bit of a watch back of the highlights - Their goal is an absolute shambles from start to finish, but it's kicked off by three of our players going to challenge for the initial header from the long kick and pretty much all getting in each others way. My best guess is that it came from an instruction to support/look out for Pratt, if they had left him to deal with it then either he'd have won the header or, if he doesn't, the covering players wouldn't be out of position and it doesn't become such a scramble. This is the danger of playing a young lad on his debut, and it's a shame because it wasn't really his fault and he looked very solid otherwise. Yuki is genuinely very unlucky, he draws a lot of fouls that don't get called and seems to force a lot of good saves. If a couple of goals go in you fancy him to go on a bit of a goal scoring run. Pears is not particularly good, but he's also not the sunday league reject we occasionally make him out to be. The team, in general, is improving. Some of the players, particularly the new lads, are developing a good understanding on the pitch. Yuki/Morishita/Alebiosu and Gudjohnsen all work well as a unit. I wish we had a settled partner for Tronstad though. Maybe it will be Baradji, but far too early to tell from the cameo yesterday.

Lots of fresh legs for Preston. I'm not sure what I'd do here, Forshaw as a cool head to see the game out or Baradji because sod it let's see what he's got Also, I recon a bit of Gueye chaos could do well, I think their defenders are rattled... edit - they've only got three on, I thought they had brought on four

Strikers instinct, right place at the right time

Pratt hasn't looked completely out of his depth, which is nice

He's got the workrate at least, I guess

Ohashi at 10 behind Andri, at a guess, revert to the formation we played and did well with last season. I'm not too worried about that in principal - we looked terrible in the first few games of this season but that might just be down to getting a lot of players up to speed very quickly and chopping and changing a lot accordingly - now we've settled down it's probably OK. A huge amount of pressure on Henriksson to play in central midfield though, Tavares must be awful in training. I've often wondered about Pickering playing as a defensive midfielder, I think he has the attributes to do well there and it wouldn't expose his lack of pace which for me is his main issue as a full back. Not feeling particularly optimistic, but it's a game where losing isn't the end of the world (coming off an unexpected three on the bounce and going into an international break to regroup) and winning with a threadbare squad would feel significant. Edit - BBC have us sticking with the same formation with De Neve on the left of the back three, but I can't imagine that's right, you'd play Pickering or Ribeiro surely?