That's interesting, possibly we're holding off announcing it because there's another signing imminent and they want to do the press at the same time?

A big red 'R' on the front of the shirt and no gambling? That would probably be the first shirt I buy in a while. I've been wearing my pre-Venkys era red away kit with the premier league arm patches and 'Salgado' on the back in protest for most of the last decade.

Venkys do like cricket though. No idea if they would be involved in the decision making process at all but could be enough to get a green light? Makes as much sense as anything these days

Been keeping an eye on football shirt culture - it has a page that just updates with new shirts when they are released, across a lot of different leagues if you've never seen it before. Its interesting to look at the trends - this year there are a lot of patterns and particularly camo in what would traditionally be solid areas of colour. I'm wondering what the chance is that we might be in for a patterned blue half this year. See the new Wednesday home kit - blue camo stripes (completely different manufacturer mind) I await with some apprehension.

I think I'd line it up Walton Nyambe Adarabioyo Lenihan Downing Bennett Travis Holtby Rothwell Brereton Gallagher Maybe? I seem to remember Bennett having good games in the centre and Holtby, Rothwell and BB running off Gallagher as a target man could work?

Delighted to hear you're coming out the other side of this. We had our brush with it here, it's rough. Hope the recovery is speedy from here on in!

weird one this but the 1995 charity shield game vs. Everton. Meant the square root of naff all, but here's the thing - I'm a (relatively) young lad, compared to many on here at least; I had been kind of aware of the title winning side from the point of view of 'we're the best' but it didn't really mean that much to me. I'd have been six or seven and you take it for granted at that age that whatever you happen to like is the best. I knew my dad was excited, I had a shirt, I idolised Shearer but I had no real context; I didn't understand football. We were living in London at the time, and that game at Wembley was the first time I went to see Rovers in person. And it was terrible. I mean we lost, sure, but my abiding memory of the game is one of crushing boredom. It genuinely set my entire interest in football back years. I didn't really get back to supporting football in any meaningful way until the Souness promotion season, and even then it wasn't particularly enthusiastic. It took the league cup win to really drag me back in, and even then I'd say the Hughes era is 'my' Rovers team. So yeah, a pointless game that very nearly completely killed my interest in football before it had begun.

I kind of suspect that in reality football players are pretty boring. I don't think they actually do much other than football and I don't think many are great philosophers. They probably filmed a load of stuff with the players (there's no way that at the beginning of the season they knew Maja would score a bunch of goals and then get embroiled in a protracted contract saga) and then in the end picked out a couple of 'stories' - ie. young lad making his breakthrough in O'Nien (the equivalent of how they portrayed Honeyman in the first series), and all the Maja stuff. On the whole I enjoyed it, I think it came across as pretty fair - the owner(s) were pretty flawed in their own ways but at least they actually seemed to care a bit and understand the situation and want to get the Fans on side and involved outside of purely money and football, the fans featured were proper fans - the sort you'd happily spend an evening in the pub with talking football.

presumably the scarf is from a supports club - the D will be a country or city I'd guess? The shirt is one of the '94-'96 McEwans ones, or a knock off of the same.

if we lose to Finn Harps we should just write off this season

I mean, it's Brad and Timmy and then there's a bit of a gap.

What I wouldn't give for a Zurab now, quietly classy, competent when called upon, versatile and never made a fuss about being behind the likes of Nelsen in the pecking order. Proper squad player in the best possible way. God I miss the days when we could afford to have really safe back up players just sat on the bench, the kind where if we got an injury to one of our key players we would just think 'that sucks, but at least we've got this guy so it's not the end of the world'. Its one of the big indications of how far we've fallen that gets a bit overlooked imo.

It's kinda funny, do you go for objectively best 11 or personal favourite 11? Head knows Hendry goes in, but heart just wants Nelsen and Samba back together again...

We certainly didn't see him at his best, but to be honest I think that was partially down to the fact that by the beginning of the season he wasn't going to dislodge Dack as the creative force or Smallwood in the defensive role so he didn't really fit into the system. The rest of our transfer activity that summer pretty much rendered him obsolete before we kicked a ball. A disappointment but I wouldn't put him in the same category as Murphy, a player who we were relying on and was just terrible. In the grand scheme of things I have no ill will towards Whittingham from his time here, quite a bit of admiration for his Cardiff career and hope he makes a good and speedy recovery. Edit - ten minutes after I posted the above we get confirmation of his passing. Tragic by any measure, no age to go at all.

Cheers - here's hoping we've got them rattled. I'm stuck down on the south coast with no way of watching so am a bit reliant on the mesageboard for analysis!

Are Gallagher and Armstrong at least making the defenders work a bit? I want to see Buckley given a bit of time to work with a tiring defence in front of him.

Other games going pretty well for us at half time, Cardiff, Bristol and Preston all losing. Forest drawing isn't too bad either, only Swansea making ground. Makes our point look all the better, could be valuable at the end of the season.

got to defend that... draw I guess Come on Benno, score a worldie, prove me wrong!

in the 5:2 game I went to do the weekly shop with us two up and left the supermarket to find we'd conceded five. I really need to go and do the shopping. Whats the play here lads?

Yeah maybe, a couple of articles from last September covering him signing his first pro contract though, seems odd that they'd give him a one year contract in September and loan him out in January with the prospect of him leaving at the end of it. Unless all that Man City wanted from the contract was the press coverage! https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9891154/arsenal-ian-wright-dmargio-wright-phillips-shaun-man-city/ https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/man-city-transfers-wright-phillips-17672439 Edit: dates.

Alright now can someone explain this to me - D'Margio Wright-Phillips, son of Shaun, 18 years old, has made a couple of starts for us recently, scored against Preston. Looks a handy player. Apparently he's on loan from Man City in an under 18s deal, and from what I've found in the press he seems pretty highly rated in Manchester (though tbf there might just be articles about him floating around because of the famous surname) What does this mean? Are we literally being subcontracted to develop other teams youth players now? Are we being paid for this or are we paying to have someone else's player in our u21s? Surely the point of the youth teams should be to develop our players not those of a team a division above us swimming in cash? Who's getting the benefit here? I'm sure its perfectly normal and all, I just don't know how these things work.

Realistically (I know, I know) - 1). how much would people be happy paying for Walton vs. 2). how much do we think he would actually cost? I see three possible outcomes Option 1 - There's never been an intention to sign him, we couldn't find a decent keeper after selling Raya last season and he's a stopgap, in which case I'd argue that he's done fine over the course of the season but you've got to question the strategy behind the scenes. Did we really need the money that badly? What have we done with it? Where's the guarantee we get a good keeper in the summer? Option 2 - we can sign him for less than we got for Raya overall (fee + wages). Certainly Walton and Raya are not the same type of keeper, but I'd struggle right now to say which one is the better player. Both inconsistent (Raya still inconsistent with a different, some might say better, defence in front of him), both capable of making good saves. It would be a way of leveraging our squad to conjure the difference in fees out of thin air without materially weakening the team. (i.e. exchanging two players of similar age and ability but gaining, idk £1m in the process). If that extra money pays Tosin's loan fee for another season or whatever then it could be sensible, if unspectacular, business. Unless they can pull a world class keeper on a free in the summer this may be the best case scenario. Option 3 - We end up signing him but he costs us more than we got for Raya, in which case I really struggle to see any point to the whole exercise.

He's from Greenwich isn't he? I think he began at Charlton, might have made the trip down to visit family I guess. Nice to see though.

Three points off the playoffs with the best goal difference outside of the playoffs... I'll take it.

This is going to be a tough one tbf, Fulham aren't in unplayable form but they have picked up 52 points and strengthened in Jan, whereas we're pretty much guaranteed to play with an unfamiliar lineup as the first, second and third choice picks for the position that out whole formation is built around are out. I'd like to see a lineup that looks something like Walton Nyambe Tosin Lenihan Bell Davenport Travis Downing Chapman Armstrong Graham With the idea being that Downing drops a bit deeper to help Bell out and ping passes forward, so that you're playing for Graham to hold the ball up with Chapman and Armstrong running off him and a defensive three of Travis Davenport and Downing to try any prevent Fulham playing on the break. Not sure about Davenport, he's looked decent for the u23s, we may have better options. Would probably get hammered mind. In reality I'll guess a starting line up of Walton Nyambe Tosin Lenihan Bell Travis Johnson Gallagher Bennet Downing Armstrong and a pasting through the middle of the park.