Yeah, fair play, I agree with all you and DE say, not arguing it. We were well run and everything was going well for a long time back then. I know that. It's more the presumption that things were going to continue that way. The writing was always on the wall that we were going to struggle to maintain that level, I think John Williams even said it himself in an interview once. Just look at Bolton and Wolves, similar clubs to us, both relegated. And Wolves's predicament now. All done without Venky's. Wigan will no doubt go down this season after a good run up there. It's tough to keep fighting with the big boys. Stoke and Sunderland have spent fortunes and very nearly slipped towards the trapdoor this season. That's all I am saying really. There was certainly no guarantees over our future IMO, and the notion that we were a stable top 10 or even mid-table club seems flawed to me. We could well have been heading on a not too dissimilar path regardless, the annoying thing about Venky's is that it has all been so avoidable, and through their sheer incompetence they have compounded the already fragile situation we were in.

People seem to have some nostalgic hazy image of how great things were pre Venky's. I feel it gets a bit blurred the more time that passes. We were still struggling back then. Sam's skills were seeing us through but we were constantly fire fighting. We were playing a CB up top and lobbing the ball to him in desperation FFS. When I heard Millwall might be doing that last night I thought it sounded a bit desperate for a game, we did it for weeks at a time. We had no funds, regularly got hammered, and with the shift in wealth in the Premier, were looking like being relegation candidates on a more regular basis than not. And we have had some bang average quality throughout our squad for a good while now. The fact that we look back now with steamy eyes at players like Brett Emerton, a great servant but very limited player, says it all. People have mentioned how JR has carried us this season, but we seem to have been lucky enough to always have some-one like that around which masked some of the rest of the team. Roque, Bentley's purple patch, Bellamy for a season, McCarthy's season. Hell, even Warnock's only 2 stunning seasons in his whole career. I think the seeds were there. Venky's decline has been catastrophic, shambolic, and a travesty, but I just don't buy we were as stable as a club back then as some of us think, John Williams and all he brought to the table excepted. Just an opinion though.

+1

Corrected for you, IMO. We have some poor, poor players, I get that, but I still think there are many players in our squad that are mid-level championship quality. A decent manager and some sweat would see that quality come to the fore. Unfortunately, we have neither of those 2 ingredients. Edit - b&w 99 beat me to it.

Bit harsh. Dann,Kane, Dunn, CKR, and Rhodes to name 5 are not awful players for a bottom half Championship game. If those lot can have a good game and the rest can put in a solid perfomance then surely we have half a chance. Yes, big if I know! Agree with the worries over the left hand side though.

Excellent news, at least if things start going pear shaped we have Orr and Murphy that we can bring off the bench to save the day.

Excellent news if true I reckon. That would leave their defence exposed for us to nick a few. Didn't he get MOTM at the back in both our cup games? Would be a strange move to take him out of there.

You really think so? This is the same Millwall team that didn't really look like scoring against us over 180 mins of football and only did eventually from a set piece corner that should never have been given to them. In fact it's a weaker team as they have a few key players out. We had an awful half of football on Sat, but before that we beat 2 teams without conceding of similar standard to Millwall. I know things are far from rosy at the moment but the negativity does get a bit much sometimes. Away games are the issue I know, and our form is dreadful, but if we can't go into games like this thinking we can compete and be aiming for a draw at the very least, then tbh we probably deserve to be in League 1.

If it was some kind of test, then I failed miserably, perhaps I should leave now. Hi, I'm Silas (not my real name), and I am a Rovers fan from outside the Lancashire area, but please don't hold that against me.