Agree with all of this. Transfers are only a portion of what GB oversees. And the Sam Smodz attitude I've seen a few times is odd; one minute we complain that we're spending no money / we're skint / Venky's are withholding funds. Then when we spend money on getting a player we want, we've overspent. You can't win with some. Besides, the players brought in under GB so far have been far superior to the majority of shite we've seen in the last 10 years. Think of the Akpans, Taylors, DJ Campbells. Smodz alone is twenty times the player that kind of player will ever be, never mind Hyam, Brittain, Thomas.

Something about that right hand side that I think would work really well. I'm hoping A.Wharton isn't too far away either; he's got qualities that no other player we have has.

We were on the verge of signing the best Championship midfielder in the last few seasons - someone who was absolutely central (along with Sorba) in dragging bloody Huddersfield Town to the play offs. We’d even agreed a £10m fee should we be promoted, which is absolute peanuts in Prem terms. This aspect of the situation is both good business and ambitious; I struggle to find why anyone would (or could) criticise. Finalising the deal, however it failed, is of course a different matter.

As we sit right this second, we’re a point off the play offs with a game in hand. Theres defeatist and then there’s defeatist, holy shit.

I could see them considering the BRIC, as unsuitable the facilities are for anything other than a kickabout with your mates...

But there’s ‘nothing special/unique about Blackburn Rovers’ according to our Marketing/Sales team. Anybody with half a Marketing brain can see the wealth of opportunities right in front of them.

Yeah, he blocked me for politely pointing out a basic error in one of his Rovers ‘stories’. Seems he’s not keen on being proven wrong and his guesswork being made obvious. Today’s piece is a perfect example. Big headline that the appeal has failed, then when probes: ‘well, I’m just saying that it might fail, but it also might not…’

You'd like to think not - and for our club's benefit, I'd hope not.

Yes - if he's released / leaves on a free, the clause expires.

And if we win at WBA, it'll be 5 points from the 3 games - which the vast majority of us would have been happy with.

Completely agree - he started the season well and if we've learned absolutely nothing else about BBD over the last few years, it's that's he's a confidence player. And right now, he's running on empty. That aside, really good result today and the lads put in a real shift. We need to follow it up with a similar performance at WBA next and it'll keep us in the play off discussion, as we have been all season.

Still might. Pears has been steady again, like the look of Thomas already and Trav has been busy. Dack doing Dack stuff and Dolan showing why he’s far better than Vale up top. I also wouldn’t swap either of of current CBs for that Porteous lad, never mind Hyam or Ayala. No loss there at all.

I'd suggest that this is the most likely situation.

It can also go the other way, too. Too many new players too soon often disrupts a side.

He isn’t the first choice RB - Brittain is and, when fit, will start. However JRC will be a useful squad player from now on and has the added bonus of being able to fill a few positions - a manager’s dream to have on the bench. Will JRC like that? Probably not, but he was on of his way out of the club just a few short weeks ago.

If the leaked information is to be believed (albeit we’re likely taking Waggott’s word via Nixon here…), we submitted our paperwork on time. But the EFL’s daft question of ‘ok, £10m if you get promoted. But what about if you get relegated?’ is the crux of the issue. Rovers’ stance was, well, we obviously wouldn’t sign him as we’ve not been promoted. I genuinely think we have half a chance with this one, as (if that was indeed the case), the delay was caused by the EFL asking a stupid and unnecessary question. Forest and O’Brien are also not blameless in this instance, allowing him to leave on deadline day and the player only deciding to join Rovers in the afternoon.

Nah, the league is far too tight and there are too many games left, at this stage. Add our general inconsistency into that and I suspect the season will be live until the last few games.

In theory, the fact that it’s not been rejected immediately is a good sign.

Yeah, Vale did not have a good game against Wigan. He was mostly anonymous, easily muscled off the ball and got some basic passes/moves wrong. He did produce one good piece of play, taking a hard pass on the chest, controlling and laying off nicely for the advancing Rovers player down the right. But I don't think it'd be accurate at all to suggest he played well - you'd like to think that he'd be the first person to admit that himself.

Should be a home banker. But we’ve seen many times this season that we’ve pulled a performance or result out of nowhere and I’m hoping for the same again on Saturday. I’ll go Watford 1 v 2 Rovers. Hoping to see Leonard get a chance, a packed midfield and some pace on the break (eg Dolan).

Not necessarily. If we had a John Williams character running the club (which would require Venky’s to hire him and entrust him with the relevant authority), it wouldn’t matter who the owners were. The UK SLT team are unfit for purpose and we shouldn’t overlook the importance of this.

Agree with this, even an initial season, with the financial benefits it brings, would be a big help to us long term. Also, JDT is managing expectations; that is as clear as day, Behind the scenes, promotion will of course be the aim this season and the ‘play poorly / win game’ instances this season show that he’s more interested in results than performances. He’s a winner; settling isn’t in his DNA. Hence his anger at the recruitment fuck ups.

Tell you something, we could have done a lot worse than take the two Wrexham forwards: Mullin and the big lad at number 9.

One thing JDT deserves credit for is dropping players when they’ve needed dropping and building their confidence in the U21s. He’s also recalled or played out of favour players when they’ve proven they deserve another shot. Seeing Leonard do that tonight surely puts him in contention for the first team, especially considering what we’ve been seeing from Vale recently.

Totally agree with the point made a page or two back, on the team being scared to lose. Scared to take a risk, scared to make a run or take a shot. This is where your big personalities and experienced players come in; sadly we have neither. I will give Trav credit for last night, he tried make things happen and did make some good runs/passes - and obviously Sorba was promising. But we need something different if we’re not going to let the season (and the top 6) drift away from us.