I don’t want to argue with Arbitro’s experience, but are we sure that it warranted a red card? According to the laws of the game, it should have been a yellow unless it was thrown with excessive force - I’ve watched it a few times now and really not sure that it can be classed as excessive… Link for anyone wanting to check for themselves: https://www.theifab.com/laws/latest/fouls-and-misconduct/#disciplinary-action

I’ll qualify this by admitting that I’ve only seen 2 games so far this season (the other being WBA) so it’s probably not fair to judge too harshly, but I thought today’s game was very similar to watching us under Ince - trying to play football the ‘right’ way, some fantastic bits of interplay and great to watch on the ball when it clicks (see both of our goals), however no real discipline on team shape, not close enough to the opposition out of possession and not a tackle anywhere in the team - all of which means we are wide open to play against and far to easy to break on. I can unfortunately see us losing far more than we win this season However, listening to Kevin Gallacher on the way home on BBC Lancs, he reckoned it was just a bad day at the office and a poor performance, rather than anything tactically wrong, so hopefully he’s right and my fears are unfounded

If we used your estimated figure (which I think is too low, but anyway) then say it’s a case of £200k for the ‘normal’ sponsorship deal, or £100k for your suggestion - we’d have to sell an extra 10,000 sponsorless shirts just to break even. I don’t know how many shirts we sell per year, but I’d be surprised if it’s much more than that anyway, so effectively you’d be gambling on trying to double your shirt sales

I think this is pretty much exactly how I feel/felt. His football was dreadful to watch - give it to Diouf and let him win a freekick on the halfway line so that we can smash it up to Samba - at times we made Pulis’ Stoke look like Barcelona!! I remember one game in particular, I think against Birmingham, where Dunny scored early on - after the initial euphoria of celebrating the goal, we (and everyone around us) gave out a collective groan/sigh because we knew that we were now in for 80+ minutes of sitting back and holding onto the 1-0 My dad and I had already made the decision that we weren’t going to renew our season tickets if Sam was still the manager as it just wasn’t enjoyable anymore (although obviously it hasn’t exactly been too enjoyable over the last 12 years and we’re still there, so maybe we’re just gluttons for punishment and would have changed our minds when it came down to it 🤷‍♂️) I’ve seen a lot of people say this over the years, but if it is just purely about the results then you can get the same entertainment by checking the result at 5pm and save yourself £30 a week. If people are paying out their hard earned money then, in my opinion at least, there needs to be moments of individual brilliance, and things that genuinely get you out of your seat with excitement

Just a thought that occurred to me earlier - I’ve seen a lot of comments on here praising the second half performance last night and stuff like “that’s how we should have been playing” etc, however the only real difference between last night and the last few weeks (yesterday’s 1st half excepted) is that we took our chances. For instance, the goals we scored last night, we had almost exactly the same chances on Saturday but didn’t take any of them - 1st goal, Wharton free header from a corner, on Saturday he put it wide 2nd goal - point blank header inside the 6yd box - on Saturday Lenihan put it straight at the keeper 3rd goal - striker arriving on the end of a cross from the left - on Saturday Dack screws it wide So, whilst it was much improved from the first 45 minutes (let’s be honest it couldn’t have been worse), the performance was very similar to how we’ve been playing lately* - we just got the rewards from it whereas we haven’t previously. * in fact I’d argue that the performances against Sheff Utd and definitely Millwall were far better than last night - just without the clinical finishing

Just how I felt. Tbh I don’t come on here too often anymore as it quite often feels fairly toxic, but this thread has taken it to whole new levels. It genuinely seems like some of you are gutted we won as you’d rather blast Mowbray than celebrate a victory That’s also how I read his (admittedly strange) radio Lancs interview. It comes across to me that he’s torn into a few at h/t (along with a couple of the senior players) and he’s feeling that - that’s not his usual man-management style - and a blazing row plays on most peoples’ minds for a while afterwards (even if you’re in the right). Certainly throughout the first half he was angrier at the players than I’ve seen him before this season, shouting at Rothwell and Johnson a few times about positioning, and he had a right go at JRC during a break for their lad getting treatment - telling him to stop turning back and to ‘go f***ing forward’.

We definitely should have signed a centre back that summer - Tony Gale had stopped playing regularly halfway through the title winning season and defence was our weakness in the latter stages of that season - which almost resulted in us missing out on the title. I always felt that we should have gone for Teddy Sheringham too. I know Shearer was reported as being keen on us signing Barmby because of the way he linked midfield to attack, but Sheringham was a similar and, imo, much better player and the two knew each other from playing together with England

A couple of weeks ago I read a Portsmouth News article about Hayden Carter and ever since Facebook keeps suggesting other articles for me. Anyway, this one about the late postponement of their game at Crewe on Saturday seems like it has many parallels with the situation at Rovers and might be of interest to others: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/a-front-row-seat-at-theatre-of-absurd-what-happened-on-day-of-farce-for-pompey-3576986?fbclid=IwAR0UNZAuTo7t9OUcI0rclgkrsU_p10J9xXOreZJf7uLdQURerUyBFtvuyAs

I watched the second half of Leeds v Man Utd earlier and the pitch at Elland Road seemed to be in a much worse condition than what I saw at Ewood yesterday, with the ball sticking in various parts of the pitch, but there never appeared to be any question of that game being abandoned - I really think that we just had an over-officious / over-cautious ref yesterday (as did Crewe it seems, looking at pictures from Gresty Road) That said though I’m not overly upset that it was called off (although I wish it had been done before I set off, rather than just after I had paid for a pint in the ground!) - I think that the heavy pitch & conditions would have suited Millwall more than us, plus there’s always a risk of injuries etc ahead of 2 massive games coming up - so, all in all, I really don’t think it’s too bad of an outcome

I know that it’s disappointing that Rothwell looks like he’s going (and if it were up to me I’d be tempted to keep him) but ultimately, as important as the rest of this season is, it isn’t all there is. Even if Rothwell could be trusted to give 100% for the rest of the season (and it seems like there might be question marks over that) we know that he’s not going to sign a new contract, and so we could keep a player, who doesn’t really want to be here, for a maximum of 4 months, during which time he could lose form or get injured and be worth literally nothing to us, or we could get some money for him and replace him with one (or maybe two) players who will be with us not just for 5 months, but the next couple of seasons too. So, whilst in my heart I’d love Rothwell to stay, I can understand why Mowbray is willing to sell

I’m sure that was Gerald Ashby rather than Durkin - I still remember that incident like it was yesterday, and his name has been imprinted on my brain ever since!!

I've been watching Rovers with my dad since the late 80's, our first season tickets were in the Riverside towards the Darwen End - Row 4, just far enough forward to ensure that you got drenched when it was raining and also so that you missed chunks of the last 5/10 minutes of every game as people filed past in front of us to get out early. It used to drive my dad mad - he would always say that he didn't understand why, especially in a close game, people would choose to leave early from something they had paid for. In contrast then, we would always stay not just until the final whistle but beyond to clap the lads off the pitch - win, lose or draw. In fact, in over 30 years of watching Rovers, I can only remember leaving early twice, once when we lost 3-0 to Sunderland on Boxing Day - Kevin Phillips scored the third with a couple of minutes left and my dad stood up and said "Let's go", I nearly fainted with shock - and the second was this season against Fulham - we stuck it out until 0-5, but more than that was too much even for my dad. So, leaving last night's match just after the 60th minute, on a stretcher, will have irritated him no end - in fact, when I spoke with him in the ambulance just before he was taken to hospital, he was complaining about the fact he'd missed the goal!! Me - I'm just thankful that (hopefully) it won't be the last game I get to watch at Ewood with him. Thankful that it happened where, and when, it did - had it happened on the way to or from the ground, or at half-time, or even just after a goal had been scored, the response would probably not have been so quick. Thankful for everyone who helped, from those who echoed my desperate cries for help, those who responded so quickly and so brilliantly, those who tried to calm me down and reassure me, and those who have posted on here or on social media wishing us well. He's doing ok - still in hospital being monitored, but conscious, breathing and desperate to get home. And I can't wait til we're back at Ewood, watching the Rovers, and pissing off everyone around us who wants to make a quick exit by standing and clapping the lads off the park.

The yellow shirts sold out a while ago, so you’d have been struggling anyway

A friend of mine had season tickets over there, along with the rest of his family. They gave them up a couple of years ago as, in his words, ‘there was nothing to get you out of your seat’. It’s not that he wants Dyche out, but just refuses to pay when there‘s no/little entertainment.

F*** me, what a ridiculous over-reaction. Tony made a small number of changes in a game which, in the context of our season, is pretty meaningless (I wanted us to win, because I always want us to win, but I’m not exactly upset that we lost) and, as one of those who spent time and money going to watch the game, I was actually disappointed that he didn’t make more - I expected to see Butterworth start (I also expected to see Davenport and Carter but covid/injury put paid to that), plus I hoped we might see Garrett get at least 30 mins or so. And other than changing the keeper (and pretty much every championship and prem team played their 2nd keeper this weekend) none of the changes cost us the game. You mention Dolan, his defending was ok for the most part, weirdly it was going forward where he seemed to struggle, but his inclusion at rwb didn’t cost us the game, nor did Ayala, Gallagher or Edun. For 60 minutes we were comfortably in charge of the match and then Pears made a mistake and subsequently lost his head and forgot how to play football for the rest of the game. Barring injury, Kaminski will be back in goal for the remainder of the season and, in the long-run, I suspect losing this game will be more of a blessing than anything else.

The lad made 3 mistakes, albeit very costly ones, but let’s not pretend that every other player out there didn’t make at least that many… at one point just after the equaliser Johnson gave the ball away 3 times in the space of about 30 seconds, BBD chose to try and go it alone instead of releasing a teammate in a better position 2 or 3 times, Rothwell similarly I know Pear’s’ mistakes were different in that they led to goals, but that’s the nature of the keeper position, and I know that we’re all frustrated with him (although I imagine he’s just as disappointed/upset with himself as we are - he looked close to tears at the end of the game), but let’s not pretend that everything he did was bad or wrong. 3/10 seems like a fair enough score to me - and plus, I don’t really see what it achieve to give him 1 or 0 - it’s not like he’s going to be thinking he did ok out there because some journo gave him 3 or 4 out of 10 is it?

Like others have said, it’s not even close. Rovers every time. Tbh, I’d even put a dingle relegation above an England WC win in terms of enjoyment - but maybe that’s just me 🤔

On this kind of Rovers-trivia theme - the guys behind me today were wondering when the last time we had a striker hit 19 goals before Christmas? Without looking at the stats I’d have guessed maybe Shearer back in 1992/93 - but I suspect someone on here might know better

Like I said Chelsea were wasteful. Obviously I didn’t see the whole game, and I’ve already said it’s dangerous to judge just from the limited MotD highlights, but from what I did see Chelsea got themselves into some exceptionally good positions and had a number of chances that, on another day, they would expect to take. And just to put the stats into perspective, Chelsea created more chances, had more shots and had more possession against you than they did against Norwich, and than Fulham did against us, both of which ended as 7-0 results. But it wasn’t meant as a dig at Burnley, or to put Dyche or the players down in any way, just an observation really that there is often a very fine line between a good day and a bad day, and whether your luck is in or out can sometimes be the difference between a good result and a hiding

Football’s a funny old game, eh? I’ve just watched the highlights of the dingles game at Chelsea on MotD and (whilst I know it’s dangerous to judge on 6/7 minutes of highlights) it looked almost as poor a performance from them as ours on Wednesday. Chelsea were absolutely dominant, getting in at will and had numerous clear cut chances to score (25 shots, 70% possession), the only difference was, whereas Fulham were clinical, Chelsea were wasteful in the extreme. And then one chance gets taken and has the fans hailing their team rather than demanding apologies. Like I say, a funny old game!

I heard that too, but he said that we confused them by playing 3 in midfield, which I would say we have done for the majority of the season, so I did begin to question just how closely they had had us watched 😂 He also said that pretty much every team that had visited Blackpool this season had played differently to how they were expecting, which shows that either their scouting really isn’t up to much or that pretty much every manager at every club changes their personnel and/or tactics depending on the opposition

I realise that it’s not the done thing on here to defend Mowbray, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as just stick with the same 11 and stop tinkering - our players just aren’t consistent enough. Take Poveda for example. He was fantastic today, but up until now he’s been terrible - who’s to say what kind of performance we’ll get out of him next time round. And it’s not just him. Brereton was as good today as we was awful on Wednesday; Lenihan, Travis, Buckley, Rothwell, Gallagher, Nyambe- all capable of being brilliant or terrible on any given Saturday. We could easily put out the same team, in the same formation, with the same tactics next time out and get thumped - that’s just the nature of having a young team I think

As both Dalglish and Sherwood pointed out at the Hall of Fame dinner last year, the amount of players we had missing through injury for big chunks of that season - Batty, Gallacher, Warhurst, Wilcox - more than evens out the loss of Cantona in the ‘luck’ stakes

A hoof forward to a lone attacker, over the majority of our team (who were in their half, which turned our fullback and caused a mistake in communication. Maybe not ‘hit on the break’ as such, certainly not good defending (not even close) but also not exactly evidence of a team camped in with 10 men behind the ball

You’re right - it’s just pure coincidence and dumb luck that we score more than most inside the first 15 minutes and absolutely nothing to do with us attacking teams from the start of games. And yesterday, after the equaliser, we had 3 decent chances to score and were camped in their half for the majority of injury time. You’re confusing going all out for a win with launching the ball into the box (which given the height of our team compared to theirs would probably not have yielded much success)