Silas

I totally get this sentiment and I'm with you. Has killed the atmosphere recently. But with my way with no offsides, a goal could only be challenged for a foul - so maybe a handball before scoring, or a foul in immediate build up of play- and how often do those happen. And again, if a manager takes the piss with it, they would be punished. Not saying it wouldn't occasionally kill the atmosphere of scoring, but still think it would be minimal. And a perfect example, Henry's goal would have been chalked off and Ireland would have gone to the World Cup. Or was it Euro? Anyway, that decision would have took about 15 seconds.

To stop bad decisions and make the game fairer. Particularly game changing decisions. For all the stick it gets recently it can actually work. Was watching an MLS game this last week where a stupid penalty was given by lino flagging. Sliding tackle in box, bounced up off defenders knee onto his hand by accident. But obviously, ref had to take linos word. Went to VAR, took about 30 secs , penalty overturned, game back on. Don't we all want errors like that stamped out?

I'm not sure VAR is the issue, it's the incompetent morons in the hierarchy of football that seem incapable of implementing it. It's not a popular view, but I would be a fan of giving managers 2 challenges per game (red cards, yellow cards, penalties, goal reviews for fouls - not offsides as it's become a mess. Just stick with lino decisions, you'll win some, lose some. ) This takes it totally out the hands of the officials who are clearly struggling to decide when and when not to use it. And you generally don't get more than 2 contentious decisions against you in a game. The main argument I have heard against this is managers abusing it. i.e. Mourinho challenging a blatant yellow in 89th min of game to break up the flow and get to have a sideline chat with players. Easily resolved for me. Have a Monday panel, and if they decide a manager has abused it VAR challenge privileges revoked for 1 game. Do it again in a season, revoked for 2 games etc etc. Once a team has a dodgy penalty and/or red given against them in a game and they're powerless to challenge it, they'll soon learn not to abuse the system. Edit- Oh, and after the challenge the VAR makes the decision. None of this ridiculous running to side of pitch to look at a monitor. Manager challenges, ref signals VAR so fans know. Minute later decision comes back, ref signals it, game moves on.

The spring Aussie sponsored blubathon is really gathering speed now with Warners press conference. It shed a lot of light on the situation and I'm impressed with their forthrightness and honesty now they've been found out. Who's idea was it? No answer Was anyone else involved? No answer Has it happened before? No answer Repeats "I'm here to take responsibility for my part in what happened on day three of the Capetown Test" about 35 times. Then scurries out the room like a rat deserting a sinking ship. Bravo. Really nailed that PR exercise David. You know what would actually be taking "full responsibility" for their actions, is for one of these clowns to stop balling for 5 mins and tell everyone the truth. Novel idea I know, but I'm very progressionilist me.

You're making me dizzy. How about picking a standpoint and sticking to it. If you want to try and defend the indefensible, then grow some balls and crack on. Cos at the moment your mealy mouthed fence sitting, and dragging up mainly irrelevant anecdotes from years/decades ago is appearing very weak and contributing nothing to further the debate.

Just for the record, these are the guys I'm supposed to feeling sorry for right?! Multi millionaires that drive supercars and live in beachside mansions. And no, that's not me being jealous of their wealth. It's the point that with this great wealth comes a certain level of responsibility. That's why you're getting paid the big bucks in the first place. To play for arguably the most famous cricket team in the World, to be an ambassador for your country, and an example to millions of young kids that idolise you. As well as fulfilling certain obligations to multi-million pound sponsors that help fund the lifestyle you now have the benefit of living. So, when all that comes crashing down because of your own stupid actions, then sympathy is not what I feel these fellas really deserve. You've got to take the rough with the smooth in life. And they've been having it very smooth for a very long time. Unrelated, the same goes for Ant McPartlin and the outpouring of sympathy that has come out for him in recent weeks. Yes, he seems to be having a rough time, both with his family life, and certain addictions. But, after the privileged life he's benefited from over the last few decades, to get in a car and drink drive putting a family and young child's life in danger, is a grave error of judgment that he is going to be rightly severely punished for- both criminally, financially, and reputation wise. And he has no-one to blame but himself for all that. Why I should feel sympathy for any of these people is mystifying to me. But perhaps I'm not a very caring person in life and need to re-evaluate. It's going to take some convincing for that though.

Yeah, me too. It's gonna proper ruin my Bank Holiday that! That bottle of plonk is going to taste a bit sour..... Bancroft just been dropped for summer by Somerset too.

Well you'v got a big heart then den, good on you. Think I'll stick to being a xenophobic, vindictive git thanks. ?

Do you? Not for me, I'm with Asia on this. And it's not sour grapes. I think they probably did tamper with the ball in the Ashes. But it's irrelevant, they would have beat us anyway. You reap what you sow in life, and their conduct over the past few years in general has been extremely poor, to the extent that their own coutrymen have been turning against them. Just cos the chickens have finally come home to roost, no amount of crocodile tears are going to suddenly make me feel sorry for them. It's karma and comeuppance time. And personally I'm loving it.

A strong fight?! Are you for real? We lost by an innings and 49 runs!! Suppose you thought Browne put up a strong fight against Whyte in the boxing Sat night too. Getting so bored of the loser mentality in this country. It's like some weird tropical disease that's spreading. The rugby and cricket teams have been nothing short of a disgrace recently. And the money that's pumped into them and the backing they get, should hang their heads in shame. I'm sure it won't be but a few months till the football lads follow suit. Very pissed off with all of it. And I feel I've got every right to be.

It's comments like these that are making people look stupid. Yes, they really can say it was onside (was clear for us all to see with the lined replay), and no, they are not guessing. Have listened for decades to managers moaning about wrong decisions costing their team results, and we get the first ever official goal awarded through VAR with a 100% correct decision, and guess what - a manager is moaning and questioning it. Just because the goal was against his team. https://talksport.com/football/average-ball-play-time-each-premier-league-side-201718-season-171127263506 It's exactly because of the time already lost that I don't understand why people are moaning about a few minutes here and there for the odd VAR decision. The link above shows the ball is in play for less than 60 mins of a Premier League match. That's almost half an hour of inactive time in a 90 mins match. So, to me, VAR is going to have minimal impact in relation to that dead time. There are tons of things authorities could do to try and reduce this wasted time - speed up throw ins, stop goalkeepers taking forever, stop players surrounding refs for ages complaining etc, etc. I would prefer to concentrate on cleaning up some of those areas of the game, and increase time that way, and leave a few minutes here and there to use VAR to make sure match determining decisions are made as accurately as possible.

Yeah, yeah i know SG, (edit and Jh)we're crap, still feels a bit like the gods conspire against us sometimes. Although, was just saying to a mate before, on Sat there were 11 championship fixtures. Only one home team failed to score a goal. Says it all about our quality i suppose.

That's 2 late spawny wins in a week for wigan. I know everyone will say you make your own luck, but cmon. Where the hell is our slice?! Norwich and PNE spring to mind. Everyone else is stealing last min points, we get them robbed off us. Gutting.

Talk about a kick in the nuts. I don't think it will make a massive difference in the long run, but that penalty award was one of the worst I've seen in my life on first viewing. Must b nice to get handed gifts like that.

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.