AspRover

Goes without saying that it would be an absolute disaster and I 100% do not trust the current management structure to navigate it competently. That said, I will try to be balanced here. Even once the inevitable asset stripping has occurred I think we likely have a league one team. Not a promotion team necessarily, but a team nonetheless. This isn't a defence of the current players, it just reflects how much league one standard dross we have managed to accumulate, in combination with the fact that a lot of the academy products actually look pretty OK. I'm not saying I personally want to keep all these players but plausibly after all the sellable ones have gone we could be left with something like - Pears Miller Pratt McLoughlin Pickering Garrett Henriksson Montgomery Afolayan Ohashi* Kargbo With a bench of: one of the youth keepers, Wharton, O'Riordan, Duru, De Neve, Atcheson, Powell, Dlamini, Doherty *I don't know about Ohashi, but I think there's a reasonable chance that one of Ohashi, Jorgenson, Gudjohnsen stays. There will likely be at least one or two 'sellable' players we fail to shift. I've based that on youngsters who have made championship or cup minutes this season and not looked entirely out of their depth. League one is very physical, but players with pace tend to do well, so I do think that Kargbo might be a bit of a weapon at that level. I'm not sure it gets promoted without reinforcement, particularly us finding a talisman/goalscorer like we did with Dack, and the midfield is terrifyingly thin, but I think it would be reasonably competitive (again, this is damning the squad with the faintest of praise). The real issue will be that if we didn't get promoted at the first time of asking we'd just be cost cut to a stable league one team, then to a 'lets just stay in the division' league one team, then to a 'we'll definitely be competitive in league 2' team...

Get to 60mins and chuck on all the half fit forwards to try to get a goal in half an hour? It's a plan I guess.

Is Johnson going a bit Guardiola - Miller as an 'inverted full back' stepping up into midfield to form a double pivot with Tronstad and Alebiosu acting as a wingback down the right? Or I guess Carter stepping up when we are in possession ala John Stones and Miller tucking in to form a back three. Ie. When defending Toth Alebiosu Miller Carter Mcloughlin Cashin Tronstad Morishita Baradji Cantwell Ohashi When attacking Toth Carter McLoughlin Cashin Miller Tronstad Alebiosu Baradji Cantwell Morishita Ohashi That might qualify as a 'very surprising line up'. Cantwell feels very shoehorned in though.

Nope, genuinely managed to miss that - I knew he was injured but somehow had it in my head that it was minor. I blame all the manager shenanigans, I've not been keeping as on top of news as I normally would. Fair enough then I guess.

A competent club would have had a loan for Pratt already done and dusted - he's shown this season that at absolute worst he's got to be a league 1 level defender and hasn't really put a foot wrong so far in the championship. I guess the hope is that we are taking the time to try and engineer the best possible deal, but I'm amazed that a league one or two outfit couldn't have been found before the deadline - surely we knew that we weren't registering him? That said, you'd hope at this point that a good national league team - possibly recently ex EFL with decent facilities etc. would not only want him in the squad but would want him to be playing week in week out - we've had too many players out on loan struggling for minutes.

I mean yeah, that's why I said heart over head - he's not the answer and it would very likely be a legacy tarnishing appointment. Sorry, perhaps I should be clearer when I post these things.

We need someone to do what Hughes did when he first came in - pick a team up, make it tough to beat and keep us in the division. I get why the idea of getting him back in appeals - hell, heart over head I'd have him in a flash. What we need to find is the modern equivalent. Of course being a division below where we were then does limit our pull somewhat. Is Savage that guy? Bellamy? Do they absolutely have to be Welsh for it to work? IDK, man. IDK.

Cantwell is an 'If' player - If we can find a position for him If it's in the right formation If we can protect him If he can find some form If he can forge a partnership If he stays fit Then he'll be a big, big player for us. Needs everything on a plate. Szmodics or Dack didn't do 'If', just made it happen.

I'm almost more interested in the formation/line-up/bench we put out than the result. Yeah we need to win this one (badly), but if we just put out Ismaels formation and tactics again then what hope do we have? I want to see back to basics - a back four with a left back at left back, maybe a strike partnership god forbid a 442. Maybe a diamond - Toth Alebiosu Pick 2 Centre backs Ribeiro Tronstad Baradji IDK Monty maybe Cantwell Ohashi Gudjohnsen Just something, some green shoots, some sign that a new person is picking the team.

I think that there are managers who can come in, shout at folks, throw the proverbial water bottle around, put some standards in place and hammer the current group of players into the best formation/ setup that they possibly can be right now. A lot of those managers you wouldn't want to be building a team/running things long term, as the wheels tend to fall off, they haven't got the stamina to maintain it or they end up falling into the old trap of having players out of position so as not to disrupt their formation/picking their favourites etc. I think that the criteria for a firefighting manager on a six month deal and a manager you'd want to sign on a 3+ year deal are very different, and I don't actually hate the idea of going for one now and the other in the summer. A lot of the managers whose names have come up would probably work fine on a six month deal - the old, grizzled veterans, the Big Sams and the Sparkys and even Mowbray to an extent. Hell, I'd have Souness in for six months not even as the manager, just to stomp around Ewood shouting at people. Motivational consultant or something. I don't want any of those names long term, but there's a lot of them you'd back to keep us up this season.

Souness on a six month just to shout at people for a bit and throw some water bottles around wouldn't hurt - wouldn't want him actually in charge long term.

The way I see it is this - under Ismael we are going to be relegated, and I have seen nothing to suggest that he's the man to get us promoted again from league one. There is no value in keeping him. I do think, genuinely, that we have a core of players that are good championship players in the right system - Toth, Alebiosu (assuming he's still here), Ribeiro (not going to set the world on fire but perfectly competent and a victim of the system change imo), Baradji, Tronstad, Andre, Cantwell and Ohashi (both have had poor seasons but again, it's hard to shine under the circumstances - Ohashi of last season looked a double figure goal and assist forward and this season he looked good in a partnership with Gudjohnsen). Possibly a couple of the others like Morishita might look decent under new management/tactics. Supplement with a crop of youngsters who haven't really let us down this year. What we need is a firefighting manager who can come in, assess what he's working with, hammer together a formation/tactic to get the most out of the squad, make us hard to beat and then potentially walk off into the sunset after 6 or 18 months with a big cheque for avoiding relegation/getting us promoted at the first time of asking. There are a few managers I would trust to do that, but wouldn't really want/trust long term, or wouldn't be interested in managing us long term. You know the kind of names I'm thinking of - Mowbray, Big Sam, Sparky, Warnock, Pulis etc. A competent club would have an emergency plan, some kind of roll of the dice up the sleeve. It would also buy some time for an actual managerial hunt rather than another emergency appointment of whoever is available on whatever terms they demand ala Ismael. I do think that there is a chance that if we lose to Wednesday Ismael will go - the timing is spot on for Venkys, just at the point that no more money can be spent in the window, slightly too late to definitely turn it around and providing both a cover for a bad season (managerial disruption) and deflecting a bit of the blame (ie. they tried to turn it around - they changed the manager). I don't trust them to do any of this. Or possibly I trust them to sort of try to do something a bit like this but to muck it up somehow. Give Mowbray a lifetime contract where he gets to keep Ewood Park as his personal stadium if he's ever sacked or something. I feel increasingly like that joke about the guy in the soviet union who goes to the shop to look at the front page of the newspapers. I don't the threads much any more, the firings I am after will be front page news.

I'll have no King Kazu slander here. An all Japanese front three would be great for the marketing. (for the love of all that's holy I am not being serious do not give them ideas)

Its going to depend massively on the wording of the clause - it might be that the clause is an obligation to buy at a set price once 20 appearances are reached - eg. there is no clause to activate until that milestone is reached. In which case it happens when it happens, but he won't be registered as our player permanently until the opening day of the summer transfer window, I think. We'll know if he picks up an 'injury' on 19 appearances.

On the one hand, I'd like us to sell Pears, on the other hand any team that sends scouts to look at signing Pears and is in desperate need of a keeper will surely make a bid for Toth instead.