It depends where we are in the league come January. If we've managed to be in and around the top 6 - you might as well hang on to him until summer and hope he can get us promoted. If we're in the top 6 in January and sell Armstrong, you can kiss goodbye to any promotions hope. If we're bobbing around in mid-table and going nowhere, it's a different question if he's only got 18 months left on his contract.

Agreed. He's talking like a complete outsider with no connection with the club.

The issue with Whatmore is that he's injury prone. Far more so than Ayala.

You remember correctly. 5-1 up inside 24 minutes. There can't have been many Premier League games with 6 goals in the opening 24 minutes.

I remember seeing an interview with Harvey Elliot and he was referring to us as 'Rovers'. It's not a difficult thing to understand the fans. Not sure why our CEO doesn't grasp the concept.

"Goalscorers keep you in jobs, don't they? They keep managers in jobs, they keep the fans happy and Blackburn had another decent Geordie striker when they won the Premier League way back, didn't they? "If he can get anywhere near him he'd have had a decent career." Makes me cringe when someone at the club refers to Rovers as 'Blackburn'.

What a great player Ripley was. I'm not sure we'll see many players like him ever again as the game moves away from the old fashioned wingers. Also great to see Sellars in a Rovers shirt as this was just a little bit before I started watching football. I always remembered him being at Newcastle as a kid, but he looked a lovely footballer on this video.

I remember sitting in the Riverside in 1996 with my dad when the bloke in front jumped up to celebrate when Batty put them 1-0 up. It was the first point we realised he was a Newcastle fan. A couple of Fenton goals later and the bloke was in tears ?

31 league starts in the last 5 years - I'd not be impressed if we signed him.

I seem to think it was the same guy who has the third best goals per minute ratio in Champions League history at a goal every 104 minutes. Bettered only by Messi (102 minutes) and Mario Gomez (102 minutes). Better than Van Nistelrooy (109 minutes), Lewandowski and Ronaldo (114 minutes). https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54624624 Reckon he will be alright if he starts to do it at a higher level.

And by always, you mean just in that one game ?

Fairly recent compared to a lot of the stuff being shared on here, but still a good memory. We went 3-0 up away and it finished 3-3 and we went through on away goals. Cracking goals from Thompson and Duff. Thompson was a top player, very unfortunate with injuries. I'm not sure who it is that plays the path through for Duff's goal (due to the poor quality of the picture), but I suspect it's Dunn or Tugay. Wonderful pass.

Sometimes skim-reading threads isn't a good idea. For one horrible minute there....

Not at all. Whilst the 'R' rate has been reported to be below 1 in the UK now, it's a well known fact that the 'R' rate is around 30 at Brockhall.

You're not easily pleased Sparks. 18 goals and 10 assists in 18/19. Admittedly had a run of 6 games without a goal or assist in Feb/March - but followed that up with 4 goals and 2 assists in the 9 games after that.

What's Hodgson's link to Luton?

Almost worthy of its own thread on the main board. Or at least a Waggott thread.

Was that cup game at Luton Samba's debut? I'm sure I remember him coming on and thinking he was just going to be a clumsy lump. What a top signing he turned out to be.

35 in 11 games - 3.18 goals per game.

I wouldn't exactly call Wijnaldum a tackler though. According to the Premier League website: Played 187 Tackles 205 Tackle success 67% Compared to Rothwell last season Starts 13 (+ 20 sub appearances) (1747 minutes on the pitch) Tackles 37 Tackle success 76% So Rothwell actually attempts and wins more tackles than Wijnaldum.

Liverpool played with Henderson and Wijnaldum in midfield against City - with Jota, Firmino, Salah and Mane in front of them. I'm not saying we have the same standard of players as those 6, but at the same time, we're not up against Man City.

I remember thinking exactly the same. Filan and Kelly were both very good keepers. Signing Friedel seemed like absolute madness. One of the best signings we ever made. I do also remember being gutted that we weren't signing Berkovic permanently and went for Tugay instead. Souness obviously a more canny spotter of a player than myself. (I'll forget about Grabbi).

That's Travis' job.

Not a problem now though. There's only Liverpool, City and Brentford scored more league goals than Rovers in 2020. Just need to stop being so porous at the back.

Kaminski Nyambe Lenihan Ayala Douglas Rothwell Travis Elliot Dack Brereton Armstrong Maybe Johnson over Rothwell if we are against a better side.