Not enough players there who suit his style. He had a long time at Burnley to build a squad that could play exactly as he wanted - doesn't have that at Everton and doesn't have much cash to change anything. Not sure many people are going to want to take that one on though - looks like a team full of rubber dinghy men (irrespective if they end up scraping through tonight). No mercy from Rovers... brutal stuff.

Not what you'd call a typical second/ressie team tbf. I think the only player out there who isn't in or challenging for the first eleven (at present anyway) is Gamble. The most pleasing thing is how seriously the players are taking the match - everyone clearly wants to impress JDT and get their chance in the first team. No complacency. Lovely to see, having endured some shocking cup performances in the pre-JDT years.

Funny how for all of our goals Harrogate seem to be packing the middle, but we're just passing through them with ease 😆 you love to see it.

Unfortunately for Harrogate we put a pretty strong team out tonight, and there's a few who are clearly out to impress. Seems like it's just a question of whether we take it easy on them in the second half or not.

My overall thoughts on All In... The set looked really cool. Had a big show feel for sure. It was surreal to see such a massive crowd for a non-WWE event, and the production team did a good job of making it seem huge with all the panned crowd shots. MJF/Cole Vs Aussie Open was fine, but didn't have any of the expected dissention between MJF and Cole, which I felt was a missed opportunity to build some more intrigue for the main event. Perry and Hook had a great little match, very entertaining. As expected, Joe was very popular in the UK. Joe is basically the guy that really got me back into wrestling and TNA in 2005. I watched a match between him and AJ Styles and was blown away by how brutal Joe's style was. As it turned out he essentially really was just beating the shit out of AJ, lmao, but it was awesome. Been a big fan ever since. Dude has such a great presence and is a fantastic promo too. A shame that TNA totally dropped the ball with him after 2007, and he never really did much on the WWE main roster either. Although in that instance I will grant them some leeway as he was injured fairly frequently. Good to see him still going strong regardless. Punk got a favourable reaction coming out, but was booed during the match itself. The match was fairly slow but had good ring psychology. I cracked up when Punk was tossed head first through the bottom of the announce desk and then got given the middle finger by Joe, lmao. Joe also gave the 'wanker' sign towards Punk which made me laugh. The Pepsi Plunge didn't look great, but the truth is Punk has never been a great technical wrestler and is pretty poor at that side of things now. He's relying solely on his aura and reputation to get him through most matches. There are a few exceptions - the dog collar match with MJF (and that feud in general) was very good. Post-injury he seems to have lost another step though. The Hangman/Omega/Ibushi vs Bullet Club Gold match was okay but I don't really follow NJPW, so it was tough to get invested. Bucks Vs FTR was good, although below my expectations. The multiple false finishes in Bucks matches always annoys me, but that aside it was solid enough. If AEW felt Cash was going to have serious problems after his arrest I assume they wouldn't have had FTR go over. Stadium Stampede was pretty wild on TV, but I can understand it being difficult to follow and really get into live. I enjoyed it from my living room though. Moxley's hardcore stuff is a bit too excessive for me. He needs to give it a rest, as it feels like he just wants to purposefully mutilate himself at this point, and it's uncomfortable to watch. There's too much of this stuff in general in AEW. It just loses its appeal when it's done so often. It was a pleasant surprise to see Best Friends pull off the win - good for them. AEW OG's who have earned a big win like that. However, for a supposedly elite group the BCC lose way too much. Yuta is essentially a glorified jobber at this point. Women's fatal four way was fine. Mixed feelings about Saraya's family being a part of it, as they are by all accounts not great people, but yeah. I couldn't hear anyone in the crowd singing along to God Save the Queen/King during Storm's entrance though. Might have just been the sound mix, which sometimes struggled to pick up a lot of crowd noise. Obviously a big pop for Saraya winning. Sad for Shida to have such a short reign, but I can understand putting Saraya over in the UK. Hopefully this spells the end of the shitty Outcasts faction. Seek and Destroy for Sting's entrance was awesome, good nostalgia for the old school WCW fans amongst us. Money well spent by TK there. I appreciate that AEW are willing to splurge on licensing songs for big events. Queen and Metallica being the big ones on this show. It just helps the product present as big time. TNA/Impact or various other smaller promotions would have just had rip off versions rather than the real thing. I like that Khan just says fuck it and gets the real songs. Overall it was a really fun match, very enjoyable. It's incredible that Sting still moves around the way he does at his age. What an absolute legend. He's pretty much been my favourite wrestler since I first started watching, and it's awesome to see him still going strong in 2023. Jericho/Ospreay - Pretty good match in the end. Not a MOTY candidate or anything, but they told a good story and worked well together. Big pop for Ospreay as the hometown lad. House of Black paying tribute to Bray Wyatt by bringing out a lantern and placing it on the stage, with the commentators also speaking about Bray's legacy was a classy touch. House of Black were the right choice to pay tribute. The Acclaimed saying the HOB are "a bigger disgrace than Prince Andrew", lmao. Beautiful. Much like Sting, Billy Gunn is in incredible shape for his age. Dude barely looks any different from when he was in WWE. Match itself was okay, nothing special. Big reaction for the title change. House of Black's look is awesome, for the record. Their entrance masks are sick. I would have had HoB retain, especially after the Bray tribute. The story was set up for The Acclaimed to win, though, and there probably wasn't any point stretching it out. They wanted the big pop with the homegrown lads getting the win, and I guess that's fair enough. Awesome entrance for MJF. Ridiculously over the top, but I love it. After all the talk of who was going to turn on who, both men ended up respecting the other. Unexpected. but I actually like what they did here. They subverted expectations and let the show end with a feel good moment. The match itself was pretty good as well. I've seen a lot of disappointment over the main event finish, but I really liked the ending. There's definitely still mileage in the Cole/MJF story, and the fans don't seem to want them to break up. I think it was the right call and executed in a fantastic way. MJF was also hilarious in the post-event media scrum, the guy doesn't give a single fuck and it's superb. Khan looking over every so often like 'wut' when MJF talks about banging rats or something, lmao. MJF as a babyface is totally over with the crowd, no question, but it's such a drastic pivot to his previous character. He's retaining some of his heel characteristics, but some of the babyface stuff flies in the face of everything he built his character up to be before now. He does it incredibly well, but yeah, for me it's a bit jarring and difficult to forget the stuff he's done in-character previously. Evidently the fans are all for it though, so AEW might as well lean into that. Have to mention the CM Punk/Jack perry drama too. Absolute pisstake for this kind of shit to overshadow a show like this. Seriously, why can Punk just not be a dick for one day? Apparently the altercation came about because after a spot where Perry was suplexed on the windscreen of a limo, Perry said "that's real glass, cry me a river" - which was a shot at Punk, who had previously vetoed Perry doing a similar spot on Collision. Just childish bullshit from all involved. At this point Punk is just a toxic headcase. I think he's actually worse since he came back. It's the old saying of if you come across assholes all day, you're probably the asshole. Punk is now suspended again and will miss All Out (as will Perry). It's an absolute joke. The blame ultimately lies with Tony Khan as an owner who is unable to control Punk and is just sitting back and watching Punk poison the locker room for the second time. What's worse is that Punk isn't even that good in the ring nowadays, and he's clearly not a big draw for Collision, which averages about 500k a week. I'm not convinced they'd do significantly less without him. I guess now he's suspended we'll find out. He so desperately wants to be a leader, but he comes across more like a tyrant. Banning people he doesn't like from "his" show, getting in the faces of people with lesser reputations, cutting unscripted promos where he knows the other person won't respond. It's obvious he's carrying an even bigger chip on his shoulder since he returned, and he just wants to surround himself with people who will kiss his ass. He's become everything he claimed to hate back in the day. Truth is though he was probably always like this, he just didn't have the power to show it before, and projected his insecurities onto others by pretending to hate the very thing he really wanted to be. Perry should also have known better than to stir drama on the biggest show of the year - do that shit somewhere else if you have to. It's not professional and is a childish way to deal with things. He's only 26 though, basically still a kid and he's going to make mistakes and bad decisions occasionally. Punk is 44, at this point in his life he has no excuses for behaving in such a juvenile manner. Fact is he's a narcissistic guy with so much money he can do whatever he wants with little fear of reprisal, knowing he has the owner in his back pocket. His punishment for eviscerating the EVPs and embarrassing his boss in a press conference, then getting into a backstage fight with said EVPs, was to get his own show where he can ban whoever he wants from showing up, and have his boss chant "CM Punk" as he returned for his debut. No wonder he feels bulletproof. Khan needs to grow a pair, stop being a mark and negotiate a release for Punk from his contract. It isn't working, and it's never going to work. Punk needs to leave pro wrestling behind. His legacy is already irrevocably stained - just go before it gets any worse.

Jones was top class for us in a higher division, injuries mainly did him in, as well as not having a settled position at Man Utd when he arrived. Wharton certainly the best academy product since then, though. He's basically what we all hoped Buckley would be.

Thanks, I wasn't planning to make these Championship recaps a regular thing, but I quite enjoy writing them and it keeps me up to date with what's going on at various clubs, so I might keep doing them.

I believe the BBC said that was our first win away at Watford since 2001?

God knows how we've done that, JDT works another miracle.

Watford's manager has seemingly told them to really get at us, as it's obvious we have nothing going forward.

He hasn't really been effective since our first game. No slight on him, he's learning to play senior football as the main man every week because the only other striker we've bought has major fitness issues, and Gallagher has similar problems. We've known about this issue for over a year and yet here we are, fourth match of the 22/23 season and being forced to rely on an untested 19 year old to lead the line. We'll do well to get a draw out of this one. We have so little in attack.

Dolan's confidence seems to be shot. He's still showing for the ball but nothing is coming off. Can't fault his effort but the quality isn't there and is hindering our attacking play. If only we had some genuine squad depth, instead of having to hope that one of the youngsters or Gallagher out-of-position might improve things.

From what was posted on here the Millwall fans' ire towards him seems to stem from them crashing out of the playoff spots towards the end of last season and his style of footall. I can understand the first to a degree, but then Mowbray had us falling out of the playoffs or failing to capitalise on good positions to get in multiple times, and still retained majority support at Ewood. It seems a bit harsh considering they have a relatively small budget. As far as his style of football... how often have Millwall been pleasing on the eye over the years?

Birmingham continue their American revolution with another victory, which takes them up to third. Plymouth with their second defeat in a row and no win since opening day, but they've shown enough to suggest they'll compete this year. If they keep up their current levels of performance I don't think they'll go down. Cardiff with their first win of the season at home to Sheffield Wednesday, who have lost four on the spin and appear to be in for a difficult season. If they want to survive they have to pick up points from matches against teams like Cardiff. The fans were apparently chanting for the owner to leave today, so it seems despite promotion last season there are still a lot of internal issues there. Coventry will probably be a little disappointed with a 0-0 home draw against Sunderland. A decent point for Sunderland, but they'll probably be concerned by their lack of goalscoring threat. They only had two shots on target. Mowbray complained about not having a "killer number nine" in his post-match press conference and suggested it wasn't likely one would be coming by the end of the window. Huddersfield got smashed 4-0 by Norwich at home. Nine goals conceded and only two goals scored in their first four matches suggests they're in major trouble. Warnock may be starting to regret agreeing to stay on for another season. Meanwhile Norwich appear to have rectified their issues from last season, making their best start to a campaign since 2002. Ipswich suffered their first defeat of the season, beaten by Leeds in a 4-3 goalfest. It was Leeds' first win of the season. It remains to be seen whether it was the start of Leeds getting to grips with the division and Ipswich having their weaknesses exposed, or whether it was just a bad day at the office for Ipswich. After a couple of defeats on the Trot, Millwall beat Stoke 1-0 at home. Preston continued an impressive start to the season, beating Swansea 2-1 at home. Swansea are still without a win this season, having managed two draws and two defeats. Preston meanwhile are unbeaten, having won three and drawn one, placing them in 5th. They aren't scoring bucketloads, but have only conceded three goals, and a solid defence pays dividends. Leicester with another narrow victory, this time beating Rotherham 2-1 away. They were good value for the win though, and 4 wins out of 4 with only three goals conceded suggests if they find their scoring boots as the season goes on they'll be heading back to the PL without too many problems. Rotherham meanwhile are still without a win, having only picked up one draw in their first four matches, losing the rest. No prizes as to who they picked up their solitary point against. Another season of struggle beckons for them. Southampton picked up their third win of the season with a 2-1 home win against QPR, who have lost three of their opening four matches. Southampton are scoring plenty of goals, but defensively have some work to do if they're going to claim a top two spot. Nonetheless they are unbeaten in their first four matches and it's highly likely are going to be up there challenging. WBA picked up their second win of the season, heaping more misery on Boro with a 4-2 win. Despite a poor start to the season against us, Corberan appears to have WBA going in the right direction. Boro meanwhile are still waiting for their first win, having only managed a single point in their first four games. However, they started last season badly and then rode a wave of momentum into the playoffs. That did coincide with a change of manager, though, so Carrick will be aware results need to improve. Boro have shipped 9 goals in their first four matches and only scored 3, so there are problems there. A win for Rovers tomorrow could take us up to 7th, depending on how many we score. A draw would take us to 13th, a defeat leaving us in 15th with only one win in our first four games and no victories since the opening day.

From what I read the DJ is a wrestling fan and often plays wrestling themes during intermissions, so most definitely a tribute but to be expected. I was surprised to see tributes from David de Gea and Vanessa Hudgens on instagram though. Bray's reach as a performer really was beyond typical wrestling fans. Thinking about it, the guy undoubtedly had a Hall of Fame career in just ten years. Look at everything he did, the storylines he was involved in and the people he worked with. He could be put in the HOF next year and I don't think anybody could argue it was undeserved.

Have to admit it's got to me a bit as well. When I was done with WWE around 2019 the Firefly Funhouse segments are what brought me back - I thought they were fantastic. Bray had a great mind for the cinematic and storytelling elements of the business, he just never quite seemed to have synergy with with wrestling side of things. In his earlier years he was kneecapped by the booking, losing too many feuds to be taken seriously. Towards the end it was more a case of his stories never having a definitive end, and lacking a decent payoff. Nonetheless, he's been a part of so many memorable moments since I started watching again. Often he was the only good thing about a Raw or Smackdown. Probably my favourite parts of his career were his Smackdown run in 2016/2017 with Randy Orton (excluding the awful Wrestlemania match they had) and the earliest days of the Funhouse and the beginnings of the Fiend. It went downhill fairly soon after he started wrestling, but for a brief period of time it was some of the best stuff WWE had put out in years. With both Eddie and Benoit it was a real shock because I'd been watching them in WCW from the first moment I began watching wrestling in 1996, all the way through their WWE tenures. With Bray, he was one of the major players when I got back into WWE around 2014ish. He's been one of my favourites since I got back into wrestling, as he was consistently one of if not the most interesting character on the show. I always looked forward to his segments, as even though sometimes they'd be duds, usually they were memorable and outside the box creatively. I appreciated that. It's such a shame his final run didn't pan out properly. His return was incredible. His new theme song was fantastic, and the original idea seemed to be very unique. Sadly it just didn't work. Whether it was Vince and creative muddying the waters, or Bray just missing the mark, I don't know... but there was so much potential there. I still had faith that Bray would redeem it when he came back. It sucks we'll never see where it could have gone, but more importantly it sucks that a guy who people have nothing but good things to say about is gone.

Funk is obviously a legend and will be missed, but got to a good age considering what he put his body through. Bray Wyatt... that's horrible. Sounds like he has something similar to Keith Lee insofar as COVID causing heart issues. Absolutely gutting. Say what you will about him, but he is one of if not the most creative mind involved in wrestling in the last decade. He's been part of a lot of memorable moments.

The obvious reason is that we need him now, but also there can be a big difference in a year once players get to Batth's age - especially if they aren't playing regularly. Mulgrew's legs were gone by the time we started our first Championship season, having still looked okay at the end of the League 1 season. Batth may still remain on the shortlist as a potential option if we don't sign him and he's released on a free next year, but we may be operating under entirely new circumstances by then.

Indeed, we saw it here with Mowbray here as well. There was always a player able to bring a spark or a goal out of very little. Dack primarily, but also Armstrong and later on BBD. Current Dack probably isn't going to be that player for Sunderland, and I'm not sure they have any others who can consistently step up in that role. The younger Bellingham is their best bet, but it's a lot of pressure on a 17 year old to consistently deliver in that fashion.

What exactly are the "mistakes" that were made by Greenwood, that seemingly had nothing to do with the leaked audio and pictures, that still meant United felt he couldn't continue at the club? Pretty confusing statement.

Thanks for the insights. I tend not to jump straight to blaming fans in these instances, even if from the outside it seems unreasonable, as we've seen ourselves that other fans are often unaware of other moving parts beneath the surface.

You'd think over time they'd get better at using VAR, but if anything they seem to somehow be getting worse. I don't know if it's because they're being asked to utilise it in more complex ways or if the officials chosen are just poor at what they do, but it's getting silly now. When VAR was initially introduced it was for "clear and obvious errors". Basically something that would be outrageous if not picked up on. In my mind that was something like Spurs phantom goal against United years ago, or Lampard's phantom goal against Germany - although goal line technology negates the need for VAR in that instance anyway. Maybe something like a stamp that had been missed by the on-pitch officials, or an obvious foul that should be a penalty. Note that word obvious, for example a player completely clearing out another player without getting a touch on the ball. Instead it's being used for contentious infractions that are a matter of opinion and often don't constitute what I would consider a "clear and obvious error" by the official, and that's where I think it's gone wrong.

What's the craic with Millwall fans and Rowett? I don't really follow them so not sure why the fans would already be turning against him like that. I thought he was doing alright there. They've only got one point less than us so far, and we're only three games into the season.

The abysmal standard of refereeing, massively aiding Spain's excessive use of the dark arts, made it a frustrating final to watch. With that said, England didn't look like scoring the entire game really. Just that one shot which hit the bar. Otherwise the attacking standard was very poor, although their goal aside Spain were no better. They just had that one clinical moment, and we had none. Not sure if the occasion got to our attackers, but they looked a shadow of what we've seen over the past couple of years.

Is it really a "clear and obvious error" though ? This is where I disagree with VAR usage. If it needs the level of discussion that was had for this penalty, it isn't clear and obvious, and VAR shouldn't be flagging it. Great save for the pen. Our attackers need to raise their game for the last 20 minutes, they haven't been at it today.