Hasta

Better second half. Hungary may still get something yet.

What if Venkys don’t want to tie up £15million each time time in equivalent bonds with the same Authorities that are taking them to court over other issues with regards to other issues with UK money? Was the ‘bond’ story not doing the rounds in January, and yet we still panic-sold Wharton to cover the costs for the remainder of the season.

And Matija Sarkic, Millwallls keeper. Sad morning for footy.

Exactly. If it’s only £50 cheaper you’d think sod it, I’ll just buy a full one. If it was half the price you would have (in my opinion but unproven) a bigger migration with people downgrading than those actually taking up the offer. That’s based on my circumstances (and I do actually get to most midweek games with some difficulty ) and also what I see around me at Ewood on a Tuesday night. Is there a tipping point where it works? £210 against £300? I’m not sure. @M_B disagrees but it’s very difficult to prove or trial. I see the logic in how it would appeal to some people cost-wise. I just don’t think it commercially would make sense to Rovers, and the gain in weekend support and atmosphere would be negated by the loss in mid-week support.

I think the point is you are underestimating the number of people who would downgrade. No one disagrees people would take up the offer, but many people would downgrade also. I’ve no idea if you go to midweek games but some of the attendances over then last few seasons have been pitiful. It’s clear at least 20% of season ticket holders aren’t actually going midweek, and that’s at games which I’ve been to on sufference as I’ve paid. If I didn’t feel I had to as I’d already paid I wouldn’t have bothered. Now if you got 5000 extra season ticket holders as you have said then there’s a logic to it. But that figure is not going to happen. And if it was to happen then would you not get a similar number if you just reduced the overall ticket price cheap enough anyway so some games were ‘dispensable’?

Me and my two mates have a season ticket and we absolutely would switch to a flexi / weekend ticket as between us we miss a few midweekers and some of the others I make are a pain to get to. I only go cos I’ve paid. You only need to look around at a midweek game to see how many season ticket holders are missing. A flexi ticket, whilst being ideal for many fans, would ultimately reduce turnover and murder midweek attendances.

I know. If you listened to people on here you would think we had no money, nearly got relegated, sold our best players cheaply, ballsed up major incomings due to internal stupidity, our new manager was yet to win a game at Ewood, our MD wants to knock down half of Brockhall and our future was in the hands of the Indian courts. Jeez.

Exactly. You could see it coming a mile off. I didn't even think Gregg was any good, but it sums up the whole internal BS.

Err. I agree. I wouldn’t put England as being a good side at all in that tournament. (if you mean last weekend I never worry about pre-tournament friendlies. France just drew 0-0 with Canada)

I must have missed the "points dropped because of keeper fuckup's" chart. The above graphs show on general stats he's an average GK before you take the mistakes into consideration.

It’s about as real as the tooth fairy.

Fair point. Forgot about that.

I can't include Denmark. In Euro 2020 they lost against Belgium and Finland in their group and went through somewhat fortunately on goal difference by winning one against Russia. They then beat Wales and the Czechs. I was more suprised that having battered Ukraine in the previous round, England made very hard work of beating Denmark in the semi final.

We know. The article tells us that. You initally replied to my post where I said all of the Boxing Day 3pm kick offs being shown live by saying "3pm can't been shown apart from the ones already posted (opening day and last day fixtures)". That's because you thought I was talking about all 3pm kick offs. But because you are incapable of simply saying you misunderstood or you got it wrong, we've now got about 5 posts on this page going back and forward whilst you try and reposition your argument.

Did you even read the article you posted?

PR piece by Jackson there. For example, I guarantee that an EFL game will kick off at 12.30 on Boxing Day. Just because all the 3pm games can be shown live, Sky aren't going to resist having back to back games kicking off at all times through the day. Their advertising revenue during live football will surely be higher than when they have non-live programs on. Plus the argument seems to be "Its not as bad as you think. Last year you didn't get that many 3pm kick offs anyway so getting even less won't be to much worse".

Reading this thread over the last 48 hours, I think we really could do with the first game starting and this tournament getting underway.

If the implication is that Wahlstedt faced so many shots that making mistakes was inevitable then that's rubbish. Against Watford at home they didn't have a shot first half. Second half they made changes, embarrassed our lack of depth and were getting on top, but Wahlstedt hadn't had much to do when two mistakes cost us the game. At Hudderfield over Christmas, their second shot on target went right through him. They had 5 on target in total and we conceded 3. Rotherham at home didn't batter us. We were comfortable but then he came pawing at a corner and conceded. That's 3 different kind of mistakes in a 2 week period that you would expect a competent Championship keeper to be making far less frequently. He's just not a very reliable goalkeeper. It's nothing to do with us being wide open playing like some kamikazi Keegan-esque attacking unit. If Eustace wants to build his team on a solid defensive foundation, I reckon he wouldn't have wanted to put up with LW either. Over a period of time Pears makes less 'normal' mistakes per game, but when he does make one it tends to be a proper howler. (no, he's not really good enough either - just the better of the two)

That happens soooo many times.

This time last year, @goozburger had estimated we had sold 8100 season tickets. You won't hear Rovers social media shouting that stat out. Yes the early bird had just ended, but that means we've around 3000 to sell in 10 days to match last year.

Defensively it’s nowhere near.

Get them to run it again in a fortnight.

Not sure on that. In 2010 we were awful in the group stage, and then got ripped to pieces by Germany in the first knockout game. Lampard should, of course, have equalised but it would have been undeserved.

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.