Diaz is going to make 20 before Christmas. Looking good for anyone who lumped on the early season odds!

That hasn't been much positive to happen to the club in the past decade so you surely can't be surprised at that? People who have posted 'positive' news (including yourself regarding Derek Shaw sorting the club out a few years ago) have ultimately been shown to be wide of the mark. We had numerous people on here declare in the summer that Venky's had seen the light and Mowbray would 100% be gone. Yet here he remains. Now, that isn't to say that this time you aren't right - the law of averages dictates eventually something positive will happen at the club structurally - but to act like it's unreasonable for people to be wary of positive news after the past ten years of Venky rule is nonsense. What you've given most of us here is bones with absolutely no meat. Considering how often people who claim to have an 'inside track' to the club are wrong I can't blame you for being vague, but to pretend what you're saying isn't divisive and speculative is disingenous to say the least. With all of that said I really hope this time you, Rev and everyone else who still believes in Venky's ability to do anything useful for this club are finally proven correct. Ten years and counting.

Honestly I wouldn't bother watching Extreme Rules unless you want something on in the background whilst you're doing something else. It is not worth investing any time into. In a lot of ways the results of the PPV were pointless due to the upcoming draft anyway. Speaking of the draft, remember when it actually used to be fun and interesting? How WWE now manage to get something as simple as a draft wrong and make that confusing and boring is beyond me. It really isn't that difficult. I can remember last time they had 'action rooms' with fake Fox and USA execs and it was just awful. I liked when they just used to announce draft picks on stage. I feel like Reigns is becoming increasingly overexposed at this point. The 'head of the Table' gimmick was great when it first started, but now it's on repeat every episode. It's the same thing over and over again. They've added a bit of a wrinkle with the Reigns/Heyman/Lesnar triangle but by and large Roman's character is already starting to feel a bit stale. It's a shame because it isn't Roman's fault. He's doing a solid job, he just isn't being given anything fresh to sink his teeth into. I don't really know what to say about Bron Breakker. What exactly was wrong with Rex Steiner? I'm guessing that for Vince the Steiner name has too strong of a link with WCW so it had to go. Even though WWE won the war it feels like WCW has been living in Vince's head rent-free ever since 2001. He just can't let it go. I haven't watched NXT in a really long time - it might be over a year at this point. I can't imagine NXT 2.0 is an improvement so I'll just stick to Dynamite, Rampage and Smackdown.

Extreme Rules... a PPV billed for 'extreme' stipulations, that this year had no stipulations and nothing 'extreme' until the main event. Next year if this is the direction they're going with the PPV they may as well just call it 'Normal Rules'. That aside I'm finding it increasingly hard to watch WWE nowadays - even the PPVs. Their wrestling style is just so boring to me compared to AEW. But anyway... The Usos Vs the Street Profits was a good match. The outcome was obvious but still a fun encounter. Have to say overall I find the Profits promos more cringe than funny, but entirely possible that's caused by WWE creative. It was nice that Bliss dropped the supernatural bullshit for the match with Charlotte, and it was a pretty good contest. Not sure what that white tablet in Bliss' mouth was at the end? I think it was supposed to make her froth/drool but didn't seem to work as intended. Jeff Hardy was mega over despite WWE largely burying him for whatever reason over the past year or so. The match itself didn't do anything for me but there was technically nothing wrong with it. Lynch and Belair was OK, although the decision to turn Lynch heel is still a strange one for me. I know it was her choice so not blaming WWE for that one, but I would have waited a few months before pulling that trigger. Reigns/Balor... you know, it was a solid match until the ending, which was just embarrassing in my view. The 'resurrection' was just so stupid, and then for the ropes to break for no reason and the fearsome demon to suddenly become powerless due to a leg injury? Stupidity on a scale only WWE can reach. If they had shown the Usos or Heyman fiddling with the ropes beforehand I'd say at least there was some thought put into the ending, as dumb as it was, but are we supposed to believe the ropes broke due to Finn's weight? The guy is half the size of most of the roster ffs. The ending was creative and could have been OK with some major tweaks. As it is though it just reminded me of a less-idiotic-but-still-brainless version of the HIAC Fiend/Rollins finish. It was obvious Roman was going over as he's due to face Lesnar in Saudi Arabia, and they did protect Balor's Demon persona to some degree... but this idea needed more time to marinate. It was put out half-baked and came across as ridiculous to me.

I'd take a point here. A win would really make a statement though.

No, I was mainly trying to understand your thought process. My view is that Mowbray is more the culprit for our poor runs of form than our squad dynamic, but maybe you're right and the change in our team will mark a change in the manager's behaviour too. Time will tell.

Are you suggesting that the situation Mowbray currently finds himself in is similar to the situation he was in with WBA back in 2007/2008? An interesting take if so, but I can't imagine there are that many similarities as WBA had a pretty expensive squad for that era. I can't imagine they were having to take too many chances on youngsters stepping up, but I could be wrong as I will admit I don't know a great deal about WBA from that era. If you weren't making a comparison between their situation then and ours now then I'm not sure how relevant the comparison is as it was well over 10 years ago! Coyle was successful around that time too, after all. As for there being no evidence for his teams having death spirals - I mean if you ignore his Championship tenure with us then sure, but it seems like a crucial piece of information to discard. For me his record with us over the past few years holds far more weight than his record with WBA over a decade ago, or any other teams he managed prior to us. Regardless of that I genuinely hope you are right and that this season things change for the better. I'd much rather your optimistic prediction proves correct and my pessimistic prediction proves completely wrong.

I know what you mean. Even towards the end of his WWE run there were bumps Danielson took that made me cringe. Knowing his history with head and neck injuries it's hard not to. At this point it seems clear that Danielson doesn't want to tame that beast inside him. Regardless of everything that's happened he still wants to be the American Dragon. I loved the match against Omega on Dynamite but some of those spots did concern me. The V-Trigger always looks rough to take to be honest, but that running one near the end... that looked really rough to take. The current generation of AEW/NJPW stars won't die early from drink/drugs like many of the old WWE/WCW legends, but I do wonder how mobile they'll be by the time they get to their 50s and 60s. These guys are taking a lot of punishment, very often, and there are far too many spots focused on the head/neck for my liking. They are the most visually impressive and look the most devastating, but still... taking those bumps repeatedly can't be good long-term.

Not sure how you've read this as me not giving him credit when I literally say in the quoted post it would be silly not to give him praise for the start of the season. As for why, again, reasons are stated as past history. If people want to consign his past record to the bin and pretend it hasn't happened that's fine, but fool me once, etc.

I don't expect this form to continue, as there is too much historical evidence to suggest Mowbray will ultimately screw it up, but it seems silly to fail to give him praise for the way we've started the season. You end up in territory where if we win the manager is 'lucky' and if we lose it's all his fault. Not exactly a balanced opinion to have.

Out of curiosity I took a look at average attendences during this period: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/blackburn-rovers/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/164 Not sure on the veracity of these stats, but if true then the 09/10 season actually saw the highest average attendence at Ewood since the 02/03 campaign, suggesting Sam's football wasn't bad enough to stop people coming to watch. The drop off after 11/12 is absolutely brutal.

I've just read that Farke was apparently very recently handed a 4 year contract extension, so he probably won't be going anywhere any time soon!

I wonder if Farke will last the season at Norwich? As it stands they're looking at a second PL season in three years where they are the whipping boys of the division. Other promoted sides have proven it doesn't have to be that way. Sometimes you need to be ruthless to progress, and if I was a Norwich supporter I'd be wondering at this point if Farke's ceiling is the Championship.

I think he should focus more on his own team failing to score from open play and skying a penalty than a 50/50 decision tbh. It came across as desperate, similar to his rant about Klopp earlier on the week.

The way Solksjser has been lashing out recently suggests a manager under pressure, despite United having an overall decent start to the league campaign.

Posts that contain bickering and insults towards other members are generally hidden as standard. The original post was hidden and all subsequent posts related to it were hidden. Nothing to do with censorship, collateral damage simply occurs when members respond to inflammatory posts that are later hidden.

Incredible result. Well done to Mowbray and the team. Not often a McCarthy team gets demolished like that, have to imagine he'll be furious! The more points and GD we can accrue during the upward swing the better.

I think there are a couple of similar type games, but when they experimented CM/FM on consoles back in the day the uptake was poor. Better on portable consoles like the PSP/Vita but still tiny sales compared to PC. Personally for me FM is PC or nothing. Can't imagine playing it on a console unless I could plug a mouse and keyboard in, at which point I might as well just be playing it on PC. I haven't bought an FM since FM18 due to the time sink issue though.

Poor performance, but at this level you can get away with it fairly regularly if you have enough quality in the first eleven. Take the point and move on.

I agree that the league position is the most important factor, but the 2/17 run certainly adds meat to the bones and emphasises one of Mowbray's key weaknesses - his inability to stop us descending into increasingly awful runs of form.

Mowbray himself said during the 2/17 debacle that any other manager would have been sacked for such a poor run of form, so I don't think highlighting it is strange at all - especially when the manager has a habit of taking us into death spirals which completely wreck our ambitions.

Let's see what happens when the weather turns cold.

Ipswich fans seem to think so. I think that's what Sky Sports were getting at with their questioning, and why Cook got so defensive over it. I haven't followed Cook's career closely enough to say whether or not he's been affected by the change in assistant or not, but it's one major difference that can be pointed to when comparing his record at other clubs. I have to admit I thought Cook would be a good appointment for Ipswich, but something is clearly not right there. Assistant manager aside I think Cook tried to change too much too quickly. His assessment that practically the entire Ipswich squad were failures and needed to be moved on was flawed, imo. I believe that the club is still reeling from the scale and speed of the change implemented. He's almost put 11 strangers on the pitch and asked them to work as a team. If the aim for this season was transition and next season a promotion challenge then it might be acceptable, but I don't think that is the plan and the fans definitely don't see that as the plan. They wanted a promotion push this season, and it's already looking very unlikely that it's going to materialise.

I'd say the fans are on their way to turning. They aren't seeing much difference between Cook and Lambert. There's already booing at Portman Road and the main fans forum is turning distinctly more negative as each game passes. The local journos are trying to remain neutral but after yesterday they really had no choice but to pile on as well. Sky Sports were actually the ones that went in hardest yesterday, which got Cook riled up. Not sure what he was expecting after a 5-2 home defeat in all honesty. All very Lambert-esque.

When we were in the PL under the likes of Souness, Hughes and Allardyce we never wrote off games against big teams at home. We made them fight for any and every point taken away from Ewood Park and I'm sure no big club fancied facing us at Ewood. We shouldn't fear any team in this league on our own turf. Unfortunately the attitude we require to achieve this kind of mentality comes from the top, and we have a manager who makes it seem like we should be thankful to be in the presence of the bigger teams, let alone take the game to them.