DE.

I think Ekitike is a decent signing, but they absolutely didn't need Isak. They should have cut off that pursuit the moment he downed tools and went on strike. It's not like £125m was a cut-price deal. Salah hasn't been great but he's still their top scorer and joint-top assists so far this season (granted that's only 2, but still), so 🤷‍♂️ he's a 33 year old right winger - if they're still relying on him to drive everything then they only have themselves to blame after the amount of money they've spent. I actually thought Salah was one of the only Liverpool players to come out of the Forest game with any credit. There are a lot of players ahead of him in terms of needing to be criticised. he's obviously declining as any player begins to at that age, but I don't think he's even close to being their main issue.

They haven't had much to celebrate this season tbf. Every game in the Championship this weekend had a player scoring their first of the season, with the exception of Ipswich vs Wrexham in which nobody scored. That can't have happened too often.

Can't fault the team for the effort they're putting in most weeks, they look like they're getting comfortable with each other and the recent system that's been adopted. Staying up or even finishing mid-table won't be an achievement based on where we have been in the recent past, but considering the amount of Championship experience that's been let go and replaced with cheap alternatives it would be an achievement for the manager and players. The league is wide open this season, I think more than it has been in a really long time, so it's a shame we chose now to cut everything back - even more so than previously. We definitely could have been up there with a genuine shot of a playoff position if we had owners with even the slightest inclination towards being ambitious.

Battling performance from the boys, lovely to see us finally stand up and be counted in a derby game. I don't usually comment on the ref, but he had a shocker and Preston should have seen at least one red tonight. Impressed with Morishita, and it's always good to have your main striker finding the back of the net - doesn't matter if they are 30 yard screamers or close-range finishes, they all count and will only increase AG's confidence. Great start to the weekend.

What a strange hill to die on. United fans rate Scholes as a top class player. He was. What else needs to be said? If Wharton has a career half as good as Scholes he'll have done bloody well for himself.

The other issue with VAR is that it makes complaints a lot more magnified - especially if the decision appears to be wrong. Pre-VAR there was always plausible deniability for the officials. It's easy to miss something if your view was obstructed, there was a crowd of players, you didn't have the best view of the incident, and so on. You'd still get comments of "how could a ref, linesman and fourth official miss THAT?" but there is some latitude for explaining decisions which appeared to be or were incorrect. When you've got multiple angles in slow motion and minutes to analyse them then what excuse is there? Mistakes simply cannot happen in that situation, because it's either incompetence from multiple officials or a genuine intent from multiple officials to fail to uphold the laws of the game. There aren't really any other feasible explanations that can be given. It starts to break down into "interpretation" and at that point we aren't really much further from where we started. You loop back to the "it should only be used for clear and obvious errors" argument, and everyone will have their own view of what that constitutes. Most memories I have of people being genuinely incensed by decisions come from two main problems - goals that should have stood but didn't (Lampard's goal against Germany, for example) and clear offsides. Hawkeye has already solved problem one, and I can't believe technology doesn't exist that could effectively eliminate problem two without the need for VAR. I sometimes think VAR is the proverbial sledgehammer being used to crack open a nut. There are some other situations I can think of outside of the above two - Henry's handball goal for France against the Irish, Maradona's "hand of God", some reckless tackles/assaults that should have seen red but were missed - but how often do such egregious situations actually occur? Do they happen enough to justify VAR as a comprehensive solution? Football clubs would probably say so, to be fair. At the highest levels especially the key factor is money and if VAR means that an unjust decision doesn't cost you points and potential relegation then that would probably be considered worth the sacrifice from a financial point of view, spectacle of the game be damned. For fans though, I'm not so sure. Feels like I'm starting to argue against myself now so I'll stop before I develop a split personality, but it's certainly an interesting topic with all sorts of valid arguments for and against.

It's difficult to define clear and obvious errors, as everyone will have their own opinion on what is clear and obvious. I think VAR is an all or nothing kind of thing - either it is used to implement the laws of the game down to the most minute detail, or it just isn't used at all. Some kind of vague middle ground is just asking for trouble and discontent. On balance I'd probably be rid of it as I think judging everything on the smallest of details goes against the spirit of the game. Football shouldn't be broken down with mathematical precision, as imo that ruins the spectacle and what makes it such a compelling sport to follow. Some of the greatest moments of lore in the game come from refereeing mistakes, good and bad. It's part of what fuels discussions and debates. Hawkeye is enough for me. If they could implement something else for blatant offsides as well, then I'd be fine with just having those as technological assistance.

A shame someone like Allardyce, who presumably has plenty in his bank account by this point, won't take on these people in court (if we assume legal threats were issued in this case). You'd imagine there would be some interesting things discussed. I suppose it was probably the podcast company who have backed down though, rather than Allardyce himself.

Swansea sack Sheehan. They're a point ahead of us, albeit with us having a game in hand.

Huh, you're right, I had no idea he was on the books in the early 00s. With that said, he apparently only played in one league cup game, so... technically his only notable contribution to our history is still being part of the relegation side of 16/17.

Rover the Dog would have been a better shout than Greer. The bloke only ever played in 4 matches that we actually won. Legendarily shit. Indeed, although back then we had a lot more recent legends to call upon. Who has been a real 'legend' at the club in the last 15 years? Nelsen, Samba and Dunn would probably be the only ones who'd come close to making that list for me. I don't consider any player from the Venky era a legend, although I appreciate we've had a few cult hero types like Rhodes and Dack.

I knew he played for us, but was stunned to see it was for three seasons. I thought he'd just been here for one, two at most. Including a player in Greer whose only contribution to our history is being a part of the team that got relegated to League 1 is frankly taking the piss. Shameful to even ask him to line up in a "legends" team. I can only assume they had to really scrape the barrel to fill the slots. Honestly I'm shocked Rudy didn't include himself in the team.

Is that a positive or a negative?

The criteria for "legend" appears to be "played for us at least a handful of times in any capacity, irrespective of talent or success".

This does assume competency and common sense though, which may not be in especially high supply at Ewood these days.

Hmm, might have been more prudent to call it a Classic Rovers XI or something. Not as marketable but closer to the truth. I mean, granted, who could forget Gordon Greer helping to steer us into League 1 in his only season at the club? Fond memories of a true club legend there. Kilgallon's average of 20 games a season as we slowly got worse in each of his three seasons here, definitely the stuff of legend. Tommy Spurr's classic 6 or 7/10 steady performances every match, unforgettable. I appreciate it would be impossible to get a "legend" in every position, but that's arguably not even 50% overall that would come close to the basic definition.

There were warning signs last season with Salah, but he still scored 29 goals and had 18 assists (PL only, a few more in other comps) so you can understand the logic in giving him an extension. Players in their early 30s can decline pretty fast, though, so always a bit of a risk.

Footballers, the very definition of loyalty.

They weren't a fluke, they were just played in fortunate circumstances. Generally such things probably even themselves out over the course of a season though (the Ipswich game, for example, turned out to be an unfortunate circumstance for us where we probably would have won), so the only thing anyone should be focused on is where we are in the table right now and how likely it is that our form will improve versus the teams around us in the coming months.

Boro fans are seemingly up for Mowbray returning. There was one bloke who claimed Mowbray wasn't in good health and so wouldn't be possible, but not sure how reliable that info was. Massive egg on the face of Knapper and Norwich's hierarchy. They were all in on Manning, but there's only so many defeats before the position becomes untenable.

Yeah this is much better than being in the playoffs.

Most predictable result of the weekend - nay, the season. "This is what you could have had" ...

What did that help us achieve exactly, and how does it refute anything in my post?

Mmm... Don't agree with booing him but he basically gave us one full season of decent performances split across two halves of separate campaigns, otherwise he was generally poor and not even close to being worth what we paid for him. Not that the fee is his fault, but still.

Scoring a second has maybe made Derby a bit complacent. I don't think they've had a shot this half. Will be interesting to see if they continue to sit back and take the chance that we will fail to equalise.