This is the first World Cup since I retired. As a result of that I've seen 95% of the matches from start to finish. It's been a great competition so far. I go back as far as Chile in 1962 and this is heading to to be one of best ever if not the best. Great games that will live in the memory, great goals that will also live in the memory. The refs have got to get a lot of praise for this, they've been terrific. They've let the games flow and only got the cards out when absolutely necessary. A refreshing change from our league football when every serious challenge seems to bring a card and sendings off seem to happen about every third game. All they need to do now is award post match yellow cards for simulation incidents like the one were Suarez went down holding his head after getting a knock in the middle of his back.

You really can’t make statements like that after not watching any of the non-England games. This World Cup has been a brilliant spectacle. There has only been a single 0-0 and that’s because both sides conspired to make it so.

There isn't such thing as a "transfer budget", there's a budget for contract renewals, agent fees, transfer fees and wages. That is 18m, 10m higher than last year (so I've been told). Which is why there are target lists A, B and C. If you allocate a large section of the budget for one player on the A list you'll have to look at players on the C list for other position. Worth remembering not many transfers are paid up front, so if we sign a 1million pound player on a 4 year deal in most cases that 1m would be split up over 4 years, in some form, e.g. 400k, 300k, 250k, 150k.

You do talk some rot.

How do you know they were one sided if you didnt see them? Haha. South Korea and Mexico both beating Germany, Spain held by Morocco and only just beat Iran who also drew with Portugal. Switzerland drew with Brazil who also didnt score v Costa Rica until injury time. France just beat Australia. Iceland drew with Argentina who also toiled v Nigeria. Uruguay just beat Saudi Arabia. Barring the odd exception (Panama) the smaller countries held their own, creating a lot of interesting games. Part of the beauty of the World Cup group stages are David v Goliath ties and now we are at the serious stage, and already Germany, Portugal and Argentina are out. Been fascinating.

Rovers seem to be trying the budget airline pricing model. The aim is to keep s/t price increases low but start to charge for the additional items that were previously either free or not required. The 1875 club was always a stealth s/t price increase and frankly isn’t needed for any reason other than to raise income via the back door. A football club’s membership is its season ticket holders. The fact that priority can be paid for rather than loyalty really sticks in my throat. The 1875 club was a transparent attempt at income generation by means other than raising s/t prices. Charging more to buy your match ticket on the day....what on Earth is that all about ? We are not a rail operating company. Encourage people to attend, make walk ups easier, don’t discourage any potential fan. Charging to go in a bar and selling one of the benefits as being able to watch the 2nd half in the bar - rather than you know, from your seat...seems perverse in the extreme. It seems clear that Waggott has a mandate to raise turnover - I don’t have a problem with that, we need money to buy players, pay fees etc but it’s very interesting to compare and contrast with the style and approach of Andy Holt at Stanley who makes it plain that ripping off the fans is at best a short-term option. Some strategic thinking wouldn’t go amiss here...

Because it is, lad was about to tap it in and win the game before a cynical foul (I think he knew what he was doing and would have taken a red card ala Suarez v Ghana in 2010), feels right that they went on to win. Justice!

To be fair, it’s hardly unreasonable for you to question a winger failing to register a goal or assist. I personally love Bennett for the drive, effort and commitment he shows for the cause.

Bennett was superb and my player of the season. We have weaknesses but he isn't one of them.

And if we start next season with the same obsession with trying the 5 at the back we will likely be punished again against much stronger opposition. Ive no doubts Mowbray will try it again and unless we have a different squad i doubt it will work. If we get relegated next season after losing our first 2 can we erase them from the results?

It's gone from boring to brilliant in less than a page!

I take it you’re as obnoxious in real life based on that first sentence... I’ll say it again so it makes sense this time; Id like to think the manager picks his list based on ABILITY before any enquiries to agents/clubs! It’s really not that difficult to grasp.

But Silva & Asensio are no stronger that Iniesta and neither are in his class as a footballer.

I just can't get my head around somebody paying for a season ticket and watching the second half in a bar (unless I've misunderstood). It takes all sorts I suppose.

Football clubs don't work with specific "transfer budgets"... they have yearly club budgets which cover all expenses including agents, wages etc. If we only sign players on 5k a week we will have money spare for transfers, alternatively we could get a load of frees on 20k a week.

Its been one of the best World Cups I have seen so how you can come up with an opinion like this without even watching hardly any of it is stupid. How can you expect others to respect your opinion on anything when you trot out crap like this?

There were four teams playing yesterday that were all at least a goal better than England. The work rate of the Uruguay team was amazing, you could have wrung their shirts out in the sink after the game. That's what playing for the shirt means to me. When did our lot last play with that level of intensity ?

Denmark's last penalty was the worst on target penalty I've ever seen. Dummy, wait for the keeper to dive, then fluff it straight at him ?

How is it justice? The rules state thats what the outcome is for a professional foul, Modric then missed the penalty, the correct decision was made. Denmark played miles better so maybe justice would have been them winning.

A collection of some of the worst penalty takers in recent memory. Jeez... half of them looked like they'd never kicked a ball before. Modric very lucky that his penalty went through, could easily have missed two out of two. No reason to fear Croatia based on tonight.

What benefits do season ticket holders get? Fair enough for those who buy game by game who dodge the surcharge on tickets and who will get their money back through that over a season, but if you don't buy tickets for home games what is the advantage? Club cash is a joke when it can't be used for anything other than merchandise and kits and training gear are extremely expensive. The only practical benefit as I see it is that you get priority on away tickets. Not only is that not likely to be relevant this season with demand less and supply of tickets much greater but more importantly I think it is completely wrong that people can effectively buy a place at the front of the queue for tickets whilst years and years of loyalty and ticket purchase history is considered to be less valuable or significant than 10 quid for membership. I always considered a season ticket to be membership and sufficient committment.

The rule is just plain wrong, he’s put the keeper on his ass and then is about to tap into an empty net and is taken out. How can it be anything but a red card? It’s not double jeapordy it’s not even single jeapordy as a shot against a keeper from 12 yards is a lot harder than an empty net from 10 yards!

I would have thought the entry fee for Blues was originally designed to keep demand under control when there were more competing Pubs nearby rather than be a Revenue raiser per se. The decision to raise the entry fee to £2.60 seems a bit ridiculous to me, the increase in Revenue is neither her nor there at the end of the day and £3 and getting some shrapnel back in your pocket is vastly different to £1. On the other hand I can't for the life of me understand why people moan about the 1875 membership. Even at £10 I still think It's exceptional value, you get £5 cash back in the Club shop immediately and £2 or £3 off every time you purchase a match day ticket. The extra match day charge I have no real view on one way or the other. If you know in advance It's going to be more if you leave it until the last minute I'm not sure how you can complain and if you really want to go but can't commit until the last minute because You're not sure what else you've got on I can't see that paying a bit more would necessarily put you off.

That’s because reading posts on here are a monotonous thematic. Truth is none I repeat no one has a clue as to budgets, targets and sales. Until some get over this one can only assume they are affected by the current weather?

Home to Barnet as well iirc until we had to change it at half time because we were getting humiliated by the team bottom of Div 4.

Started with three at the back at Southend, home to Doncaster and at Charlton and lost all three. That's 60% of the games we lost. The vast majority of games we won last season were with a back four - fact.

I had this as a Spain certainty but Iniesta is the one player I would not drop. A close to 100% pass completion rate is what Spain need to drain the energy of crowd and Russian team so Iniesta is dropped. Just what Putin ordered...

Nobody knows the budget mate, everyone is just guessing. But if our wage bill was £8.5m last year then it stands to reason it may have gone back up if contractual wage increases on promotion have kicked in.

Wow really going out on a limb there chadster! He’s obviously just taken that from Mowbrays own words at the consultation evening where he said as much. We’d have him but he’d have to accept being a sub and working for it

Honestly it’s been amazing, From the start up until now I’ve loved it. The only lowlights being the France 0-0, the Japan farce and the England Belgium game. It will stay long in the memory this one, imagine if it’s the one we finally win as well, the beauty of it is there’s no obvious candidate and 5-6 teams are all in with a shout

The sort of player and the sort of price we should be in the market for.

Exactly. Lenihan is already a good Championship centre half and he’s still a young lad. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him playing Prem level in his later 20’s.

A player I would like Rovers to sign is Marcus Maddison from Peterborough. His stats and particularly his assists are amazingly good. He made most of Jack Marroitt’s goals last year. He is a player that Mowbray has said is a quality player and is at the right age etc. The Peterborough chairman also promised him he could leave if they got an acceptable offer. He could be one where there has been an offer made but which is way too low. However, the longer the window goes on the more a compromise might be made. This is pure wishful thinking on my part btw. I just hope he wasn’t the player rumoured to have been kicked into touch because of wearing ripped jeans etc.

His distribution is the weakest part of his game, he was really underwhelming when he was playing in midfield to the extent that he couldnt get a guaranteed place amidst the shite group of central midfielders we had at the time. He moved up a level when he went back one to centre back, his athleticism as @Ladyboys of Bank Top allows us to push up a bit due to his recovery. He is also very brave and hes the reason I find our constant yearning for an old school centre back slightly puzzling, when we have Lenihan who will put his head where it hurts but also has that athleticism. Theres also the added dynamic of why would we want him in the "Smallwood role" when we have Smallwood?! Lenihan stepped up his game a lot when he moved back to centre back. He is a good centre back at Championship level whereas he leaves a lot of be desired in midfield.

Whole spend for 2018/19 season. Renewals of Conway and Graham probably take out 1m. Rothwell probably around 750k? That's 8.25m left for the season.

I'm just doing my bit to lower the expectation levels, to me any spend under this lot is a bonus.

Circa 1.5 in the summer, and about a half mill on Bell. 2 mill in league one....3 mill in the champs doesn't sound excitable to me.

Why?

Only if it leads to a goal or penalty.

Blues Bar match day membership has been priced at £60 for at least the last three seasons, so there has been no increase this season. This has nothing to do with the £1 pay-on-the-door-entrance fee which does not allow admission at half time. There really is nothing to see here.

Only If it leads to a goal or penalty. If it leads to a corner which leads to a goal then the attacking team benefits. If it is borderline there's no real issue but I've seen a couple where the attacker was 3 feet off and the linesman played on.

Maybe Tony Mowbray has said its been a poor world cup?

You don't half chat some rubbish Chaddy. The world cup has been superb. Having not watched the games you're in no position to formulate this opinion

Yup them and Croatia really shoe that being a small nation doesn't need to be a hindrance.

“A star is born” - Linekar re: Mbappe. He’s the second most expensive player of all time, thought he might have known about him.

£2.60 to enter what is essentially a pub is a joke, especially when people have already forked out upwards of £450 for a ST. I can't say I'm keen on Waggott.

Such a boring, patronising and provocative argument without any substance. No one is suggesting that they should run the club, just like if someone is to question Mowbray for a transfer/lineup/substitution they arent asking to take over as manager. Think youve forgotten what a messageboard is. People have valid questions and criticisms and employees of the club dont need apologists to defend them. Why are we changing our kick off times for games with no real historical incidents of trouble, for no apparent reason? Do other teams do likewise for non-derbies? (id suggest not, if so, I hold my hands up) Are supporter needs considered when this decision has been made? Particularly home. How does ensuring home supporters are not inconvenienced rank as a priority as say; getting as many away fans as possible into the ground? Supporters have the right to feel inconvenienced as paying customers and at least may want to know the reasoning behind what on the face of it seems like decisions made without thought of them. Same as the choice to take away the option of sitting in the Darwen End, again to cater for and convenience away fans. Waggott is promoting himself as the main decision maker, in the country anyway, so its only right that such questions are made directed towards him.

Got a link?

I was irritated by his 'get real' interview whIch I saw as support for Kean. As a local lad he should have known more than any other player how we all felt about Kean and the way the club was being wantonly pillaged by Kean and his associates. I hear him no malice but I don't feel any sorrow about him leaving.