Don't disagree that we often draw games that we should have won (although it is also true that we often seem to dig draws out of games where we probably ought to have lost too, so swings and roundabouts perhaps) But - I'm not entirely sure it's fair to put all the blame on Mowbray for that - as you said today we lost points through poor finishing - that's not a tactical decision from Mowbray that has cost us - I'm fairly convinced that he hasn't sent them out and told them not to put the ball in the back of the net!

I too thought it was a cracking game - after our now customary slow start I thought we dominated the game from the 25 min mark, up until our second goal - and on another day we could have scored 4 or 5. We had 2 cleared off the line, 1 off the bar, plus a couple of decent saves from their keeper. Unfortunately in the end, however, we just didn't have an answer for their lad, Madley, in the centre of the park - the one in the black shirt!! We did seem to go off the boil as soon as we scored the second though - I don't know if that was a mental thing or was caused by the substitution. Personally I think he should have waited 5 mins before making the change as soon as the goal went in, however I suppose no-one can accuse him of negativity today since it was a positive substitution rather than one designed just to hold on to the lead. Motm for me was Reed - I thought he had a cracking game once he'd grown into a bit - he looked a bit lost for 20 mins or so, but then he was everywhere harassing and tackling, but with quality on the ball too. Almost unheard of for a player to have both in our midfield of late! Like I say - a very enjoyable game, bar the result. One of the fans coming off commented that it could have finished 5-5, but I don't think even that ref would have got away with giving them 5 penalties!!

Do you honestly believe that we had a chance of winning the competition this season, even if we played our first 11 in every round?? I’ll be honest and say I don’t. We potentially could have beaten Bournemouth, maybe even gone on a couple more rounds, but eventually we’d have drawn a Man City, a Liverpool, a Spurs etc and we’d have gone out - having played a number of extra games and possibly damaged our (already slim) chances of reaching the playoffs. I don’t think it’s any surprise that Bristol City’s form tailed off from March onwards last season following the number of extra matches they played to reach the semifinals and get hammered by Man City. If I felt that we genuinely had a chance - say like Leicester, Bournemouth, Southampton - hell even the Dingles - then I’d be right there with you in being disappointed in the manager playing a weakened team - but I just don’t think that it applies in our situation

I don’t think the late goal today is down to lack of game management by the team, but down to a slip, and then an absolute brain fart moment, from Williams. That allows them the opportunity to throw the ball into the box right at the death, with everyone forward, and from there anything can happen. And I know, with hindsight, it’s easy to say that we shouldn’t have played the ball back to Williams there, but had we tried to cross the ball and lost it and then concede from them breaking on us, we’d all be saying that we should have been smarter and kept possession and ‘managed’ the game better - so no criticism from me for trying to do that, just a shame it didn’t work out. To be honest, I think tonight’s result is about the best we could have hoped for. Not a damaging defeat by a big margin, a terrific fightback and proof that we can mix it with better teams, but going out of a competition that we can’t win, and which takes its toll especially on a small squad, in a respectable way. It probably would have been better to go out on penalties than to a last minute goal, but ultimately have to say that I’m not sorry we’re out - and hopefully the performance in defeat will stand us in good stead for the rest of the season and maybe a push at the playoffs

I had my wallet stolen a few weeks back with 3 season tickets in. The guy at the ticket office was very apologetic, but said he had to charge me as the system wouldn’t let him do it for no payment. He did only charge for 1 of the tickets though, which was a bonus. It’s not just rovers who charge for replacement cards though, as I unfortunately found out. £20 for a new driving licence, £5 for a new student card, plus a few others as well. As others have said I’m not sure this is something to beat the club over

Samuel??

Yep, it’s well known that squatting down momentarily is exactly the same as playing 90 minutes of football. It’s certainly the basis of my exercise routine!! ? On a more serious note - I didn’t watch the game as my in-laws came round unexpectedly (lucky escape in thd end). Can any of you that did see it tell me how Brereton looked when he came on?

Made me smile

I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of him, but I do remember seeing him in Forest’s FA Cup victory over Arsenal. In that game he played up front on his own - holding the ball up really well allowing Forest to get out and counter-attack. He was tall, strong, quick and gave the Arsenal centre-backs a torrid time. Now, obviously that was just one game and sometimes it’s easier to raise your game against ‘big’ opposition, so there is a question mark as to whether he can fulfill that role week in week out, but I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say categorically that he can’t play that role - especially when you acknowledge that you haven’t really seen him play at all!

Like others have said there’s loads I could put, but a couple that stand out... Back in the summer of 95 I was convinced that Kenny moving to DoF was no big deal and that things would continue pretty much just as they were, with Kenny in overall charge and Harford running training. I was disappointed by the signing of Stephen Warnock - I thought we should be going for more proven players rather than a youngster who’d never really played in the Prem. I was very definitely wrong on that one And, finally, I was delighted when the Dingles got Dyche as manager. I thought he was a terrible manager who would take them down

Whilst Travis has looked impressive in spells, particularly in the Oldham game last season, I don’t think he’s ready yet. He struggled when he came on last week and, by all accounts, he didn’t particularly stand out in midweek against a league 2 side, so I can’t see him starting just yet - nor do I think he should. I agree with most on Smallwood that his lack of composure is an issue, but he does at least give us positional stability - more so than Bennett. Bennett got injured last week by the corner flag having chased down a lost cause - he does that a lot, and it’s great for fans to see him constantly chasing and harrassing players, but it does mean that it leaves the other CM with a large area to cover at times. Evans I think has been better recently - certainly one of our better performers last week - and personally I think he’s done enough to keep his place for now. I’d also love to see Rothwell in there, that’s where he wants to play and is a midfielder who will pick up the ball and look to get forward - something we haven’t had since Dunn used to play in a midfield 2 under Hughes. However, I don’t think Evans (or Smallwood, Bennett or Travis) is capable of doing the amount of defensive covering that would be needed to facilitate that, so for now at least, Evans and Smallwood is probably the right call - certainly away from home.

Disappointing game this afternoon, particularly first half. I thought Conway was probably the bright spot, although Travis did ok - but agree with whoever said earlier that he looked out of position, he definitely looks better in CM whenever I’ve seen him play there. I was disappointed with Rothwell and Davenport, although again agree that Rothwell was the better of the two. I just expected more from both of them, especially against lower league opposition. Tomlinson and Whittingham had mixed afternoons I thought. One moment absolutely awful, but then odd glimpses of what they can do sprinkled in amongst it. Whittingham in pacticular showed for about 10 minutes at the start of the second half that, with time on the ball and players making intelligent runs, he could be an important player for us, but then he faded out of the game again. Williams really struggled - although he apparently was carrying a bit of a knock and was at left cb with Caddis at lb, so maybe there were extenuating circumstances. Which brings me on to Caddis. Looked good for about 5 mins, flying into tackles, getting forward, tracking his runners etc. And then it just all went to pot - presumably he ran out of steam, but I do wonder what the point of playing him was. Surely we have a lb in the u23’s who would have benefited from the experience of playing today? And finally, Nuttall just looked completely out of his depth. I really struggle to see just how he scored so many goals for the u23’s - I can only imagine the rest of the team must do a heck of a lot of work for him. Just underlines the need to get at least 1 more striker in asap.

I think England did incredibly well, albeit they rode their luck at various stages, and it does feel like a golden opportunity missed - I remember in 1990 as an 11-year old thinking that it was just the start and that we would build on the semi-final appearance and, especially with Gazza, that the future was bright. 28 years of misery and underachievement followed, so I'm more than a little cautious about all the talk of coming back stronger in 2020/2022. Also, I'm far from convinced by the 3-5-2 formation going forward. I just don't think it plays to our strengths at all. Our key players don't play that system week in and week out and it seems to force too many of them to play out of their preferred position. I'd like to see us play 4-2-3-1 - Walker is one of the best attacking full-backs in the world and we should play him in his best position, Kane looks far more dangerous for Spurs when he is the focal point up front rather than dropping deep and so we should play him there, Sterling plays week in week out from a deeper position, coming in from the wing and looking a threat, so we should play him there, Dele Ali's biggest asset at Spurs is knowing when to arrive in the box playing as a number 10, so we should play him there. I like Southgate and think he has brought a real integrity back to the national team which was sorely missing under previous managers (and I'd much rather him be in charge than someone like Pardew or Dyche), but I do worry that if he persists with playing so many players out of position and essentially wasting their talents, they might eventually get fed up and turn on him and it might all end in tears.

Not bending over backwards to justify Sterling’s contribution, just suggesting that we’re not playing to his strengths which I think explains, a bit at least, his poor performances up to now. As others have pointed out, watching him at City all season you can see he has the talent, so there must be a reason that he’s not doing it for England beyond just ‘he’s cr@p’ And as for Kane dropping deep - yes maybe we were struggling to get the ball up to him, and maybe other players weren’t doing their job, but imo that’s no reason for him to come deep and try to do their jobs. He’s a striker. Not only that he’s our only striker. So, if he’s in the midfield, no matter how well he’s doing there, it means we’re effectively playing with no striker - which probably explains why we didn’t manage to have a shot on target all night and have actually only managed 1 goal from open play all tournament - and that was a goal out of nothing, a moment of individual brilliance rather than a well-worked chance created by flowing, attacking football. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’ve done ok so far, and Southgate has injected some general positivity into the national team for the first time in a long time, but tactically I don’t really understand what he’s trying to do.

Strange how we can see things differently. Personally, I thought that Kane was playing far too deep and that that was at least part of the reason why we looked so disjointed and unthreatening. On a number of occasions we broke down the wings, or the side of the penalty area, and there was no one in the area for a cross - Kane was ambling around in the centre of the pitch instead for some unknown reason. Yes, it meant that it looked like he personally had a decent game, with some nice touches and a couple of decent through balls, but I think it massively affected the team performance as a whole, in particular Sterling who often looked like he was playing up front on his own, having to try and play with his back to goal, backing into defenders, which definitely isn't his natural game and, when he did get hold of the ball, he had no one to pass to as the rest of the team were too deep. I don't know if it's an intentional tactical decision, but I think we'd look a lot better as a team if Kane was told to stick up front and try and bully the centre backs, and Sterling was allowed to drop a little bit and play just off him, getting the ball facing goal and able to run at defenders.

God I hope not. Dull team, dull manager and the press/Sky need no more encouragement to fawn all over the overhyped Terry. Other than Grealish, Fulham are streets ahead of this Villa team. And as a neutral the last thing the Prem needs is another negative, 10-men-behind-the-ball, defend-at-all-costs team

We're sorting out my sons bedroom and he has a Rovers beanbag that he no longer wants. Normally I would take it to a charity shop, but living in Leeds I imagine that there won't be much call for it, so thought someone on here might be able to make use of it. I'm a season ticket holder so am able to meet up before any home game to pass it on.

Statistics seem to suggest that the DRS has improved the accuracy of umpires decisions pretty dramatically in fact. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10192594/Ashes-2013-Chris-Rogers-and-Australia-may-be-struggling-with-DRS-but-the-system-is-good-for-the-game.html

There was lots of talk about how the emotion/occasion etc would affect the players, but the person seemingly most affected by it all was the ref. Too scared to give a penalty against Bolton, or to book any of their players (despite the most blatent 'kicking the ball away' incident you'll ever see). It was almost as though he believed a big decision against them would set back Muamba's recovery or something

Took my 3-year old for his first game at Ewood last night. (He came down to Pompy at the start of the season - maybe he's jinxed or something!!) Anyway, one of his first questions was "What's that banging noise?" So I explained that someone behind the goal had a drum and was banging it. His next question was "Why does he have to keep making that noise?" Funnily enough no-one around us seemed to be able to give an answer to that one!!

Youngest scorer = James (I think) Vaughan from Everton

Yeah we are - supposed to be back at work for 3 - not entirely sure I can see that one happening!!

It's interesting to note that the people who seem to be most vocal in their criticism of rovers' performance today are the ones who didn't manage to see the game at Ewood. As far as I'm concerned today was, as someone has already said, 'one of those days' where the ball just didn't seem to fall kindly for us in and around the box (how many goalmouth scrambles did we have in their box without getting it over the line), and even when it did fall kindly we were either denied by a good save from the keeper or by a mistake from the referee. But I have to say I'd rather play the way we did today and lose, than win playing the way (wim)Bolton did today.

Have to say - it looked a penalty to me too. The defender tried to pull his leg out of the way, but (imo) definately caught the back of the attackers leg, knocking it onto his other leg which made it appear like a dive.

It's kosher, but you don't have to pay £10 for it. You could make your own. Option 3