I knew there was something I forgot! That probably annoys me more than the domestic cups. If I was a Wolves fan I'd rather go deep in the Europa League with some memorable nights and away trips and finish say 12th in the PL, than go out of the Europa League early and finish higher up in the league (which could mean another qualification for the same tournament anyway....!).

I love football and life without it would be very different, but here are mine (excluding the obvious such as racism and abusing players online.) - The World Cup and Euros being messed with. A 32 team World Cup every four years in summer, and a 16 team Euros every four years was working perfectly well - why change it? Euro 2016 with 32 teams was a pretty dire tournament and some third place teams (including Portugal) going through just didn't feel right. The World Cup in Qatar stinks while 48 teams in the tournament as of 2026 is loads. - People like Steve Kean and Jerome Anderson making a fortune from the game. - Mid-table Premier League clubs that spend eye-watering amounts of money and have little chance of relegation (not that that should matter) yet they almost do their best to go out of the domestic cups as soon as possible. Can't get my head around it. Bournemouth and Burnley spring to mind. Makes me appreciate Rovers reaching semi-finals every season minus 2 or 3 when in the PL in the 2000s even more. - Huge transfer fees for very good, but not great, players. I know inflation is a thing but it feels like the wrong era for huge transfer fees. I think the 90s and early 2000s was a golden era for football in terms of genuine world class players. Some of those iconic players would deserve these fees more than the likes of Harry Maguire, Kepa, Dembele, even Griezmann etc. - Robotic player/manager interviews.

I fear this too. We’ll have to hope Armstrong has his one good game in 15.

Indeed, I'm not far off finishing it now and I highly recommend it.

Anton Forrester. Crikey. There have been some awful performances and results over the last 9 years but this game still comes to mind whenever I think of the worst game I've ever seen.

Good point, Yorke and Cole didn't do loads that season yet we still finished 6th and reached the semi-final of the League Cup. If Jansen and Cole had carried on from where they left off in 01/02, coupled with Duff's often world class form that season and Friedel being unbeatable at times, there'd have been no stopping us! We'd have probably gone further in the UEFA Cup too.

Even though the quality is low, you could make a case for most Championship games being 'tough' if you really wanted to. Let's take the next three games. Millwall have already been to WBA - a place where some don't mind a 3-2 defeat - twice this season and won and drawn. Only lost once out of six. Can already hear them being dubbed a 'tough nut to crack' or similar. Reading away. They've also been to WBA and drawn. They also beat Cardiff at home 3-0.....some people were happy with the 0-0 draw we had against them last week. We lost there last season, so a draw there would be an improvement, etc etc. If Luton have a couple of decent results before we play them their 'promotion bounce' will no doubt be mentioned, and you could go on and on. At the end of the day it's all nonsense because there's zero to fear and, if our aim is to make the top 6 like Mowbray and the players told us all summer, we should be going out to win every game and not being content with dropping points against teams we're supposed to be aiming to be up there with.

7 points from 6 games then? Pretty much par for the course for a mid table Championship team managed by Tony Mowbray. We’ll just plod along like that all season.

'Sunderland 'Til I Die', yeah it's definitely worth a watch.

Indeed! Strange attitude to cups that lot, they seem to be happy to go out as early as possible every year. They’ve shown enough in the league so far to suggest they probably won’t be in a relegation scrap so why not try and go far in a cup while they have a team that’s capable? Proud of us reaching semi final after semi final in the 2000s (and obviously winning the League Cup in 2002) while still having strong league campaigns more often that not.

Bury have been expelled. How terribly sad. Rovers going bust would be like losing a limb.

Not that surprising Armstrong missed. Dack or Rothwell it should have been. Rothwell in particular I can imagine would have fired it home.

Absolutely desperate for a change to be made, so slow and one-paced today.

Dack very quiet - think he needs more quality and creativity around him who he can link up with. Give them something else to worry about, would get Rothwell on right now.

After years of watching Lowe, Akpan, Evans etc plodding around the centre circle it's such a breath of fresh air to see Travis and Johnson up and down contributing in both boxes. Even just taking Tuesday night, Johnson hit the woodwork twice in one half and Travis made a brilliant last-ditch tackle. We've had years of our CMs doing nothing like that.

Agreed. At the time of our relegation he looked like mid-table PL player at least, so you can understand him not wanting to play in the Championship for an abysmally run club that had Kean as 'manager'. QPR was an awful career choice though. That's where he went wrong.

Whatever your opinion on the players themselves is, nobody can say that £12.5m (I think it’s slightly higher) on three players for Rovers is ‘peanuts’. And while it looks like Gallagher will be a regular, Brereton looks further away from a starting spot than ever.

Looking forward to this one now after the last two results and last night's performance. Cardiff have so far shipped 3 away at both Reading and Wigan and scraped past Luton at home with a last minute winner. So, while I'm sure they'll get better especially with Warnock in charge, we should be going for a win. I'd probably bring Bell in at LB just to keep Williams and Lenihan at CB together. Bell clearly isn't as good or well-rounded as Cunningham but we should be able to get by.

The best you can do is probably the videos that show every Rovers goal from the promotion season and the first season back up. He scored some beauts especially in the promotion season. If you type in ‘Blackburn Rovers goals 00/01’ then it’ll come up. Not ideal but I suppose he’ll also be able to appreciate how good Duff, Dunn and (in the 01/02 video) Tugay were too!

Agree. The start of this season does have a Souness 04/05 (03/04 for a lot of it too) and Bowyer 15/16 sort of feel to it.

Rovers have tweeted saying all adult sizes of the third shirts have now sold out, with another 'small delivery' expected in the next few weeks. They couldn't have got many in at all if they're all gone already.

Seen Skrtel mentioned a few times now but he's having a medical at Atalanta (who are in the Champions League rather than bottom half of the Championship...!).

Yeah, that Rotherham game was our best overall performance at home in the first part of the League One season. Hull at home last season springs to mind apart from that, 2-0 up in 20 mins against an in form team, we won the ball back high and didn't let them have a sniff all game. Would be nice to see it more often though yep.

Doesn't hold back there does he. Resigned by the time the clocks go back is my prediction - probably earlier.

Indeed. Cardiff were there for the taking, they didn't do anything under Solskjaer in the Championship and he was out of a job a couple of months later. Bowyer left Dunn, King and Marshall on the bench that night instead of really going for it, and as you say it just set the tone for what was to come. Fingers crossed for a good display and win tomorrow!