? surely this shows the value of some tough love from TM. Instant response from Chapman, good to see that our manager can motivate our fringe players with some constructive criticism.

If he hadn’t cracked up we would’ve heard “oh I wish we had a manager with passion, Souness/Hughes wouldn’t have put up with the time wasting.”

? fair enough. I take back that comment!

Do you know the extent of their injury? I’ve heard nothing about when they might be expected back so I’m hoping for the best.

This scares the life out of me. We’re not far away from this situation, and given that the Venkys have absolutely no interest in the club I worry that they’ll tire of their project and get rid. They’ve blown an indecent amount of money on us and, with no idea of how a small football club is run, they are not likely to find a return to the PL before boredom or a realisation of the financial black hole they have created sets in. Then we really are sunk. I feel sorry for the Bolton and Bury fans, they didn’t ask for any of this.

For me, Brereton has to play. We need to get him in goal scoring form and playing up front in a game like this would hopefully give him a boost. I’d love us to win but I think it’s more important to treat this game as a testing ground for fringe players. Tell the lads that the pressure is off and to go out and make it difficult for TM not to pick them next time. Of course we might just get stuffed but I’m with bigdogg, the league is important and this cup doesn’t really register.

I haven’t seen him play much but he was great when he came on against Rangers. I’d like to see him play again.

I don’t think he has any interest in a fan’s opinion of tactics or starting eleven and that’s how it should be. He has played and coached clubs at the highest level which gives him the experience and football intelligence to come up with his own game plan. He spends every day with our squad, he knows which players are pushing on, which are low on confidence, and how to counter the opposition. He knows the finances of our club, I’m sure he probably has to cope with pressure from above, and countless other issues that we are unaware of. Nobody here or in the terraces can have the first clue about any of that, so to think that we somehow know better than the man who is paid well to deal with these issues is not realistic. Its much more likely that we can perceive the same things he perceives, ie that Smallwood and Evans are a poor central midfield duo and we leak too many goals, and act to resolve these issues when he has the resources and time to do so. If being a football manager was as easy as we all make out then there wouldn’t be such a high turnover of coaches and everyone would be at it.

Ha I should’ve read all your posts! Can’t remember if the games were slower but I definitely remember being able to rent Japanese games from my local video shop. I believe it was because the Japanese games were wider than European and American releases, so just filing the port would’ve allowed anyone to play them. There were some really cool Japanese games, always a bit different. One that sticks in my head was where you created a monster and fought other creatures, presumably an early version of Pokemon/monster hunter. Impossible to play in Japanese of course. There was also a game where you were (I think) a construction worker with a big mallet in vertical stages attacking monsters that jumped down platforms towards you. Happy days ? Another advantage to the Japanese MD was that it had a nice red colour on the top rather than the creamy/beige one on the European systems. The less said about the US “Genesis” the better. And their SNES was truly horrible looking. My favourite MD games were the mighty Streets of rage series with its wonderful music, SF2, and the desert strike series. Special mentions to megalomania, toe jam and earl, the immortal, and gunstar heroes. That was actually a fascinating read. I’ve been thinking about opening my decks to give the pitch slider a good clean, it’s a job that requires some soldering and I’ve been holding off but your experience might have just given me the courage to try it out.

In the 90s we got a Japanese megadrive for Xmas (just as everyone else was getting a SNES ?) and I recall that it could play games from any region, would that not have been simpler for your purposes?

Look at what he did for us last season and forget about your own preconceptions. He is far and away our best player and certainly one of the best players in the league. At the time Rhodes was our best player as well so I don’t understand where you’re going with that one. Remember we are unfashionable little old Blackburn Rovers so it’s not surprising that we don’t have a player in the team if the year. Anyway I think Dack is better than Norwood. Stats show that he was involved in 22 of our goals last season! He is irreplaceable if he can get to that level of performance again this year.

He is clearly a top championship player as the records show. As one of the top players in this league we are lucky to have him, I can’t understand why anyone would suggest anything else.

Exactly. I haven’t been overly impressed with Dack this season bar a glimpse of skill in the game against Hull and in the league cup. He hasn’t been great since the tail end of last season but I think he’s getting closed down very quickly as teams know how important he is to our attack. IMO this is the major factor in our poor record going forward. I hope Dack can find a way to cope with the extra pressure because at the minute we look toothless.

Rothwell is a promising player but to claim he is the best (or even one of the best) we have is pure hyperbole. I’d like to see him get a chance but even I don’t believe that he is on the same level as Dack or Graham. Players always seem much better when they aren’t playing.

I think Bennett gets a lot of stick unfairly and his work rate last night was immense, including that saving tackle. All the same he gives the ball away a lot and made an awful header last night. I like having him in the squad but he’s definitely a weak link for me. Hard to criticise someone with his work rate and commitment, especially after the charlatans that have been in our team over the past few years.

Great result ? Good points for me Defensively we are very much improved on last season, the difference made by playing an actual left back there is pronounced. Lenihan and Williams are a very good cb partnership for this level. Walton was great when called upon and looked commanding when dealing with high balls. Downing - wow, I was worried that we had whittingham mk II but he was immense tonight and stood out with his intelligence and passing ability. Dack came into the game more in the second half until he was clashed but he was beginning to look dangerous. Johnson gets stuck in and really puts himself about, good to see. Travis was superb, tracking back and showing a lot of energy The bad... Going forward we look poor, not much creativity and we give the ball away a fair bit. Final ball was often a let down. Perhaps this will improve as the squad gets more familiar with each other and the new style of play. Bennet was poor, along with Gallagher and Armstrong. If we had a good RB and a dangerous striker then we would be looking at top 6 I reckon. Overall a really enjoyable match. I feel proud to be a Rovers fan when we play like that, with commitment and graft. Hopefully Dack isn’t injured and continues to improve back to the level he reached last season. I’d love to see Brereton given more of a chance up front as I don’t think Gallagher is the answer there and Graham has been wonderful but is surely nearing the end of his time with us.

Christian Walton what a man.

Aw ffs. There’s a delay on my stream.

We’ve started fairly brightly although I feel nervous every time Hull bring it forward. I was surprised to see Gallagher on the wing but he’s been a good outlet so far and excellent tracking back for that block. I’m interested to see what he can do flicking balls on for Dack/Armstrong to run on to.

I know why we were called bully boys and I don’t think the tag was justified. I have to disagree on Andy Todd, I always thought he was a bit of a thug. Commitment is great but mindless aggression has no place in football imo.

I hated the bully boy tag. It cheapened what Hughes was doing as our team was so much more than just bullies at the time and it was too easy for other managers (Wenger!) to complain and influence referees in our matches.

Oh yes I bore everyone with how good Tugay was! Andy is well aware of him by now ? thanks btw I ended up watching the 00/01 video, we had a great wee team there. I’d forgotten about hignett myself.

I’ll be getting this as well. Does anyone have a link to footage of some of his goals/highlights? My stepson is a utd fan and never heard of Jansen so I’m trying to show him what he was all about. YouTube only has an Arsenal game and a Crystal Palace highlights video but I’m sure a rovers fan must have made one?

Yeah tbf someone posted a Celtic player criticising Mowbray and it was scary seeing how many parallels there are between his failure and Celtic and what is happening at our club, so I can see where you’re coming from. You could also be on to something about the failure of the brereton transfer and subsequent tightening of the purse strings. i find it incredibly frustrating that we are owned by billionaires that are unwilling to spend decent money on our team. Well other than massive fees for underperforming strikers.