Clearly a wind up. But if he ever popped up on someone's backroom staff and came to Ewood it would be pretty funny.

Southgate could have cemented his England legacy at 1-0 up against Italy at Wembley in the Euros. Home advantage and IMO a better team and yet we slowly became more conservative. To me he is in the same bracket as Venables, Hoddle, Sven as in he’s given us good tournaments but fallen short. We’ve put inferior Nations to the sword in group games, but there’s no real standout result in a major tournament under GS where you think we’ve put down a marker ( as pleasing as it was, Germany 2001 were not fancied and were in a bit of a transition phase). And that’s a common problem with England. There’s a few games around the end of the 90s we won that were against fancied nations (Netherlands and Spain (Penalties) in 96), Germany (2000), Argentina (2002), but since then I can’t recall winning a game at a major tournament against a team we weren’t obviously favourite to beat either in the group stage or in the knockout. And thats the same under Southgate. For want of a better word, it’s ‘lucky’ he got matched against Ukraine and Denmark in tournaments to get to a final whereby Sven and co came up against very good Brazil, Argentina, Portugal and Germany teams. For me, for Southgate to be regarded ‘better’ that the others, he would need a headline result in a major tournament against a very fancied team, and he hasn’t done that.

Hyam is an OK championship defender, but an absolute bottlejob as a character.

So we did. I didn’t realise the competitions overlapped.

No we weren’t shite in the Nations League before the World Cup. We got 10 points compared to three lately, including that 0-4 humbling off Hungary at home. QF for me and out at the first proper test we have.

We didn’t win a game in the last Nations league. We aren’t winning this.

If we had been open to selling once the transfer window opened in January we would have let it be known, had more interest and drove up a higher price. However if we knew we were selling we also wouldn’t have let Travis go. The court case not being resolved led to a knee-jerk reaction to sell, and Palace were the only club who could move quick enough. We absolutely would have had more interest in the summer and would have had a higher fee. However he wouldn’t be on a plane to Germany next week so I presume he’s now glad he did go.

No. But it was in response to a Nixon article that day. And implies that article is one of many written for clicks. And Blackpool felt strong enough to put that out. But you are right. It could have been Nixons first ever article he has ever written which is inaccurate. Well, other than the war chest and the wee gem ones.

Just a random reminder to when Blackpool FC's official site called Nixon out last year for writing 'many in a long list (of articles) written for the sole purpose of gaining clicks and views, regardless of their accuracy" Interesting Neil Critchley is still manager of Blackpool a full season later.

We are his 8th club in 11 years.

Depends what they are making the difference to. Someone like Docherty is just a championship also-ran and isn't going to push us to to challenging for the play offs. But if we are relying on last years squads and freebies / loans, players like that might be the difference between 21st and 22nd in the league. Don't get me wrong that's depressing but where I see us currently at. I'm normally an advocate that we should only usually be bringing in players better than the starting XI, but the squad is so piss weak that it also needs squad players too. As @Exiled_Rover accurately put in the ST thread "I'm not sitting through another 20+ matches of us being blown away as soon as teams turn to their benches. "

I wouldn't expect the club to do that, so fair play. But if it was me who contacted them in that scenario I wouldnt feel annoyed about it if they said no as I wouldnt expect it. And it is a bit unfair that some people may have stopped going because of cost, whereas other people got free season tickets for emailing in. There's plenty of reasons to dig the club out, and season tickets especially in the riverside should be cheaper, but not sure your example is one of them.

Regardless of who owned the club or in what era this scenario happened, that's how I would expect it to play out.

Who was the last player we signed who had previously played a decent number of games for Burnley? (Say 20+) I’m probably missing someone obvious but can’t think of any. I can think of quite a few going the other way.

I’d say JPVH, Elliot, Tosin and the wasted Harrison Reed were all definitely good enough in recent times. I also didn’t mind bringing Chrisene in on loan in Jan as we had injuries as the back and he was good enough to give cover through what was an injury crisis and probably better than Pickering. But you are correct in that many others just aren’t ready and end up learning on the job. Branthwaite and Harwood-Bellis both looked ropey to me and yet a few years later are now better than what we have. They probably are two examples where we didn’t get a great deal back from them from the loans, but we did massively benefit the player, their parent club and their careers. What I don’t like is that, unlike 15+ years ago, football is not in a place where if you get a successful loan you can buy them in the summer. With the stockpiling of home grown players at premier league clubs and the inflated prices it’s always likely to be a one-season deal. Ultimately though, without a big budget, it’s an area we have to act cleverly in.

In which case if they dont improve the first team dont do them. But you can’t question the logic of loaning the likes of Elliot which is where Rigger and Abbey seem to be.

@jim mk2 is right on this one. Of course we would rather develop our academy more than other peoples youngsters, but the aim is also to balance that with achieving the best possible finish in the upcoming season. Bringing in the likes of Van Hecke or Elliot, which improves the first team significantly, is clearly a good move. It brings in a better calibre of player than we could afford just on transfers in. There’s plenty of clubs who have got out of the Championship with a team containing numerous well-sourced loans. Who is to say without the loan of Adam Armstrong that we would definitely have got out of league one. Good loans could also be the difference between staying up or going down. However they have to be regularly in the first team and a definite improvement over what we can field. I’m not sure playing Ayari and Moran benefited us much more that had we blooded Gilsennan during the season, and hopefully whoever scouted the likes of Mola is no longer at the club.

Wonder what Burnley will do with Trafford. They would either need to cut their (big) losses with him or re-instate him as number one next season. Can't really let him rot on the bench at his age and the fee they paid. Once a flapper, always a flapper hopefully.

Will Kompany come for any of our players 😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’ve tried to be as fair as possible. For example Bolton early bird renewal was even cheaper but I’ve looked at it as a new customer. At Burnley the entire Jimmy Mcilroy stand Lower (behind the goals opposite the away end) is £352 as well as the ‘accessible corner’. I’d say our early bird is competitive. The phase 2 and 3 prices are too high, especially the Riverside, which should be £300 standard in phase 1 and be £20 max all match days.

Early bird no. If you decide to buy a ticket before the season starts then yes. Comparing Cheapest area (BBE, Riverside) Mid-Priced areas (JW wings), Expensive areas (JW Central) again other local clubs with 2 or 3 differently-priced areas. EARLY BIRD END OF JULY

I see there are 3 phases now. Phase 1 - Early Bird Phase 2- Buy one before Sky announce how many fixtures are being moved. Phase 3- The cat's out the bag now. Might as well screw anyone else that hasn't bought yet.

Even when the tweet was live the link the the LT article was broken.

First obvious WTF is that after the early bird ends, the price of a ticket for a 12 year old more than doubles to £120.

Post now deleted. Implied it was slightly cheaper than last year in the ‘bottom bowl’ for renewals. Think it said £349. Plus some kind of Riverside ballot. However the link to the article didn’t work.