The expectation or rule is that those clubs in the bottom 2 divisions are to play a full side in the competition, whereas those in the top 2 divisions are able to play their reserve teams.

I'd put him at the better end of the scale, but wouldn't want to give the impression that I thought he played well. I wouldn't even class it as a performance. I'm not going to come on and lambaste the players for that as I expect they were specifically instructed to treat the game as a fitness concern rather than to win the game, reach the final or play a 'proper' game. I was surprised with the strength of the side picked last night with a big game on Saturday which several of those will feature in or at least be on the bench for. With that in mind nobody on the pitch last night was going to exert themselves too much or attempt any sort of play that might risk harm or setback for those on their way back from injury. As I said earlier, with Antonsson, Conway and Whittingham I could understand it as they haven't played for a while and have been out injured for substantial spells. I was a bit more surprised to see the likes of Bell, Samuel and Downing in the squad. Lets remember that any sort of suspension, illness or injury to our defence or attack and one of those 3 is going to be first in line for the first team. We can see therefore why none of those were really going to be going to take last night seriously.

Clear that the priority last night from both sides was to get minutes under players belts without sustaining any injuries or strains. A fitness exercise nothing more nothing less. The result was effectively a practice match. Few senior players with hopes of getting back into the first XI are going to risk anything playing in this competition against Bury. I doubt Mowbray will be too bothered by the performance or attitudes. Despite a woeful experience last night I doubt anyone has either harmed or bettered their chances of playing in the league. He'll be more interested in the players fitness and physical condition for Saturday. Antonsson, Caddis and Whittingham got their first starts in a long time. Like with the Checkatrade Trophy which he used to give players minutes and experiment and which he clearly wasn't interested in winning. I

Operation Brush under the Carpet will be discussed as to how best overlook/ignore this irritating problem until such time as they are no longer expected to do anything about it. The moment Wolves get promoted to the Premier League it ceases to be a Football League problem and they can stick the file in a drawer for a few years until it comes round again. If they ever find Wolves guilty of anything a quick couple of million fine, paid by their billionaire owners, will send the problem away. I can understand why they were brought in but already within a few years we've had numerous clubs escaping punishment despite obvious breaches of the rules. My gripe isn't so much with the rules but with the fact that they couldn't wait to come round and put us under a transfer embargo which Rovers meekly accepted despite obvious attempts to comply and yet bigger rule breakers who buy their way to promotion and spend much more than we did escape unscathed. QPR are still managing to avoid punishment years after cheating to get promoted. Leicester have recently accepted a fine of a couple of million quid which is nothing short of a joke considering the money they've pocketed from being in the Premier League and splurged on players. Wolves will be similar. Its ridiculous that the Premier League and Football League operate on such different systems. How clubs can be subject to one lot of rules and one governing body then get promoted/relegated and face a different set is stupidity. It should be one body, setting one list of rules, enforcing those equally between all clubs regardless of what league they are in. As it is it will be bye bye to Wolves and probably Villa after splurging massive amounts on players and no punishment ever appears.

If you attend all or nearly all the games then it is good value to have a season ticket, certainly when compared to the cost of buying individual tickets on a match by match basis. However, when compared to rival clubs in the Championship and League One the price of adult season tickets or individual adult match tickets are around average for this level and the level above. There are plenty of clubs who offer cheaper deals, but also plenty who charge more than we do. Clearly investing in a season ticket is by far and away the best value for your money if you intend on going to most of the games, however that applies at most clubs. I accept that the current pricing structure at Rovers should not be a problem to the vast majority of people who want a season ticket and Rovers are not unreasonable to charge the prices they do.

But they aren't. If I made a late decision to buy a new season ticket at the back end of the summer I would have had to pay a minimum of £319 to sit in the Riverside and watch 3rd tier football. Alternatively I could have bought a season ticket at Birmingham, Barnsley, Bolton, Burton, Cardiff, Derby, Fulham, Hull, Reading, Sheff Utd or Wolves in the Championship and had change left over from that. For a small amount more I could also have got one at Aston Villa, Bristol City, Millwall, Forest or Sunderland. Our prices are reasonable, and competitive, but not sure if they fall into 'one of the cheapest' or 'best value' around anymore (certainly not when you consider the rubbish served up by the club in recent years)

The cheapest adult season ticket at Rovers this season is £279 in the Riverside (EARLY Bird price). This is more or less the average season ticket price in League One. Wimbledon, Blackpool, Bradford, Bristol Rovers, Bury, Charlton, Fleetwood, Northampton, Rochdale, Walsall and Wigan all offered cheaper adult season tickets. After the early bird period expired the cheapest was £319. Only Gillingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Rotherham and Southend had higher minimum prices for non-early bird season ticket buyers. If we apply that price to the Championship this season then for those who got early bird tickets at £279 then Barnsley, Birmingham, Burton, Fulham and Hull were offering cheaper than that. Apply the non-early bird lowest adult price of £319 and add Wolves, Sheff Utd, Reading, Derby, Cardiff and Bolton to that list of clubs. I'm not complaining about our prices, I'm not criticising the club, I feel they are reasonable and competitive, but I also think there is a lingering myth from the Premier League days that we're still basically giving away tickets at low prices and that they are much cheaper than most other clubs. They aren't. Some clubs are more expensive, but most are similar or cheaper.

Even if Rotherham win their 2 in hand, they will still be 5 points behind us with an inferior goal difference going into the last 10 games. That would still mean they would need to pick up 6 points more than we do from the final 30 available, i.e. 20% extra from the same number of games. I'd suggest that would require either us to drop below the points target of 2 per game, or for them to continue to relentlessly win over their final 12 games. That's either going to take an unprecedented run of results for Rotherham or a downturn on our part. If we maintain our course Rotherham shouldn't be a threat. If they manage to catch us or overtake us then we won't be going up automatically.

Big test of Monk's abilities. At Leeds it took him a while to get going and they were struggling at first, and at Middlesbrough they never really hit their potential under him. Strange circumstances behind his departure from both of those clubs despite leaving them in decent positions. He's not going to have time at Birmingham and is inheriting a side that doesn't score goals.

Surprised they've decided to sandwich it between two important home league games. Would have thought they would have preferred to leave it until the league game v Blackpool was out of the way and there was a 2 week break to let the pitch recover.

Rovers said the game is going ahead but fans will be upstairs rather than downstairs.

The attendance last night for Reading v Sheffield United was 6,769. I had to look that up again because I was sure it was a mistake but numerous reports have that as the actual declared attendance. looking at the photos there must have easily been 1500+ from Sheffield United. Fair enough the weather was awful but there were still 4000+ on Wimbledon. I'm amazed Reading would declare that as the attendance. They, like most clubs, usually lie and count every issued ticket rather than bums on seats so I don't know what has gone on there.

Although nothing riding on it I thought Rovers did very well to get a draw out of it given the number of people missing from the usual squad.

Under 23s due to play Southampton at Leyland tonight. I'd expect this one to fall victim to the weather. Watch this space.

Its always worth remembering that Anderson was heavily involved with the Shinawatra regime at Man City for the short time it lasted whilst Eriksson was there. They signed a huge amount of foreign players for a lot of money and some people will have done very well indeed out of those deals (they once signed about 8 in the space of a few days). The difference at City was that many of those players they brought in were actually half decent, and had them on course to challenge for Europe until the wheels started to come off due to the Thai authorities closing in. For some reason at Rovers the focus was never really on assembling a quality squad that could push on and improve on mid-table finishes, and it appears the aim instead was to dish out favours and deals to friendly parties. That started with the manager - rather than appointing a big name who could work with the influential people like Eriksson (in many ways doing the back scratching routine whilst still delivering results) we ended up with a chancer who was incompetent and wrecked the club through his scheming, along with being lumbered with a squad of dross on huge wages. Presumably Venkys had a part to play in that as the budget they came into this with was never anywhere near the level of money Shinawatra was throwing around, and I expect Shinawatra was a bit more hands on with his investment than Venkys. Into the void they left crawled all sorts of chancers.

https://www.lcfc.com/news/625538/lcfc--efl-settle-ffp-dispute/press-release Champagne at the ready at EFL house as Leicester agree to hand over more than £3 million as a settlement for breaking the rules. The League acknowledges that Leicester did not make any deliberate attempt to break the rules and did so due to differing interpretations of the rules. Yet they're still being punished and are paying the league off. So which one is it? We've found you guilty of breaking the rules but that did so accidentally due to differing interpretations, you didn't do it deliberately yet assembled a promotion winning squad but we're still going to fine you £3 million. Eh? Meanwhile the QPR saga rumbles on, and on, and on. How many years is it now?

By the sounds of things given the way that appointment unfolded Jose Mourinho could have had an interview and they would still have overlooked him and appointed the man with the right 'connections'.

Chinese owners appoint Portuguese head coach. Might be trying to emulate their compatriots at Wolves where it has worked well or possibly something more sinister as the 'network' grows in English football.

https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2018/february/jose-morais/ Barnsley appoint Jose Morais as manager.

Sounds like Ainsworth, Jack Ross and Karl Robinson have all rejected the opportunity at Barnsley. That's quite a grim looking list for a side struggling in the Championship but with supposed rich new foreign owners. Think they have to be favourites for relegation unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat with the appointment.

Swansea and Southampton are slightly less extreme variations on Watford. All 3 have the ability to change 'head coach' frequently and yet manage to survive on it. Its not a model I'd like us to follow with a revolving door of foreigners but can't really criticise them too much as it pays off. I don't think its good for the game in the long term but it has and done the job for them. Chelsea another lot who manage to carry on being successful under frequent managerial changes. Leeds and Forest have been two of the worst in the Championship at working their way through a range of managers in succession, seemingly confusing themselves with it all, yet the reality is that they've managed to stay in the Championship through it whereas our chopping and changing and then sticking with a wrong un in Coyle for too long ultimately consigned us to the 3rd division. If we'd have been a bit more trigger happy last season and given Coyle the boot when it was obviously not working then we might have survived, instead we left it until late February when any manager would struggle against such limited time to keep any club up.

Apparently he might have a release clause in his new deal which enables him to leave for a smaller amount of compensation. Not sure what all the fuss is about with Heckingbottom as he was heavily linked to Sunderland and Forest earlier this season despite Barnsley struggling. I suppose he's done well to keep them up considering their relatively limited resources but he's hardly set the world alight. Leeds fans don't seem particularly happy at the prospect but then again they probably expect a world class manager turning up.

Leeds want Paul Heckingbottom to be their new manager and are hoping to reach a deal later today according to their local paper. Barnsley on a shocking run so a bit of a surprise.

Different ways of looking at that. A deliberate booking in the last minute at Fleetwood would have seen him suspended for home games vs Northampton and Walsall. With due respect we should be more than capable of beating those sides with or without Smallwood and he would then be back fresh and clean slate for the Plymouth game which ought to be more difficult. The other is that until we get Evans, Whittingham or Lenihan back we're on thin ice in central midfield and so it makes sense for him to 'hold off' until at least one of those are back to full fitness. Times like these when the numerous bookings he has picked up this season need some scrutiny. Disgusting in my opinion the number of cheap immediate bookings he has collected on his first foul in games whilst others get away with murder.

The furore today has been so great that the Leeds MD has promised to go away and do some more 'consultation' which suggests they realise what a joke it is. Whatever consultation they did I doubt it involved any self respecting supporter. These owners think they can just employ a designer to sit on a computer and throw together some fancy designs along with some flanel about what has gone into it. This isn't the US. Club badges are something that evolve over time, incorporate traditions and identities and fans are proud and protective of. As someone else said, fans eat pies and drink beer at matches, you wouldn't put those on the club badge. If Rovers ditched the red rose and Arte et Labore and came up with a shield with Rover the Dog in the middle there'd be outrage.