Watford away shows that we have a Plan B for certain games (and it worked to perfection) 👍

The hope is that his history has been due to a combination of the player not looking after himself properly (alcohol / etc) and Plymouth's medical science team not being adequate enough. Barring the serious broken fibula injury from a few years ago, obviously. Let's see what magic Ben Rosen and team can work on him, in terms of strengthening his body in the coming weeks and months.

Just had a scan of one of the Boro forums and, despite the depression of how bad they are, they were all in agreement that we were, by far, the better side and should have won by several. Almost all admitted that Dieng was their best player. Quite a few admiring glances in Szmodics' direction also.

Very, very good for most of that match. But we sat far too back and were too slack once they got one (illegitimate) back. But we hung on and just about got over the line. Thank fuck for Szmodics, eh? Thought the new lad up top looked ok. Some good, some average. Definitely wasn’t out of his depth, which is a good sign on his debut.

Good first half, but we should be 3 or 4 up. Dolan’s chance was harder to miss - Gallagher’s not far behind. Thought Brittain was excellent, I’ve been a big fan since he joined. Pears deserves credit as well, he’s been good so far. Just feels like we’re carrying players, like Dolan, Gallagher and Hedges. If we want to be in the top 6, these guys just aren’t good enough. Hopefully a good second half and 3 points.

Considering he moved his family over here, has settled in the Whalley area and has even got local school places for his boys, it’s hard to imagine that he’s battering the door down to leave. He will go if/when he receives a much better offer - no difference to any of us in our own careers. But I can’t see him leaving any time in the immediate future.

Last summer, 100%. Halfway through the previous season (when he'd hit 20 by January), absolutely not. At that time, he was central to what we thought was going to be a promotion push - and it would have been madness to sell him (unless he was actively pushing for a move).

The info I had (and they've been pretty solid with everything they've passed me) is that JDT was happy for Buckley to leave on loan. Reading between the lines, that might have been on the condition that Burke also came in on loan. And since that didn't happen, he's now taking the 'I never wanted Buckley to leave' stance. He has however always been very reactive/proactive in terms of replacing an underperforming player. After Plymouth, you'd expect that Pears has to sit on the bench.

Exactly this. As the stats show, we’ve spent - by far - the majority of our time in the top tier.

So throwing £16m in the bin for no reason or benefit? Sorry, not seeing the logic behind this one.

It would have been absolute madness to sell him at that point. He was on fire, we were pushing for promotion and there was nothing to suggest that he’d have a pretty torrid second half of the season. Hindsight is wonderful, but the fallout from selling him at that point would have been worse than us letting him eventually walk away for free.

I was led to believe that the meeting was a court case - but I wasn't able to find anything online to confirm either way and wasn't given the specifics of the case.

No, it didn't - it was scheduled for then, but it was postponed. Not heard about a rescheduled date yet.

You'd be surprised at how many handsomely-paid people are ineffective communicators.

Well, hopefully - but that has always been my major concern with any potential sale of the club. Are Venky’s going to just write off that amount of money? If not, we’ll likely never have different owners (unless one of us wins the Euro Millions on a triple rollover week).

I like GB and todays interview has done nothing to change my opinion. He’s an effective communicator, appears to be honest and transparent and gives us something that didn’t exist before he arrived here; a strategy. In my opinion, we’re a lot better off with him being with us. I’ve seen a small number of strong opinions against him on here in the past and I’d be interested to know what’s that’s based on. And on Buckley, I was told that JDT was in full agreement with the loan. Which is interesting as everything else that the same person has told me has either happened or been confirmed, even down to GB confirming that the 3rd deadline signing was a winger from the Bundesliga (Oli Burke).

I'm sure he won't be too concerned, since his team are totally outclassing the opposition and will walk off the pitch as winners. Be quite nice if he scored, to shove it back up the home fans' arses.

Bellingham has been good, but so has Foden. If the other lads were on his wavelength, we score at least another 2 in that half.

1-0. I know it's hard to judge in a friendly and against such poor opposition, but we've looked pretty decent so far.

Based on the time we spent there under the incumbent owners, I'm not too sure about that. If Venky's wanted to make coin from the club, promotion is by far and away their best option.

Similarly, no Rovers fan would call us 'Blackburn'. If you refer to Rovers in a football sense, very few are going to think you're talking about Doncaster, Bristol or Forest Green, to be fair.

Definitely knows where the goal is. Debut goal on Sat would be amazing 👍

I mentally zoned out at the point of us chasing a win at 1-1, we brought off Bellingham and Maddison and left on Henderson. Incredible.

I think the implication by the club was that he was never effectively managed by Plymouth, hence the recurrent injuries - and if he's a drinker, that would absolutely have not helped at all. No excuse, if you're a professional sportsman. My hope is that the staff at Brockhall can get him in shape and strengthened in ways that he's never been. Looks a player from the glimpses we've seen of him so far.

The person answering the questions is the reporter, not JDT - so the reporter not knowing for certain isn't a massive surprise, to be fair. Regarding JDT's contract situation, I was told that there was some discussion about a new one a number of weeks ago - but if it happened, it would have been easier for either party to walk away. No idea if it's live / dropped / etc.