First time I've seen that 'Goodbye Tugay Welcome Tuncay' banner (penultimate pic)! Having googled, it looks like we were linked with him a year later, summer 2010, but not before. Random one. Great album though and an excellent day - Ewood packed, top players in the blue and white including the great man's final game, the sun shining and yet another season of top flight football to look forward to.

I was gutted for Atalanta. So close to getting the win. They were absolutely knackered by the end though - Gómez off injured, Hateboer (I think it was) injured and on the pitch just to make up the numbers. Once PSG equalised, it was either they score again to win in normal time (like they did) or they’d have got at least a couple in extra time. Bringing Mbappé off the bench, even if he’s not fully fit, is almost unfair. I don’t like Neymar at all but he was excellent, despite missing a couple of good chances. I’d forgotten just how good he is at dribbling, almost impossible to stop. Still can’t believe what happened tonight. Barcelona losing 8-2. Madness. It’s been coming though - they’ve been thumped in one game in each of the last three or four CL seasons, albeit nothing on tonight’s scale. But their recruitment has been absolutely dreadful and they’ve paid the price.

Agreed. Nobody saw the whole false 9 thing coming after the restart, for example. And now that he has a few weeks' thinking time before the new season, it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up dreaming up another over-complicated plan.

Good shout, £1m for Jordan Slew has to be up there actually. Had forgotten about him given we had a truck load of dodgy signings and wastes of space around that time.

Forza Atalanta! Really hope they beat PSG. They're a fantastic team to watch and, despite finishing a few points off the top in the league, I'd say they're the strongest Italian team at the moment. They're by miles the best to watch. Unfortunately they're missing their first-choice goalkeeper and also Ilicic who's a great player. Still got the wonderful Papu Gomez, who's a lovely little player. You'd expect Bayern to beat Barca who were poor even in victory in midweek, Bayern have pretty much been smashing everybody since football restarted, but in a one-off game with Messi involved you never know. Hope Lyon can repeat what they did to City last season, but you'd expect City to win...

In terms of being a disgrace to the shirt, Orr and Murphy, with the likes of Etuhu and Best not far behind. Horrible time to be a Rover that 12/13 season (apart from Kean leaving). All useless on the pitch but I hated having them at the club. In terms of us signing players for dodgy reasons that weren't even proper footballers, Myles Anderson and Edinho. For players not living up to a big transfer fee, Kevin Davies, Barry Ferguson, Grabbi and - as it stands, thankfully he's got time to change this - Mr Brereton. Must be a £7m curse as the slightly more expensive ones, Rhodes and Andy Cole, worked out.

Or ever! It’s so simplistic to say ‘if Dack was fit we’d have x more points and we’d have been in the play offs’. It just doesn’t work like that and so many other variables come into it (for a start the manager hasn’t shown he’s capable of even entering the top 6 with us).

Difficult to say right now but, unless we sign some good players that have a burning desire to properly challenge for promotion and who won't settle for second best, I'd just expect more of the same. We've got some good players here (albeit there are a few gaps in the team now) but having never entered the top 6 with our current bunch, I'd be surprised if we ever did without a real shake-up and mentality change. And as it doesn't look like Mowbray's going anywhere anytime soon, that'd have to come from the players. Provided we don't sell any of our better players, we know this team and manager can give us WDL most of the time (plus strong runs of form followed by poor ones) so I'd just expect more of that.

I also read that 12 years ago they knocked Atlético Madrid out of Europe and the year before that they drew away to Bayern Munich. Now they’re getting ready to face Barrow and Harrogate.

Hmmm. "the 23-year-old could find himself a man in demand this summer" and "A proposed continuation of the five substitutes rule could see Premier League clubs keen to add more attacking options to their armoury." Things that 'could' happen - is that all this article is based on? Are the LT trying to stir up interest in him themselves?

Very good point. Aren't we also now at the end of Mowbray's 'four or five transfer windows' plan?

The decision to sell Raya in itself was a poor one, selling him to eventually bring in Walton made it even worse. A year on we’ve no senior goalkeepers on the books just a few weeks before the start of the new season, while he’s collected the Golden Glove, could get promoted and is now being linked to top Premier League clubs. What a mess.

Way before my time but these brief highlights popped up on Twitter earlier:

Last season we had the dire Ipswich and Bolton teams in the division, nobody's been that bad this season (apart from Hull in the last few months) - that might explain it.

We're in big trouble if all four of those are part of the senior squad and get much game time next season (Wharton possibly excepted as he's racked up quite a lot of senior experience, even if it's in League Two). Grayson and Magloire are both 21 and have barely played any senior football between them - that suggests they're nowhere near ready for the Championship any time soon, and maybe never will be. If money is so tight that it means 'defenders aren't coming', then I expect our recent defensive woes to continue next season.

That’s from February 2019 and he signed a new deal last summer. Plus that Phil Hay fella at The Athletic (he was also at Yorkshire Evening Post until recently) knows everything about Leeds. Either way, it’s turned out to be a bargain and credit to Leeds, a mid-table Championship club at the time, for pushing the boat out and thinking outside the box.

Bielsa is on around £3m a year Chaddy. Mentioned towards the end of this article by a journo who has covered Leeds for donkeys years. https://theathletic.com/1901739/2020/07/17/marcelo-bielsa-the-inside-story-of-a-leeds-love-affair-that-made-dreams-come-true/

Just checked and he did come on at Norwich the week before too. 2 sub appearances last season, 6 sub appearances all this season (4 in the Championship then one in both cups).

Probably be similar to the end of last season then when Buckley and Butterworth got about 20 mins against a club now in League 2 whose players weren't even being paid at the time. Chapman got similar against Swansea on the last day I think.

Holtby is perfectly neat and tidy and has a decent football brain, but it doesn't look like he's ever going to be a difference maker at this level, which is perhaps what we were hoping for. It doesn't help mind when he's asked to play positions he's never played before.

Indeed. Jordan Rhodes would have anticipated - and scored from - that Rothwell pass with his eyes closed.

Gallagher had no idea Rothwell was going to play that pass, he should have made a run as soon as Rothwell got it to his feet. Like Samuel not anticipating Graham's flick on in the first half, there's no natural striker's instinct there.

When he's running with the ball he looks so clueless and oblivious to where he actually is and who's around him.

We've been minging. What's that 8 games in a row we've conceded the first goal in the game?

Big fan of Nyambe but he does look a bit uncomfortable when he gets in a position to cross. You can tell it's not something he's used to doing, and he doesn't appear to have great technique when he does cross. However whenever he has Samuel or Gallagher in front of him, not natural wingers so they've a tendency to drift inside to where they're more comfortable, I've noticed that Nyambe often has to do the whole right flank himself. You often see him with a huge gap in front of him down the right. Generating a threat in the final third in those circumstances would be a big ask for any full back, even for those that are comfortable taking players on and crossing - never mind somebody who's traditionally been a more defensive minded full back like Nyambe.