He was far from a MOTD player. MGP had the Premier League record for most distance covered in a game for a long long time. His impact, on the surface, seemed to dip when Warnock arrived at LB. However Warnock was in all honestly a liability at full back (watch the DVD Season reviews), yet was able to get away with a lot of it due to the amazing defensive work that both MGP and ironically Mokoena did in covering him. That Welsh bully from Cardiff was (apparently) disgusting and relentless towards MGP the season he was resurrecting his career at Ewood. Didn't help he was also made "fan" scapegoat #1 for about 3 years. MGP was a loyal, outstanding footballer for our football club, and this quote tells you all you need to know... Morten Gamst Pedersen (May, 2011),: "The eleven who are so lucky that they get the honor to represent the proud blue and white shirt with the beautiful red rose will fight as if it was about life. For that is what it is all about, the life of the club in our hearts! Blackburn Rovers are not lucky because they have good players on the team, good players are lucky because they play for Blackburn Rovers. COYB!" Rant over...

Selling Raya would be up there with the most stupid decisions this club has made in 10 years! Quote me on this!

Love that the commentators keep having to mention Blackburn Rovers when they are trotting out the FA Cup records. It must really be sticking in their craw.

How good has sterling become now? He's definitely world-class. 50 goals in two seasons as as a wide player. Phenomenal

Don't dismiss Brentford. Owners have money and the dinky new stadium at Kew Bridge will more than double their gate receipts and commercial income. Selling Raya is an absolute NO from me. He needs better coaching and above all, better defenders in front of him.

So why did you post about them on a message board?

Too sentimental mate, cost us a load of points last season

Went on Charlton’s website to see how many tickets they got for Wembley (the life I lead ay!) I noticed they do a Valley Express to every home game. They do 8 routes (just two are pasted below). They generally get similar gates to us, yet realise that their particular neck of the woods has changed demographically, with much of their fanbase now outside of south east London and in Kent and Sussex - with coaches having pick ups throughout. Rovers need to wake up to where more and more of our fanbase reside - and it isn’t within the borders of Blackburn.

Annoyed me intensely that the stupid commentator referred to us as Blackburn and not Blackburn Rovers. There is one hell of a difference between the two. Also he couldn't pronounce Bury correctly. Glad City didn't set a new record of 7. They could only equal us and Bury. Guardiola has improved him wonderfully. Most other managers could not have. City would not be as good as this under most other managers.

Dislike. The kind of short-termism that saw us meekly surrender to bids for Cairney. Would be gutted tbh. He’s had a rocky patch but at times he’s been unbeatable. And has years and years on his side. Will be playing for a far bigger club than Brentford in a few years time and I’m sure most will agree that strengthening a divisional rival is never a good idea even if you don’t think he’s as good as I do.

Plenty of mention for the famous Blackburn Rovers...how I wish to see the old Blue n Whites in an FA Cup Final before I shuffle off this mortal coil.A burning desire indeed. Plaudits to Citeh and to the battered but not down Watford fans.

Third piece of silverware, well done Rovers Ladies!

I've had a go at Raya a few times but if he improves his game in a few areas he could be a top top keeper. We may regret it if we sell him.

Pederson would walk into this team. Really struggling to understand why anyone would dislike him. He always speaks highly of the club and put in some excellent performances. He did tail off towards the end but from start to finish he was a good successful signing and one that I enjoyed watching. Some of his goals where outstanding. When was the last time we saw someone score goals of his quality

This is completely fair enough & I know I'm guilty of it. Thing is though, the branch of social psychology which the halo effect comes from also finds the opposite mechanism to be true - the 'forked tail' effect, whereby people who have a negative opinion of someone or something allow that view to spill over into viewing other aspects of them negatively. Trying to be reflexive about it, I know I've been overly defensive of TM when it comes to some of the individual decisions that he has made because I think overall he's been great. I also think TM critics have at times been guilty of the reverse though; don't like some aspect of his management, and that has spilled over into over-reactions about things which are either unrelated or not that important. This is a really good case in point. I personally think it's a good thing that TM is the sort of manager which looks after players in Gladwin's position, but I know full well that if TM had decided to let him go as we all expected, I'd be backing him (in fact I'd probably not even give it a seconds thought). Equally, fans may think rightly or wrongly that TM has been too loyal in his selection of his favourites, and the fact that he's is keeping on Gladwin is demonstrative of why we always be hamstrung with Mowbray in charge because of his blind-spots (even though keeping on in injured player for a few months before letting them go has little bearing on how loyal he has been to players who actually get on the pitch, and doesn't point at all to how the rest of the summer is going to go recruitment-wise). Would TM have got the credit for being ruthless for letting Gladwin go (or Conway & the Canadian for that matter)? I doubt it. This obviously gets 10 times worse on a message board where people get even more entrenched in their positions, but I think the irrationality can be found across the piece, not just those of us who get starry eyed about the manager.

Fundamentally, that’s true. But it still wouldn’t kill the powers that be to improve the match day experience. When this is inferior to that at Accy Stanley, questions need to be asked.

He’s not the finished article though - I don’t see the point in developing players to this level and cashing in cheap. He might never improve, but 3m or something token now for a long term academy prospect isn’t even covering a years cost of the project.

No surprise with our lost decade.

What's sadly laughable is that the released players from Swansea who are deemed not good enough for them, would actually look like a decent summer recruitment for us. Olsson, Fer, Narsaigh, Routledge and Bony. All 5 would probably improve our 18. Crazy league we play in.

*Sigh*. OK, 90s aside, as we won’t be filling coaches from Stroud anytime soon. Im taking about our core, still extant support, the support that was largely concentrated in the town of Blackburn. A decent percentage of that core is now in Chorley borough, South Ribble, Ribble Valley, Preston and so on. Yes, we’ve always had support in those areas, but due to demographic change in Blackburn, it is becoming an ever larger percentage.

There has. This bloke was signed by Warnock at Bury where he played 37 games. I actually refereed him when he played for East Bengal in a pre season tournament at Leicester. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaichung_Bhutia

One of Bowyer’s best habits was to get players who had JUST been promoted to the PL, but not necessarily good enough FOR the PL. In one season: Cairney, Evans, Rudy, Conway. Think we should try applying the same ideas. Another reason I’d love Hanley back.

Selling Raya now will turn into a disaster.

I thought last year giving him a new deal was purely sentimental based on this season giving a new one would be crazy. He had one half decent performance at home to Sheffield Wednesday other than that his main contribution was taking minutes that should have been given to Rothwell and if he is here next season he will be taking minutes from Chapman.

Well I’d want at least 6 million plus a HUGE sell on clause because I think a few years from now Raya will be an absolute star. This would be almost on par with selling Cairney too Fulham in terms of stupidity for me.. Raya is nowhere near the finished article yet and when he is we won’t be fielding bids from Brentford that’s for sure!

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/may/18/marcelo-bielsa-play-off-leeds-championship A good article on a very enjoyable human being.

I'd get Routledge if possible. Always liked him.

If the manager and chief exec state their ambition is promotion and then go to the owners who say, “no we won’t give you the budget” then the pair of them don’t get a free pass. In fact, their positions become untenable. If they put up with not being backed then they are complicit and ultimately just taking the coin and managing fans expectations. If the manager states his aim is promotion and then signs players (or enters into talks with out of contract players) who are inferior to that aim but carries on regardless then he is culpable. Your scenario would sound like he was trying to put pressure on or blame Venkys. I’m kind of cool with that but if they call his bluff then he would have to walk. However, it is too simplistic to say Venkys will need to give Mowbray a huge war chest or he cannot be judged and the owners are to blame (for a lack of commitment to promotion). There is a middle ground between spending millions on PL or Top 6 players and only using frees and loans. Sadly, Mowbray May have already thrown away his opportunity gambling on Ben Brereton coming good. Not likely when he doesn’t pick him to start football matches. From their perspective they backed him last Summer and he squandered the money. I’d be wanting a return on that investment first because 60 points should cost £10m. Whichever way you look at it, any failure to go up is Mowbray’s. He has been backed with money and hasn’t spent it wisely and now wants more to satisfy him own ambitions - suggesting that Venkys are holding him back. (Assuming your analysis is correct).

Suggested that earlier in the season. No way is Bauer the commanding leader/beast we need.

I disliked the hype he got - I called him a Match of the Day player. Scored a few crackers every season, which got on tv (when we had our obligatory 20 second highlights at the end of MOTD) and glossed over what a limited player he was.

I’ll definitely be watching the nations league. Was half tempted to go but need to pick my battles for sporting trips plus it’s in coimbra (euro 2004 place) and maybe Porto for the final. So not too fussed about the former again. I reckon that nations league will be taken increasingly seriously as the years go by. Qualifiers are now a joke for the top sides (hesitantly consider England to be one currently) so a format where the dregs play the dregs and best teams play the best teams is all good for me. As for women’s football don’t want to go all Andy gray and Richard Keys but I’m not interested whatsoever. Every game I’ve watched the standard has been appalling. They could win a clean sweep or lose every game 10-0 I couldn’t care less.

Yes you're right, that was a perfect description of him. Guys at work used to rate him off the usual highlights reel. I'd reply " Yeah but that's all he did in the game" . He ran around a bit but to what effect ? Anybody who let's Arteta poke him in the eye and does nothing about it hasn't much beating under badge for me. It's like the myth that he was a good header of the ball - show me all the headed goals he scored ! Bellamy was faster running backwards.

I think our main difference of opinion is how highly we rate Raya, he certainly isnt one of the best goalkeepers in the League at this moment in time and we definitely need an upgrade rather than "experienced back-up to push him" as he is not at this moment in time capable of playing a starring role in a side with the ambitions that Mowbray claims we have. You mention the defence and undoubtedly that is a handicap but with his regular errors and inability to command the defence, he is as big a part of that as anyone. Over the course of a season, not just a couple of months, he made error after error, yes he is capable of some superb saves but all goalkeepers are. I would disagree with the notion that he won us more points than he lost. I would agree that in an ideal world, we could have Raya competing with a good quality experienced keeper, but being a little more pragmatic and realistic, with our idiotic and eccentric owners, as well as the threat of FFP and 7m already pissed up the wall on Brereton, the resources available to Mowbray will be finite and if sacrificing Raya is required to get us a number 1 good enough to push for the top 6 (the likes of Frank Fielding need not apply) then it would be something worth seriously considering, academy graduate or otherwise in my opinion.

Stupid post ?

I'm sure there is but it looks a bit weird when you can't answer a simple question.

Considering we had gone down to 8,000 season ticket holders under Coyle. This season, for a mid table campaign, the crowds were fine and a good recovery from that clownshoe's time. But now it's time to push on. We won't see dramatic increases in this league but we certainly can add to the season ticket holder base.

Raya is a very good shot stopper but not yet the commanding presence needed to help marshal what realistically is an inexperienced defence. I feel if we had that experience then Raya would fare a lot better here. Ideally I’d like to bring an experienced goalkeeper to compete with raya. Someone he can learn from. If Brentford want to pay us a good wedge and some sell ons then I wouldn’t be overly upset, as long as we had a good replacement lined up...but I have doubts over whether we would.

I am sure TM said Rays was his number 1 so he won’t be sold. i see the summer disease is well and truly rabid on this site again. When will some learn to chill out? ???

More than decent. Arnold for me is the best rightback in the world right now. Stone and Gomez are top defenders. Kane is a world-class finisher. Rashford still has alot of potential. Sterling is the real deal now. Sancho for me the best teenager in world football. At left back rose and chillwell are two very good fullbacks. I think Ali is starting to show his form now. He is very hot and cold. This is the best group of players I have seen with England for 20 years. Cheek would have been key as well but I hear he's out for 6 months . For me only De Jong De ligt and vvd would get in this england team. I think we will definitely beat them

Can't rule it out, but he's probably not top of Gibson's list. I think that would be more a "heart over head" decision from their perspective. If they did approach him though I don't think he'd leave unless it was good money & he was given a decent budget as I think he recognises he's onto quite a good thing here to build his own project. Boro is now arguably a less attractive job to TM than Rovers. They'll have to scale back on their costs a lot & sell their better players due to FFP. TM would effectively have to start all over again, with perhaps added greater expectation from the fans of promotion than there are here.

I'm going for realistic.

I expect to see Rovers come back fitter after this summer and to see the frailties at the back addressed. We have a lot of very good youngsters. If we sign players better position for position than we have already then no reason why we cannot get into the mix. Sheffield United and Norwich have given hope to every club in the Championship...

At 22 I thought a composed performance in a great game.

I admire the delusion that the manager whose team conceded more away goals than any other league club in England last season is somehow going to get us promoted next season. It's best enjoyed within the context that he's been here 2-and-a-half years and he's yet to sign a good defender or keeper. Batshit crazy.

I'm excited about the nations cup. Should be a cracking set of 3 games, a bit like the playoffs. I think weve got a really exciting squad. Alexander-Arnold, Stones, Maguire, Chilwell, Henderson (who I've come round from skepticism to really liking), Sancho, Sterling, Kane, Radford are all really decent players in my opinion. I reckon we can do it.

Andrews wouldn’t walk into our side he really was horrendous, but the Pedersen of 2004-2008 would walk into all the premier league sides currently outside the top six never mind a mid table championship team!

We go to matches in France quite often and there the ultras collect in one area of the ground. Sounds good but the problem is that they sing regardless not really encouraging the team or responding to events on the pitch and also if you're not one of them you don't sing or shout or anything even when your team need encouragement or a kick up the backside. A singing section sounds good in theory but in practice it could easily become this kind of meaningless entity. A home game needs as many as possible to be involved in the noise and atmosphere creation. At away games people who would never be in a singing section at home get involved too because there's an atmosphere of all in together that's hard to duplicate at home games