So he's 100% missing the next 4 games (based on us having 2-weeks to put a case forward). The absolute earliest he could play seemingly would be 4th March, with 12 games of the season remaining. He's played 94minutes of football since Halloween, and hasn't played since he came on for 20mins vs Leicester in mid-January. We're 19th in the form table since the Burnley debacle, and have dropped from 2nd to 9th. We've scored 8 goals in those 10 games and didn't sign a striker in January with our two current incumbents having managed 4 goals in the league all season. We've also conceded 17 goals in that period, although they do include hammerings from Burnley, PNE and Rotherham. At what point do we write this one off? Having watched us all season, in my opinion we're not going up and we're not going to regain any semblance of form because frankly, we never had any. I can't pinpoint one part of the season where we played well - October was a good month but I can't pretend we played well vs Sunderland, Birmingham or Huddersfield when we picked up maximum points. I'd like to see O'Brien playing for us, but is he going to turn our season around and drag us to the playoffs? Everyone says he was crucial in getting Hudds there last season, but IMO the most crucial part of that formula was the manager. He's better than ours. Legal costs followed by relatively high wages at the end of it (if successful).... and will we gain anything at the end of it all?

If that's true (or 45% as recently mentioned), then here is a quick analysis of the figures. Leicester's last FA Cup home game was a 4th round tie 8th Jan 2022, vs Watford. The attendance was 25,710. This during an Omicron outbreak, a week after the festivities and two rounds previous to this one. It was HOWEVER a Saturday, so the fact our game is a Tuesday could have a negative affect. Let's anticipate therefore an attendance of 22,000. Prices are £22 for adults, £14 for seniors and Under 22s and £8 for under 8s. So at an average let's say £15 per ticket sold = £330,000. 45% that income is £150,000. The value of Rovers' offer is £10 x £2200 = £22,000 (MAXIMUM). The value of £10 is also assuming every person in Rovers travelling fanbase is paying the full adult fee, so it's actually likely to be less than this value. I understand this is a very shallow analysis and I've probably missed some key element of the formula, but it's the best I'm going to do. Very rough estimate sees Rovers sacrificing perhaps 10 - 15% of their income from tickets. From a totally objective position (outside looking in) you can't really knock it, especially when compared to what we usually anticipate from this regime. Taking in to account other factors I think it's simply another pretty transparent PR stunt following the complete balls up that was the January window - how much have they saved from not loaning O'Brien or bringing in a striker?!? They'll have to do a lot more than this to convince me that anyone in a position of power/authority at the club gives a single shit about the fanbase, and see us as anything more than walking £ signs and another box to tick to protect their own cushy number. I await the 23/24 season ticket campaign.... what was the 'loyalty' discount last season? A miserly £30 off an overpriced product valued between £399 - £530.... as long as you buy it 2 months before the season starts and before the club can be arsed to appoint a Director of Football and Head Coach.

Embarassing.

24 isn't exactly a whippersnapper... 14 goals in 120 senior appearances, 9 in 74 for Cardiff. That's pretty underwhelming stuff!

At risk of sounding slightly pedantic, we don't have a manager. We have a head coach, and he isn't responsible for signing players. He's spoken extensively about needing a striker, the recruitment team don't appear to have delivered on that. JDT has plenty of flaws, but we can't blame him for this one.

So, it looks like two short-term signings in Sorba Thomas and O'Brien, and maybe the young lad from Rochdale who's played very little first team football. Happy and desperate in equal measure to be proven wrong, but I have a feeling the first two will actually turn out to be more or less completely pointless signings in my opinion. Here's my logic - since Coventry away (over a third of the season) we're 19th in the form table, we're joint 18th for goals scored in the entire season, and we're now clinging to a playoff spot by our fingernails having been 2nd heading in to the World Cup break. So the question is - are these two signings going to get us in to the play-offs? On paper they improve us, but are they all of a sudden going to turn our form around from 19th to perhaps.... top 10, top 8 or top 6 form? We're likely going to need that to keep our play-off chances alive. We've all been watching us recently - we aren't very good, we struggle massively whenever we go a goal down, and we're a little too frequently on the end of a good hiding from poor teams. Our top scorer hasn't scored for 3 months, has already signed a pre-contract with another club and is a new dad... is he going to regain form or is his mind on other things? Dack is wonderful and thank God JDT saw sense with him, but if he gets 10 or 12 goals he'll have done brilliantly. Gallagher and Vale have 4 league goals between them in about 35 combined starts and loads of sub appearances. So, these loans are decent players, but in my opinion from watching Rovers all season and particularly since November, we aren't going to make the play-offs. In effect all we've ended up doing is paying good money for players that we'll never see beyond May. We needed a striker - if we haven't got one then there's definitely a black cloud hanging over this window. When JDT spoke to Broughton pre-window his absolute PRIORITY would have been a striker - him and the recruitment team have failed in that.

I suspect Ali may have mental health issues. In a recent tweet he said taking the Rovers job is the best thing he never did, and that he's happy where he is playing in front of 60,000 fans every week. The most recent job I can find is him appointed to be Manager of Grays Athletic Women's team, who play in the Eastern Region Women's Football League - Division One South - this was May 2022. When I visit the website and do a bit of Twitter research, their head coach is Matt West, appointed August 2022. So Ali's stay lasted 3 months at the most. Judanali.com is a poorly built website that is effectively a load of pictures of him with ex footballers, probably who he follows round, gets a selfie with and pretends they're his friends in the game. I think he probably also pressures them to mention him on social media platforms - he has a few tweets from people like Neville Southall and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink saying "good luck Judan Ali, hope this is the beginning of a great coaching career". I doubt they are anything genuine, just something to get him to leave them alone - there may also be an element of them feeling sorry for him. It looks like he also edits his own Wikipedia page, mostly with bullshit, and never states when he has left a role. The BRFC bit is hilarious.... "In season 2012 - 2013 English champions Blackburn Rovers FC who won the Premier League in 1995 invited Judan Ali to assist in stabilising the club as it was going through turbulent times, Ali did this by making key coaching appointments and continued to oversee matters until Blackburn Rovers F.C. were stable" Even if this were true, he therefore played his part in one of the most tumultuous periods in the clubs history - Kean, Eric Black, Berg, Bowyer, Appleton, Bowyer. The Independent wrote about Ali's involvement at Rovers following Berg's sacking - https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news/from-bollywood-to-ewood-judan-ali-in-challenging-new-role-8432330.html - that journalist appeared to be able to piece together about as much as we can. He also genuinely believes he deserved the Rovers job when he has next to no real coaching experience and no achievements to point to. He's a nobody and a narcissist who's become obsessed with the idea that he is football's greatest gift. It's just our luck that our stupid owners ever gave him ANY platform or association with the club. Safri would probably have been advised to not comment either - it's given Ali exactly what he wants... more attention. But I can understand he would be hurt by this clown tarnishing the reputation of the club.

It would certainly be a pathetic one. A game on Tuesday shouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

Not sure what this is based on really. Watkins - Exeter Scott Hogan - Rochdale Ezra Konsa - Charlton Andre Gray - Luton Tarkowski - Oldham Chris Mepham - Chelsea Youth Ryan Woods - Shrewsbury Maupay - St Etienne Benrahma - OCG Nice These are their bigger sales in the last 6 or 7 years. As you can see, it's basic, good scouting mostly in the lower tiers of English football. EDIT - I know what you mean by a smaller pool but we seem to be aiming for quite established players. Hyam, Brittan, Smodics - now Gelhardt and Undav... None of that is particularly inspiring scouting work is it. That's like me on football manager 2005 scrolling through Man United reserves trying to loan David Bellion.

Yep, the days of two up front are more or less gone I think - all the best strikers do the basics right first, he's bloody hopeless at them. Amazing given the size of him and how many hours he must have spent on a training pitch. By the way, not just good finishes with his head, some excellent finishes with his feet as well. The amount of times we see him scuff/hook/slice an effort is unbelievable nowadays.

Yep, four very good headers to be fair, I stand corrected. Interestingly, not one of them from a traditional cross from the byline. Two lofty, loopy diagonal crosses, one corner and one 30 yards from the byline by a left back. Either which way, that's 6 years ago now and he's since scored 22 goals in 115 games for us - he's never going to be a regular goalscorer, and doesn't in my opinion offer enough other qualities to lead a Championship line (like Graham did). I hope I'm wrong, because defensively he offers us a lot, and he does seem a good character to have around.

Is this actually true? He scored 12 goals in 47 games that season, an absolute glut by his standards, but I don't remember many of them. One lovely half volley in to the Darwen End sticks out in my mind... be interesting to know how many of those goals were actually headers. I was working away at the time but I remember Gally starting in that 1-0 win to Wigan when Emnes scored the fantastic goal - he was absolutely hopeless in every way he still is now, particularly back to goal. Graham came on after 65mins and showed him exactly how to play that role - he was fantastic. Why Gally ever started ahead of him I don't know. With Gallagher, I honestly can't remember Rovers having a striker that has such poor anticipation - he just doesn't appear to have any ability to see a picture unfold at all. Strikers should always be a step ahead of their defenders.... he just looks like he plays the game as it's happening. It's alright having someone who can deliver crosses, but I'm not convinced Gally has the nous or wherewithal to take advantage of it. He must be a piece of piss to mark.

You'd opt to have our most instinctive goalscorer delivering set pieces/ crosses rather than getting on the end of them? Roy Hodgson tried that with Harry Kane at the Euros. We all know how that ended up.

I didn't even know he'd made any comments. What I saw was a striker who bullied our defence relentlessly and scored a very good goal. He'd be bloody wonderful for Dack. Haven't got time for sensitivity when it comes to football banter. He'll have been called far worse by Rovers fans - who cares if he gives a bit back.

Would be great.

Not only that ARA, bottom of the article - The FA confirmed a probe into the allegations, and a spokesman said: 'We will be looking into the material and the issues that may be raised by the content provided by The Sun.' I highly doubt any action was taken on this - Gav might be able to provide something more? In the case of England - his crimes were stupidity, pig-headedness, taking advantage of his position and embarrassing the FA. The very serious allegations of third party ownership were clearly a nonsense, resulting in The Telegraph providing absolutely zero evidence. So, whilst his position was probably untenable, a lifetime ban would have been really strange. Allardyce is not a particularly likeable person, but he's a far better manager than this stupid reputation of an old-fashioned hit and hope merchant. Huge pioneer for sports science, an excellent man manager and a decent tactician. Everything in your post is based on character defamation, various 'forced' media stories and seemingly an old fishwives tale from Bromley. It's only natural it would be your go-to defence, seeing as you can't possibly have an argument for his value and performance as a football manager. As for not one fan playing a part in his sacking... where in my post did I suggest they did? I simply implied that you were all as thick as pig-shit for not seeing the writing on the wall. 12 years later, you're sat on here telling all and sundry how great a second tier manager like Tony Mowbray was and that nothing will change until the Rao's have sold up.... there must be a tinge of embarrassment somewhere...

I don't remember his football being particularly awful to be honest - maybe because I understood where the club was. Quick reminder that we brought in Benjani on a free and Mame Diouf on loan that summer. If we spent £0.00 now there'd be absolute uproar, never mind when we were trying to stay in the toughest league in the world! His football was effective, and judging by the players reactions at the time they were obviously not the least bit interested in how they got results. This is Ryan Nelsen the day he was sacked; "I am devastated for Sam. He had a fantastic relationship with all of the players. Everybody respected him. Sam took the club out of the doldrums. We were in massive trouble and with no money he has solidified us and got us into the top ten on a shoestring budget. We could and should have beat Bolton and we would have been seventh. This has come out of the blue. Both Sam and Neil McDonald have handled themselves incredibly well in difficult circumstances. The owners can do what they want, it's their club, it's their business. But in the real world we work in Sam has done an incredible job. The club had stalled for the past few seasons. The Walker Trust wanted and needed to sell. The club was a bit dead in the water. That's why Sam did an incredible job to keep us from relegation." Some Rovers fans would have been best advised to 'read the room' instead of nailing their colours firmly to the Venky mast and tittering excitedly about Ian Holloway and Owen Coyle (another lesson learnt) 🤢.

Jesus, this age old classic. It's a pathetic cop out for all Rovers fans that can't admit they were wrong. Allardyce was the safest pair of hands in English football at the time, and the perfect manager for a small club entering a transitional period in its history, at a time when it was absolutely essential we kept our hand in the PL honey pot. To sack him wasn't a ludicrous decision because it was part of a wider ploy by dark forces that had infiltrated the club. The ludicrous part in actual fact was clowns like you, Gav and others who celebrated it. We're now 12 years and probably 12 managers down the line and still haven't had one that's even remotely in Allardyce's league, quite literally.

That's him. Same fella who kept us in the Prem after the Ince fiasco, guided us to a top 10 finish the season later, before being sacked with the club comfortably sat 13th in the league with ZERO transfer budget. When was the last time we were that high up the footballing pyramid? Stepping stone... You're absolutely bloody right we were! There's no loyalty in football and he earnt every penny we paid him.

Ah, fair enough.

Which ones? I've bolded 6 there (generous with Phillips, A. Wharton and Garrett as they've not REALLY played enough to be included). Can't make much of a case for the rest... Perhaps another way to analyse would be, who's gone backwards? Thomas Kaminski Aynsley Pears Ashley Phillips Dominic Hyam - has he improved in a Rovers shirt.... probably not really. Daniel Ayala Scott Wharton Hayden Carter Harry Pickering Tayo Edun Callum Brittain Joe Rankin-Costello Lewis Travis Clinton Mola Jake Garrett Tyler Morton Adam Wharton John Buckley Bradley Dack Sammie Szmodics Tyrhys Dolan Ryan Hedges Dilan Markanday Ben Brereton Díaz Sam Gallagher Jack Vale

Josh Bowler Reda Khadra Malcolm Ebiowei Aaron Connolly Cameron Archer Jamal Lowe 6 decent players there - people were in hysterics 5 months ago when Bowler was linked. Now gone back to Blackpool on loan. Khadra whilst not everyone's cup of tea would add some pace, flair and unpredictability that our lot haven't an ounce of. Rest of them are all decent attacking options in the Championship. Can only assume we would be able to compete for at least 3 of them, assuming we'd have probably been outbid by Boro for Archer. None of those take your fancy? Another week to go - maybe we re-visit this list then and see if we've done better or worse.

I thought the pass to Hyam was poor. He was stretching to clear. Anyone know who played it?

Not really surprised. I don't JDT will be too disappointed, we could be 2 or 3 - 1 up. 10 more mins, see how we do then look at Dolan and Markanday. Hope someone has given Gallagher a bollocking. Wake him up a bit

The ONLY time we'd miss Gallagher is if Rotherham get a corner. I can't remember ever seeing a player who boils my blood as much as him. Fantastic pass by Dack and he made a complete mess of it. A lot of angry posters on here, but I think we've actually played OKAY. Dack is our best player by a country mile. Those fans that wrote him off and wanted him sold should hang their heads in shame. Rotherham are a team of workhorses, but they're pretty poor. If we can't equalise here it's a real wake up call for the powers that be during this window. Vale and Gally as our strikers is nauseating.