If I was a Burnley fan I would be distinctly unimpressed with Kompany after the match. Hugging Guardiola (who didn't reciprocate) and having a huge laugh on the pitch with the City boys. 

It sends a bad message psychologically to Burnley players and fans and you wouldn't see the likes of Kenny or Fergie doing that. Or Bill Shankly for that matter.

7 hours ago, SuperBrfc said:

 

 

They can have Ash Phillips. That's small fry compared to how we have hurt them in the past. Shearer, Duffer, Cole. They saw the real deal.

@Tyrone Shoelaces has talked a couple of times about Bryan Douglas hurting Spurs in spectacular fashion about sixty years ago. I always enjoy that tale. Jimmy Greaves played in that game I believe. He raved about Duggie in his autobiography. 

Perhaps @only2garners  @Rover Boy and one or two others of our distinguished long time supporters were also at the game?

I wonder if this can be streamed on Rovers TV?

I may have to Visit Phong Nha or some such far flung land.

14 minutes ago, Rover8T4 said:

Only managed to see the highlights for this game. Could someone give me abit more info how John Buckley got on. An assist with a very good pass, And the timing of his run for his goal made him look sharp. Left the defenders at the pie van. Did he play the short game well?

Very quiet first half. Tending to cover the left side of the middle. Caught in possession once or twice and fairly underwhelming. 

Much better 2nd half after his beautifully taken goal . He grew in confidence from that and got the groove of his short game going nicely. 

I'm certainly not writing him off. He and Wharton are probably competing for the same spot which is great for them and us.

Ditto Travis, Trondstad and, after yesterday, Garrett

Great game to watch. Just a few different points without going over old ground.

Buckley took his goal brilliantly with a slightly risky disguised shot, taking it early with zero backlift. You need real composure and technique for this. His confidence improved after this and he was more like his old self, getting involved and some nice touches.

Gilsenan is wiry, with good feet and a good engine. He deliberately wound up the Walsall fans with his goal celebration, and at another point, gestured to the Blackburn End to make a bit of noise. Obviously a confident lad with a bit of attitude, which I like to see.

Garrett was my man of the match. If he can play to that level in a Championship fixture then he will dislodge Travis. He is quicker than Travis with better feet and a much sharper football brain. He ran himself into the ground and his goal was excellent.

I liked Ennis. He is lively and I think he will score quite a few. Trondstadt is tidy but lacking pace.

One final point; Leonard is a good athlete with good positional sense, but disappointingly, he lacks the raw pace of an Adam Armstrong or the powerful running of a Shearer. Both Gallagher and Diaz have more pace. There is nothing he can do about this. It is what it is. He has acceptable pace and is quicker than Vale or Butterworth for example but to be truly effective he really needs to learn how to finish clinically like a Jordan Rhodes.

I believe he will be in good hands with our manager.

Half time. Good game for the neutral. Walsall happy for us to have the ball in our half. Catching us on the break and they have some nice footballers. 

When we press we look decent with Brittain and Hedges linking nicely on the right. Buckley looks a shadow of his former self, Adam Wharton similar to Saturday - a mixed bag. Garrett working hard in a Travis type way. Gilsenan looks a handful and Ennis showed nice quick feet for his goal . When fit I see him in the Danny Graham type role. Strong and can hold the ball up. 

Jack Walker stand looks pretty full. 

3 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Too many young lads on the pitch and too many old farts off it.

I couldn't help but chuckle when I watched Sunderland the other day, with Mowbray and Venus running the show.

Give me our guy any day of the week!

The sheer world weary, downbeat personna of Tony can't be inspiring to be around.

JDT is like Des O'connor, to Mowbray's Sinead

I don't know how many tickets we've sold for tonight, but I've just been down and bought a couple on row 5 - Jack Walker Centre, so I'm guessing not too many sold...

2 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

relegation fight is going to be spectacular this season,i can see 7/8  clubs in the top flight that will be involved in the struggle

Let's hope Everton are one of them!

10 minutes ago, Hullrover said:

1995 - Victory at Ewood day on 40th anniversary of the VE day.

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't  genuinely think Andy was so very, very, very elderly!!!

1995 would be the 50th anniversary  by the way 👊

44 minutes ago, Andy said:

Same thing happened to a 9/10 year old me, on VE Day (vs Newcastle).

Pottering around outside the ground and a local bobby offered me and a mate some free tickets.

V.E day??

Blimey, you must be nearly 90 

Really hoping Buckley can recapture his best form this season. I feel it could be make or break for him.

We need him to come good for us.

I welcome every single one of these changes! Thank you for the update Arbitro. 

The most irritating form of cheating as far as I'm concerned is opposition players subtlety kicking the ball away upon award of a free kick. They all have it off to a fine art. It's totally ingrained and they just can't help themselves.  

Hopefully this is clamped down on with yellow cards.

Quote from the Daily Mail this morning:

"All eyes are on Blackburn amid fears of a looming crisis at Ewood Park forcing them to sell players and casting doubt on the future of manager Jon Dahl Tomasson.

They are not alone. West Bromwich, who travel to Blackburn for their opener, is a club with fans locked in dispute with absentee owners".

0-0 it is then...

I've watched JRC  for years. He was never played defensively, and defending was never really part of his game. He would be best deployed, in my opinion, in a roving forward role. He is best ghosting around and arriving late. Always reminds me of David Platt. 

Him and Brittain on the right would be really interesting to see.

10 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

I’m not a fan of right footers at left back and think Wallace would run rings round Brittain. Pickering’s lack of pace has been very telling during pre-season though, and I think Batty could make the position his own by the end of the season.

Agreed about Batty who I've seen a lot of.

I actually prefer Brittain on the left than the right as I think he cuts in nicely. Maybe because I see so many flaws with Pickering, that I'll take any alternative at this point.

If we are keeping JRC at right back I would drop Pickering for Brittain. 

Pickering is far too slow and laboured. I'm tired of seeing him targeted week in, week out.

I think Dolan is useful to have around. He is still young and will get better. 

At the present time I see him as an impact sub to close down defenders and be a nuisance factor late on. Along with Pickering, Travis and Hedges, he is more suited to lower end Championship rather than a starter in a side looking for promotion.

3 hours ago, tomphil said:

 

Also he took North End to the cleaners in a play off game at Wembley in a Wycombe shirt !

This is absolutely correct. My boss at the time was a PNE supporter and went to Wembley for the match. I spoke to him a couple of days later and he was so impressed by Garner's performance that day. Said he was way too good for that level.

He had that Shearer like ability to spin off down the wing and cross one in. Interestingly, he saw himself as a Dalglish type of creative player rather than a Lineker type pure finisher. 

1 hour ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

I think I remember Pat Nevin being very good at Ewood. 

I wonder if Speedie played for Chelsea that day? I remember Kerry Dixon playing. 

They destroyed us over both legs.

I'm quite heartened by this display...

But we desperately need a competitive left back!

JRC looks a little rusty with his distribution but he is all over the pitch. I'd love him to be freed from his right back position as I think defending is the worst part of his game. He could be sensational as a free running midfielder

57 minutes ago, roverandout said:

Bit off topic but what was the deal with ossie ardiles signing? How did rovers convince him to join and how did he perform? A bit before my time 

Archibald was warming the bench at Barcelona after an injury. He was 31 years old. If memory serves, we paid him 6 grand a week. To put that in context,  Garner who would have been our top earner at that time, never earned more than 600 quid a week. It would seem that Jack Walker had some involvement in paying Archibald's wages although a doubling in crowd attendance because of his arrival would have helped as well.

Archibald arrived a couple of months into the season if I recall correctly, with Ardiles coming much later. Ardiles was aged 35 and slightly frozen out at Spurs. He was an old mate of Archibald from their time together at Spurs, and Archibald was used by Don as a bit of a go between in negotiations.  Ardiles spent a night or two on Simon Garner's settee on first arriving in Blackburn. I was a paperboy in those days and delivered the Sunday papers to Simon's house on the Kentmere Drive estate.

Ardiles only played about five games for us. He oozed class as you would expect, and was brilliant to watch. Archibald was too good for the 2nd Division. He only managed six goals for us in total due to being marked very tightly by opposition defences. What this tight marking did however was release Garner from being the main man for the opposition to worry about.  Garner benefited from having a bit more space than normal and scored lots of goals that season. I think Garner probably learnt a lot from Archibald because the following season was his best ever for us, in which he scored 25 goals in all competitions, and was quite simply too hot to handle for most defences that year.

Most of his goals from that year( 88/ 89) are on YouTube, including good examples of his all round link up play of which you can watch extended highlights on YouTube. 

Although my favourite ever Rovers team comes from the 88/ 89 season, look at our  best starting 11 from the season before that.

                         Gennoe

Price       Mail    Hendry      Sulley

                 Barker   Ardiles

Gayle     Archibald     Garner     Sellars

At least nine of those played (or easily could have done) in the top flight.