I think West Brom and Leeds will take some stopping for the top 2. Expect Forest and Bristol City to be in the play offs or very close. Other than that the other 2-3 slots could be anyone's. Preston will be contenders because they are hard to beat and consistent, albeit will struggle if injuries bite. I hope we are becoming harder to beat and more consistent ourselves but not entirely convinced by that yet.

Any Chief Executive worth his salt would have thoughts on rebuilding the Riverside. For several reasons: 1) Like the Riverside or not it is outdated and poor in comparison to the majority of Premier League/Championship facilities these days. Grounds with worse facilities e.g. Brentford and Luton, are being knocked down in the near future. The lack of a covered concourse, adequate disabled facilities and obstructed views all need addressing. 2) In an era of Ffp issues it is silly to have a side stand with absolutely no facilities to generate non matchday income. Office space, conference, hospitality, retail, hotel whatever is most appropriate any could be incorporated into a new stand and used to generate income to offset against losses. An investment of say £4-5 million in a new stand over the next 10 years could comfortably recoup the investment. 3) This isn't an issue in terms of attendances - the argument from some will be that we don't need a new stand because we don't need the capacity - Waggott seems to get that e.g. at the Shareholders Meeting last week he said any new Riverside stand would not add to the capacity of the ground as 30,000 is adequate and I agree. Nonetheless the facility needs improving. 4) I think Waggott has some good ideas but seeing those come to fruition is another matter. The owners have rarely shown interest in significant capital investment in facilities other than basic maintenance costs so it might take a long time or a change of heart from them to ever see this happen. Loads of clubs have build new grounds or stands and have moved home fans to allow that to happen without long term damage to crowds. It just has to be done sensibly.

Last season we turned up at Reading on a Tuesday night with a 2nd string side as Mowbray wanted to focus on the Saturday game v Middlesbrough. Reading were there for the taking yet registered something like their 3rd win in 20 odd because we approached it in a cavalier manner. We also lost v Middlesbrough. I'd like us to go with our best team, whatever that is , and try to beat them. We won't get near the top six aiming for a draw at Reading

The trouble with comparing our gates to those in the 80s is it is setting the bar as low as it can go in terms of comparisons. The 80s were a low point in 100+years of football history in this country, not just for Rovers but for pretty much all clubs. Hooliganism, dilapidated grounds, all sorts of other things, contributed to plummeting numbers going to matches. Football has moved on. Virtually everyone, even ourselves, are getting bigger gates now than the 80s. There has been a significant growth in English football over the last 20 years even in the 2nd division. I fear that using our 80s attendances as a benchmark is inappropriate. Man Utd had sub 30000 gates in that era, so should they be happy with anything above that? We need to do better numbers wise. There has been a failure on Rovers part to build on the promotion campaign and whatever the ins and outs of it we are now at less than Bowyer era levels of home fans watching games. My opinion is that decisions made at Ewood have contributed to that. A succession of unpopular and questionable ticketing decisions over several years. This includes season ticket holding fans in 3 stands being forcibly relocated without consultation. I spend a lot of time on twitter and forums and I can see efforts being made elsewhere to grow and improve. Anyone going to Reading on Saturday have a look to the left of the away end. That area was previously empty and given to large away followings. Reading have now made it for home fans and restrict away followings to half the stand. Home fans are encouraged to go in this new area, right next to away fans, and sing, shout, wave flags. Not my cup of tea but it is an effort to improve atmosphere. What are we doing? The opposite - closing areas, rubbing hands large away followings and maximising distances in the ground to make life easier for staff on matchday. The amounts of money made by sticking a few quid on tickets are inconsequential in Ffp matters when we are sending 7 million to Nottingham for Ben Brereton.

I don't agree. Pretty much every club I've visited in the last few years has all of those things. The matchday experience at Ewood is awful. Partly because it is only a third full but also because there is very little imagination or idea as to how to improve it. Complete absence of a singing/flag waving section after the club decided to shut it down last year.

As we've seen with the nonsensical attendance and ticket sales figures thrown about by Waggott over the last 12 months I expect whatever the true number of bums on seats over the course of a season he'll manage to massage the numbers and somehow manage to ensure the numbers don't cast his decisions into the spotlight. I suspect he is being judged on income and losses so if his plans come to fruition he'll probably still be able to point towards an improvement, however slight, on that front at his meeting with the owners. Obviously this overlooks the big problems with numbers through the turnstiles and the quite staggering reality that he is overseeing a decline in numbers even on what we were getting under Kean and Bowyer not long ago. The trajectory across the Championship has been an upward curve in numbers through turnstiles, even when you look at small clubs like Barnsley or Huddersfield who 6-7 years ago were getting less on than us but are now ahead of us. We seem to be bucking the trend. Where does responsibility lie? With vague generalisations like 'people are doing other things' or 'the weather isn't nice' or alternatively with significant errors made and continuing to be made by the club and those running it who have other priorities than getting the ground as full as possible, who simply don't understand their target audience and are completely on the wrong page with pricing and falling well short of rivals in terms of promotional activities and pushing this forward. I think only Hull can come close to us in terms of numbers dropping off and they're another lot who have antagonised their own fans through ridiculous pricing, shutting stands and annoying people. The club needs to wake up and quickly. We will never have a large dormant support, that's life, but we simply cannot afford to allow already bottom end gates diminish and see further people drop off. I believe we're at the stage where we are starting to eat into the core through charging silly prices and people are going to get fed up with it. Add to that dull football and dreadful atmosphere and people will be put off. Trouble is that all that will happen is those at the club will use this as 'evidence' to try and diminsh expectations and enhance rivals.

If their motivation was to pass the club on to the most suitable owner possible and be rid of a club they never really wanted nor had any interest in then they could have paid off debts accumulated under their ownership and handed it over for £1 with a promise that the £40 million be invested into the club for players and improvements a la Steve Morgan at Wolves. Some people like to make excuses for the Trust by claiming nobody wanted to buy us. If true perhaps then they could have handed it over for less. It wasnt their club to make money from after all.

If we ever get back to the Premier League we would have to take steps to provide more and better disabled facilities as the rules there are now quite strict. You have to provide a certain percentage of capacity to disabled supporters whether the demand is there or not. In the Championship the rules are more relaxed. So offering 10 spaces at the front of the Riverside in the pouring rain barely above pitch level wouldnt be acceptable. These days grounds are built with gaps for wheelchair areas in the stands. Of course a new Riverside would be ideal to address that but it wouldnt provide the away disabled facilities required. I'm also surprised one or two disabled away fans aren't complaining that they are being segregated from the rest of their support because of Waggott's policy of putting smaller away followings upstairs whilst disabled fans have to go and sit on their own downstairs. Same goes for our media facilities which would almost certainly have to be overhauled to comply with the complex requirements of today.

At a club with Sheffield Wednesday's recent history he'll be right at home. Wonder if he'll be getting a cab from that company that don't exist but have enough money to sponsor Hillsborough?

I've tried my best but have been unable to find anything about this Sharon Brittan, her business background or wealth. Quite where she's got the tens of millions needed to settle Bolton's debts and rebuild them over a number of years is a mystery. Interestingly there appears to be nothing on this subject on the Bolton News at any point since they were linked with a takeover. You'd think after what happened with Anderson that there would be an analysis of the new owners backgrounds. There appears to be a consortium of sorts but none of those people seem to have football club owner levels of cash. Nonetheless they got the deal done, appointed a decent manager and assistant for their position. Hill is ideal for a club struggling in Leagues One and Two and good at unearthing talent on a budget. I wouldn't be surprised if they survive this season. Players like Daryl Murphy and Liam Bridcutt are potentially very good additions for a side at the bottom of the 3rd division.

We did similar last season. Early doors we ground out a few narrow away wins e.g. Bolton and Hull but then those were mixed up with horror shows at Bristol City, Swansea etc. My view is that we can haul ourselves to those narrow wins when the opposition aren't up to much and aren't really firing. But when we come up against sides that have goals in their locker who will put us under pressure with pace, power and trickery we have no answer to it. Nothing has changed on that front because it is less a personnel issue and more a coaching and tactics issue. The individual errors excuse is a kop out to deflect blame away from inadequate tactics. West Brom away - Going 1-0 up was arguably the worst thing to happen because our game plan went out the window and we didn't really know how to approach the game from there on, and most importantly West Brom had to immediately apply serious pressure which we crumbled under. Same story at Brentford, Bristol City, Swansea last season. Under this manager our chances of success away from home are increased the longer the game is 0-0. We go ahead and we lose our heads against the decent sides.

Why was Nyambe given a new contract only a few months ago then? As far as I'm concerned there has to be some collective responsibility and blame for the goals against rather than just pointing at individual errors. Such errors tend to be more common in the teams that are poorly coached or have players not good enough.

Controversial view but IF we were to change our badge, then I wouldnt want us to go down the route of a boring circular clip art style thing. I'd either like a refurbishment of our current badge - bolder, brighter, less cluttered but keeping the same layout and shape. Alternatively I'd like us to adopt a variant of the town coat of arms worn in the 1960 Cup final, but with a modern twist. I've always liked the Blackburn Rugby Club badge as it is a twist on the town arms and think something similar would be nice as a Rovers badge. Ticks a lot of boxes. Red rose, Blackburn arms with the water and bees, blue and white badge. Simple yet effective. Could be used as a modern badge but very much traditional. Just need to add the Latin motto and 1875 onto the bottom of it and it would look decent.

Start of the season I'd have shook hands on safety and I've seen nothing to change that. I think we are capable of midtable and may well end up there but could easily get sucked into the relegation pack. Too many issues and inconsistency to expect any more. A shame because clubs with lesser resources are going to be up there which shows it can be done. Fortunately we aren't consistently poor and we can grind out results particularly at home which should see us to 50 points

Spot on. Unfortunately some have an agenda to try and reduce expectations and absolve the manager and players of any pressure or expectations. The manager himself helps create that mentality by enhancing the size, stature and calibre of the opposition with nonsense about their "passionate crowds" etc. If you want to go anywhere you aim and try to win every game and don't set out for a point or write games off because the are 'tough'. As you point out, there's a case for every fixture being tough in one form or another. Every away game, every recent Premier League team etc. Like being happy with a draw from every away game but if you only pick up 23 away points all season there's little room for error in the home games.

Doesn't play for the right club.

I admit I'm not the most optimistic person and I tend to have high expectations and am often critical of Rovers. But that criticism is done behind.closed doors either at home, to friends who support Rovers or on here to fellow Rovers fans. I'll never criticise the club to fans of other clubs and will never put Rovers down or big up rival clubs in the presence of others. As I've said before, a line is crossed in my mind when the manager and spokesman for Blackburn Rovers is going on the website and all over the media saying things like: We shouldn't be 'intimidated' by West Brom's 'passionate crowd' Middlesbrough and Stoke are 'huge clubs' that we are looking forward to 'competing' with Bristol City sell out every week and get 30,000 on watching roaring their team on. All those things are not only incorrect but needless and self-deprecating. I don't know what he is trying to achieve by lavishing false praise or statuses on run of the mill 2nd division sides no bigger or better than us but I don't want to see it in public. Anyone would think we were Burton Albion or Yeovil having a brief foray into the 2nd division way beyond any expectations. Don't see Harris coming out with tripe about West Brom's passionate crowds. Just an honest assessment that it's a tough game.

Mowbray said he wanted more experience and signed one with less. If you don't want people to pick up on those sort of inconsistencies then don't say those things.

No, just don't enjoy a weekly dose of drivel usually around how good, well supported, formidable the opposition are. I expect more self respect.

They've gone to West Brom and got results, without building Albion up into something special. Mowbray is now making out to be some monumental task when facing their 'passionate' fans.

Huddersfield at home moved to 12:30 for tv so another poor gate

1100 or so sold according to Rovers. Expected a few more to be travelling but maybe the fans are 'intimidated' by West Brom's 'passionate' crowd. I've just about had enough of Mowbray's drivel which is eagerly lapped up by the website and Telegraph. Always putting Rovers down, dampening expectations and promoting our rivals as bigger and better than they are. Wish he would just focus on doing what Neil Harris and Jose Gomes have done recently.

If we get to Xmas and have injuries and suspensions and don't fancy throwing the youngsters in we could simply inform the opposition that we aren't playing and will be postponing the game. The League cannot allow that to go unpunished.

People might argue that it doesn't matter because they are going down anyway but I don't agree. Bolton are the sort of club that even on a limited budget will be able to bring in good quality League One players. Certainly better than what Stanley and Wimbledon can afford. A half decent manager along with a feel good factor of new ownership and they could survive at the expense of other clubs. Can imagine trouble will come then.

I'm bored of the succession of younger end players Mowbray has brought to the club at considerable expense, rarely put out onto the pitch and spends more time publicly criticising them than playing them. Not fit enough, not clever enough, not working hard enough. Why bother signing them?