Oh and we do have O'Riordan centre half only 21...

Igor Tyjon and Kirsti Montgomery along with Leo Duru should be more in to the first team coming season.

No.

With young Carter back injury free and Wharton also back for the new season...can't see us keeping Batth for more than a one year contract. We need pace in the backline and even Bath did a great job pace is still lacking.

If we end up with Argentina, no. If we end up with Croatia, yes, as it is out of England's control, and you would expect Argentina to beat them normally. (Although maybe not as we couldn't beat them either in 2018) Anyway, when did we reach the World Cup Final?

Nothing wrong with ambition (our club badly needs some) but the way Szmodics went about it to engineer a move was wrong. And his recent comments have made it worse. As mentioned above, I hope one of our players runs their studs down the back of his legs when he comes to Ewood.

Gestede

A comparison I made when he left.

There was a lot of fawning and emotionally-wrought silliness when he left from people who should know better. I kept hearing what a great guy he was. He also used to go out of his way to portray himself as a good human being, which I always find a bit suspect! Mowbray was very similar in that regard. Ultimately, Szmodics was all about Szmodics. He got a great career move to Rovers, and an even better one to Ipswich and the Prem - just another player who did well out of Rovers, but who only gave a shit about himself (like they all do). I found his interviews at the end of his last season with us very revealing. To paraphrase- he kept us up and Rovers fans shouldn’t begrudge him a move. A twatty thing to say and no better than Gestede trying to force a move. The fact he also refused to play, albeit in a pre-season, doesn’t surprise me. I hope Carter launches him into the advertising hoardings when he returns!

Speedie, Bellamy, who else are we missing?

So every fixture of the world Cup finals is either lucky or unlucky to at least one other team?

From England's perspective, yes, as they have no control over it.

It's why I keep renewing, when they do go there'll be 50000 banging the doors down and I don't want to miss out on a seat.

England are in the World Cup final and play either Argentina or Croatia in the final. Is it luck which determines who they play ?

It'll be him trying to sell another Academy graduate.

I play football with two Rovers fans who both handed back their season tickets years ago due to the Venkys (one goes away occasionally). I'm friends with another Rovers supporting couple who also no longer go due to the lack of interest from the owners. Anecdotal, yes, but that's five Rovers fans right there. As we've repeatedly seen against Burnley / any cheap ticket offer games, the fan base is still there. 13k does not represent a sizeable portion of our fan base, just the absolute worn-to-the-nub hardcore.

Figured I'd start a topic for this seeing as it starts tonight. Anyone else planning on watching this? I reckon it's gonna be a really good tournament, I think teams are going to take it seriously. I feel no affinity towards City or Chelsea so I've decided to follow Bayern for the tournament seeing as our England captain is leading the line. Looking forward to seeing Messi tonight on the world stage again.

Well, I'd want the judge to be donning the proverbial black cap!

Doesn't change my opinion of him at all. Absolute legend for what he did for us keeping us up almost single handledly. Not gonna hate on him for having ambition, sadly something our club lacks. If he plays against us he'll get a warm reception from me.

He scored 33 goals in the previous season and kept us up. Could not give a fuck what he did in pre-season as we all knew he was being sold 🤷🏻‍♂️

Made up with this, good lad, gooood lad! Brilliant stuff, still love you Sammy lad, great lad, brilliant stuff! Certainly won't receive a warm reception from me.

Would of been a miles better decision to keep that to himself 🤣 But…. Im not going to crucify him, shit happens. If he’d of snapped his ankle in pre season against dog and duck he never plays a premier league minute. Sometimes got to be selfish to get what you want! if I had to sell my mother to a Moroccan fella to play in the masters, I wouldn’t think twice about it! 🤣

Thank you - after a lot of digging I’ve finally tracked down the relevant regulations. My apologies to you, @Andy and @chaddyrovers Something else to file in my I was wrong book (it’s a big book!) Here’s the reg(s)…

Of course, it is still an achievement to win these games. The likes of Colombia, Sweden, Switzerland, Senegal, Ukraine, Denmark etc are not mugs, but equally they are not the elite countries and before the draw is made, you would absolutely take those games in the knockout stages. To beat them is an achievement and I have never said otherwise, even if you are the favourite, to win these games even as favourites pretty much every single time is an achievement and Southgate does deserve credit for that. But whether its the draw at the start, or whether its other group stage results causing bigger teams to fall onto the other side of the draw, none of that is under England's control. Winning our group removes the luck in terms of the last 16 tie as we warrant a favourable draw if we do that, but beyond that, it is all luck. You can't escape that. That causes issues when comparing different managers across different tournaments. For example, Sven had quarter finals against Brazil and Portugal twice. Whenever Southgate faced that level of opposition, he also fell short, he just was fortunate that it came later in tournaments. To win the extra games in between is both an achievement to win those games and also lucky to avoid the bigger nations. When we did face the elite, ie Spain and France, we lost. You could argue that Germany is the exception to the rule, not quite Spain/France but still a strong team, and equally you could argue that Italy and Croatia aren't the very elite either. You especially consider that we have played Switzerland, Ukraine and Sweden at the quarter final stage, so beyond the last 16. We also faced Denmark, Croatia and the Netherlands in semi finals. Even Italy in a final, you would absolutely take those at that stage before the tournament rather than the likes of France, Spain and if its a World Cup, Brazil and Argentina. All of those draws are down to luck.

i can exclusively reveal the info is that the ground staff have received new mowers,well not brand new,that would be frivolous for a club our size🙂