The fact that it may be construed as 'one or the other' tells you all you need to know about the contempt held for the current regime. As it is, I have no issue whatsoever with this teambuilding day. The summer JDT arrived when we were all falsely hoping for a new dawn, I'd have been quite impressed with the idea of showing appreciation to the entire workforce and not just the players/coaches.

A quick look online suggests Baker is on circa £20K p/w at Stoke. File this one away, it’s not happening.

This should be shared on the comments/thread of every twitter and Facebook post Rovers make. See if it can’t wake up one or two of those fans who blindly back the owners.

Never has the phrase 'a camel is a horse designed by committee' been so pertinent.

God help us if anyone at Rovers thinks the answer to our problems is to simply play Dilan Markanday in the ‘correct’ position. What even is his correct position?

Markanday only made 6 appearances (at least 5 as a sub) in Eustace’s 17 games in charge, and scored 1 league goal all season. Would have to be some turnaround for him to become anything like a reliable goal scorer for us.

Just for a bit of extra context, Szmodics scored just under 40% of our goals last season. There just isn’t a logical argument to suggest any single player in our squad could replace his goals. In fact, the top 8 scorers after Szmod (I’ve taken out Moran as he is gone) would all have to double their tallies for the season simply to make up the difference. You can’t possibly believe that is even remotely realistic.

4 games, 5 goals and 3 assists in PL2.

I can't argue with that, he could easily go the way of Nuttall or countless other strikers we've had who disappear back in to obscurity. He didn't help himself when we were absolutely backs to the wall in one of Eustace's first game (might have been Stoke), and he lost possession or made very poor decisions at least 2 or 3 times. After that I'm not sure we really saw him again. BUT, I still thought there was flashes of intelligent striker play and I don't think he was completely anonymous in his few cameos. As I say, he had a few half decent opportunities where he just didn't pull the trigger. It's a massive pre-season for him, I just hope he can prove a lot of us wrong.

I know most will disagree with this, but I did see flashes of play that I liked in Telalovic. He looked like he had some decent ability in terms of link up play and he found himself in positions where only his reluctance to shoot let him down - whether that was a confidence issue I don't know. I hope this pre-season might just offer him the opportunity to get some minutes, score a few goals and give himself a platform to at least get some first team minutes. I know this is only U21 football, but when we were linked to one of the Palace players a month or two ago I had a look at this video of a game played last season. It includes an absolute clanger from Pears, when the ref spares his blushes (about 9mins 45secs), but Telal really stood out to me during the highlights, particularly with an excellent assist for the second goal.

I'm quite intrigued by a 4-3-3 with Travis, Tronstad and JRC as the three in midfield. Tronstad will sit and protect, allowing JRC in particular to get forward. If nothing else, Travis covers an awful lot of ground and is combative. Let's not forget that Trav came really unstuck when he was asked to come and get the ball deep off the defenders on the half turn. That won't be happening under Eustace. There'll be a focus on staying resilient, being hard to beat, getting the ball forward quickly and nicking goals where we can. If we could compliment those three with another midfielder with little bit more creativity, or even someone to add goals then all the better - when was the last time we had a goal scoring midfielder?!? But overall, I wouldn't be horrified to see those 3 start the first game. Much more important is an overhaul of the front 3, particularly if/when Szmodics leaves. Width, Pace, directness and someone to get the crowd on their feet is a must, preferably x 2.

This will be a load of bollocks. Even giving it enough credence to check who Rovers players are represented by, only one agent represents specifically 3 Rovers players, and they are Carter, Wharton and Gamble. Doubt we are going to be getting rid of 3 CBs, one currently recovering from a serious knee injury.

Depends on your budget but on my side of town the Millstone at Mellor have rooms: https://millstonemellor.co.uk/ I also used Mytton Fold for some guests a year or two back and it was fine: https://www.myttonfold.co.uk/ - problem here is they might be booked with wedding parties on Saturdays. Foxfields is nearby as well: https://foxfieldshotel.com/accommodation/ They'd all be about 15-20 mins drive from Ewood give or take.

😂

Where has this Guru nonsense come from and why is it being attached to his job title? The guy appears to have a really, really average CV (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/adam-owen/profil/trainer/5659) and he seems to flit between being a 'technical director' and an assistant manager for Lee Johnson and Chris Coleman, barely ever staying anywhere longer than a year. Surely a guru suggests the person in question is a leader or an expert in a certain field, employed or consulted due to their vast experience and knowledge. This guy just seems to hop from random job to random job. He does though, appear to be a great self-publicist with his own website (https://aoperformance.co.uk/biography/).

One or two others?? 🤣 It was 'one or two others' that kept us up, the rest were hopeless. Wahlstedt struggled, but I'm not having it that he was 33%-50% responsible for the shit show that was last season.

Are you wanting the true version of events or the Steve Kean version?

Gestede only really being the outlier. What a signing that was by Bowyer. One of a few brilliant signings by him. Surprise, surprise when the owners turned the taps off on him we ended up with bargain basement Fode Koita as a direct replacement for Gestede. Two seasons later and with Rhodes gone as well we got relegated. It shouldn’t be any surprise at all if history repeats itself this time next season sadly. And that’s assuming we’ve just about done enough to stop up this time.

Question. How would an admin girl be aware that the paperwork hadn’t been submitted? I work in Asset finance on various proposal and documentation platforms, all protected by password and accessible for certain individuals. When I hit submit on a proposal, the status changes to submitted on the platform. I can then close the platform and it’s locked again. We’ve been told that only the secretary has the permissions and ability to submit and presumably see the progression of the documentation. Why, at precisely 11:04 would an admin person be aware that the proposal had not been submitted? What indication would she have? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, and after last year I just do not believe that this was a case of incompetence. It stinks to high heaven. EDIT: apologies, I see that Jakey asked a very similar question. But as an integral part of the story, it needs some explanation. It’s all too convenient.

I can understand what Jones Rover is saying. Without doubt, 6 weeks ago the squad was in a better place. IMO it was a shameful window, topped off by losing AW and never replacing him. BUT, we are in a better position than we were a week ago. JDTs job was untenable (as I said the night the McGuire transfer fell through), and we couldn’t have limped on with a head coach who simply had lost his spirit and with it I think his ability to turn around this awful run. Now perhaps we can have some semblance of a fresh start, in the dressing room and on the pitch at least. I’ve a feeling Eustace will be more pragmatic, take us back to basics and number 1 priority, stop conceding goals. He’s a relative unknown from a head coach point of view, but he knows the league and importantly, he knows what the bottom half of the league looks and feels like. I’m more confident of avoiding relegation than I was 48 hours ago. The club is a mess, the save/send fiasco stinks of sabotage, the AW money will never be seen again and the Indian court issue looms large in the background. But from purely a football point of view, I think we’ve given ourselves a fighting chance. JDT leaves with my thanks and a huge amount of respect. A good man and a decent coach sadly fallen victim to this charade of football club.

Lots of people seemingly happy to swallow the version of events provided by the club. Absolute hogwash from start to finish if you ask me. As I suggested last Thursday, there was a stench around the initial half baked reason for canning the McGuire deal. The Wharton transfer did go through on Wednesday evening, I seriously doubt there was ever any issue around it, but certain individuals at Rovers saw it as the perfect excuse to cover for the owners who had pulled the rug again. Best guess, once the owners vetoed the loan fee as well, there was nowhere left to go but play the incompetence card. I simply don’t believe that this deal was ever truly meant to go through. I genuinely believe Broughton and JDT would have wanted it done, not at all convinced any of the money men would have. As for signing McGuire on a pre-contract…. What a load of absolute bollocks.

Has anyone considered that by taking the flak last season, GB effectively made his position untenable SHOULD the same thing ever happen again. I don’t think many people genuinely believe it was him who made the ‘error’, but in an effort to either protect the team OR feeling as the DOF it was ultimately his responsibility, he took the bullet. 12 months on and through an extraordinary coincidence the exact same thing happens again, leaving GB with nowhere to go but resign. I’m not one for conspiracies but we know that there is clearly civil war ongoing between the old guard and the new….

I keep seeing people alluding to JDT refusing to walk without a payoff. Where has that come from? My understanding is that JDT offered to walk for nothing in the summer and that the Raos would allow him to, as long as his contract was paid up by any future employer. IMO a shitty move considering the complete collapse of the project/vision he was originally sold.

I agree. I think he’s probably come to the end of the road. He’s obviously begging to be sacked, results have nosedived and I don’t think he knows how to get this group out of it. The football side probably needs some sort of kick start, a new voice and some new ideas just to get us to 50 points or whatever the safety point is in this league. The problem is, it costs money to sack and appoint a new manager, money that this lot won’t spend. Our name must also be absolute mud within the football world. You’d be crackers to walk in to this, with the funding issue, the complete Horlicks that is every transfer window, the state of the squad. So it’s paralysis. A complete state of impasse whilst we slide closer and closer to L1.