frosty

This season it is, but that one team haven’t won the league for thirty years. It was even more of a one team league when United were dominating year after year. Even when we were last in, the top 4 was pretty much a closed shop, you’ve got Leicester, Wolves, Sheff Utd fighting for that now. Don’t think what’s happening in the title race would concern us much anyway. I’m desperate for us to get there because history shows we belong there, both in terms of years spent in the top flight and trophies won. We should be so proud of that. Also, playing in the Premier League = signing better players, more chance of going deep into a cup competition, much bigger crowds at Ewood and that ‘big match feel’ which has been pretty much non-existent for a decade. Teams in mid-table in the PL might not have much to play for but I’d much rather be mid-table PL in front of over 20k at Ewood than mid-table Championship in front of 12k like we have been for a lot of the decade. Cannot wait until we’re back. It will happen one day....

Glad Gallagher scored in his natural position - great ball from Nyambe - but the ball bounced off him to give Swansea possession for their goal. Would swap Rothwell and Armstrong and give that a go. Don’t think we’re getting enough from Armstrong in his current position.

Reminds me of us in 12/13 a bit. After Appleton’s honeymoon period we were just behind Brighton in 6th, that was in February. Then we completely fell away and didn’t get going again until after we fell into the bottom three April time ish. Thoroughly miserable season.

Some of the replies to Graham's Instagram post are scary too - I've seen Gallagher called, among other things, 'amazing', 'a legend' and 'unreal' ?. Thankfully a decent number of other commenters, those that have actually read the article, have their head screwed on.

I know what you’re getting at but Stoke have lost 19 games this season (only Luton have lost more). Swansea have lost 10.

I imagine Barcelona will get through having got a score draw away from home. If Napoli had nicked a win it would have been different. Never know though. Juventus are probably more likely to go out than Barça, given how poor they’ve been for a while now. All isn’t well and Sarri had a pop at the players last night. That said, would still expect them to go through too.

It's not mentioned in this article, but in Sven's autobiography from a few years ago he said he asked Uncle Jack if he could bring Roberto Mancini with him. He'd have been on big wages but was available for nothing in terms of the transfer fee. Uncle Jack wasn't convinced and blocked any potential deal. Sven said he was having second thoughts about joining us after that. Then the call from Lazio came and off he went.

Was bouncing off the wall when we were 2-0 up so only natural to feel disappointed at not going on to win. Cannot believe he gave their penalty. Have to win the next two home games, can’t settle for anything less.

Give it a try I say Chaddy. It’s better than a few years back when you knew Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern would probably make up three of the four semi-finalists and the other would likely be one of Juventus or Atlético. Atalanta in particular is a wonderful story and they play extremely attractive football.

One of the best shows going!

And Derby were going nowhere until they changed manager. I can remember Nigel Clough talking season after season (mid-table finish after mid-table finish) about a slow build, young players etc, and being praised for it. He left at some point during the 13/14 season, in comes McClaren, no messing about, 3rd place and play-off final straight away.

No idea why you're stating that like it's a fact based on an article on footballinsider247.com. He's been very good lately, and fingers crossed that form continues if we're to have any chance of achieving anything this season, but after the Forest away game I'd have probably driven him back to Brighton. I'd be staggered if he popped up as a number one somewhere in either the PL or Bundesliga.

He’s done poorly in his last few jobs now has Grayson. He had a reputation as a promotion expert from League One but don’t think any teams looking to get out of that league will be turning to him anytime soon. Wonder what’ll happen to Dunny - he only went there a few weeks ago.

How anyone is still talking about the playoffs is beyond me. The only time this season I've given it serious thought was after Bristol City away when I thought that maybe, just maybe, we'd turned some sort of corner as that wasn't the kind of victory that we usually got. Then, when we had chance to actually enter the top 6, we of course stunk the place out in home games v Wigan and Birmingham and it became clear that we'd just end up plodding in mid-table.

Glad he scored but we didn’t splash out on a striker for him to be playing on a Monday lunchtime down at Brockhall. As @tomphil says above the goal can do him no harm, but it’s worrying to read other comments saying he still doesn’t look to have the basics. Now that the transfer window is closed and he hasn’t gone out on loan (which I think would have been best for all parties), I don’t know where we go from here.....

Zero chance at all.

Bloody fan negativity making the team go on a miserable run whenever we get near the top 6. Bloody fan negativity spending £12m on Brereton and Gallagher. Anyway, never understand how fans who want the club and team to be the best they possibly can - so who are looking upwards and wanting positive things for the club - are labelled as negative. *This post was replying to a now deleted post!

Bennett was in front of Nyambe for the last part of the game and looked absolutely knackered. So that didn’t help Nyambe one bit.

He has been poor yep. Last five minutes of the half included him failing to hold up a pass on the half way line that Graham would have done with his eyes closed. And then looking half asleep in our defensive third. Good half from us overall thankfully, could do with another.

Super Joey Rothwell been superb so far.

Christ talk about aiming low! You’re either going for promotion or you’re not. If you talk about wanting to be part of the ‘chasing pack’ or perhaps aiming for a ‘play-off push’ (acting as if the teams above are miles ahead and uncatchable) then you may as well also say you’re happy with mid-table.

I agree - it ain’t happening, therefore I don’t think you need to be worrying about how this squad of players and managers would do in the PL. We’re slap bang in the middle of the table and before the last game we had a goal difference of 0. Whenever we’re presented with a winnable game that could lift us into the top 6 off the back of a good run (Wigan at home, quite sure Luton at home too) then we play like frightened rabbits and that starts a bad run of form. Everything points to us finishing about where we are now. Which is frustrating as the standard is pretty poor and the league’s wide open.

Indeed. He always had a slight problem with low shots (low long shots in particular) but after his injury - which was a very nasty injury to be fair - he was pretty poor and took an age to get down to anything. That said, I think in general he was a good keeper for us under Big Sam and played his part in our top ten finish and being very tough to beat at Ewood.

I occasionally have a gander yep. Always reminds me how well organised our site is - there are always so many threads on other boards a lot of which are about the same thing. Would be impossible to keep up.

To be fair he couldn’t have had any arguments if he’d have been sacked after the Liverpool fiasco last season - especially as exactly the same thing happened at Roma a year earlier. That’d have made much more sense than delaying the inevitable until now.