https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/england-euros-sol-campbell-portugal-24272786 For anybody out there who still harbours a grudge

I still want them to do well generally (although I think that winds them up even more) but I find the games where we play each other absolutely unbearable. It's almost like when we hadn't lost to Burnley for 30 odd years, it makes the prospect of losing so terrible that you can't enjoy the rivalry. If you offered me the choice of winning the tournament but losing to Scotland in the group stage, or getting knocked out in the semis but beating Scotland along the way, I would genuinely need to think about it.

Even allowing for a horses-for-courses approach, I struggle to see how he can leave out both Foden and Mount at the same time.

He is - don't get me wrong, Grealish is no slouch either - but I don't see either of them really stretching teams by making runs in behind. I'm remembering when we scored three goals away against Spain a couple of years ago, and how important our pace and power was in that performance. There's no doubt that form-wise, Grealish & Foden should be higher in the pecking order than Rasford & Sterling, but at the same time I think one of each would have a better balance to it. Tough call.

I desperately want to get Grealish and Foden in the same team - but looking at the front three, there isn't much in the way of pace or players who run in behind the defence. I can completely understand Rashford playing for that reason, especially against the better sides, but it's a real conundrum. Leaving either Foden or Grealish outside the XI is such a massive call.

Was a very common opinion at the time, as I recall. The way he left probably seemed to change the opinion of many who otherwise would have given him the benefit of the doubt. Agree. He was an average footballer, no worse than that.

The 7 year contract is definitely true - the free transfer might be a false memory, but I think it was. It definitely was at most a tiny fraction of what we paid, but it might've just been a straight swap with Ostenstad.

Quite a lot in this I think. Having said that, I don't remember too much frustration with Cairney's performances per se, more that he wasn't used properly. Trouble with inconsistent players is that whereas sometimes it just takes the right environment to set them straight, sometimes players will just remain inconsistent. Hard to say which sort Rothwell is, although I'd definitely keep him if he's open to signing a new deal. Wonderful player to watch, and his end product is improving, which is easy to miss with the team as a whole underperforming.

Agree that there's quite a lot of sense in that move, especially if they have full crowds next season. If I were Liverpool I'd want him to start getting used to producing under the kind of pressure he'd face at Anfield - so either Rangers or a team expecting promotion would bring that in different ways. I actually think he played with a perfectly decent squad last year, just one which badly unperformed. I also disagree quite a bit with your assessment of Buckley too, but you're alrighty fighting that one on a few fronts so I'll leave it there!

Pleasantly surprised to see rumours that we are looking into taking Elliot back, but taking it with a massive pinch of salt at present. He would probably have the pick of the whole division next year if available, so I doubt that our brownie points with Liverpool would put us at the front of the queue.

Yes, no contest really. If you take transfer fee inflation into account, we paid an eye watering sum for Kevin Davies, and he signed a 7 year contract! Given away for nowt twelve months later, so he could play with the Rovers fan we also gave away for (next to) nowt, who himself played for England, was the top English scorer in the league at one point, and who himself went for fees of over £10million over the course of his career. This is before considering that playing Beattie in front of Davies could have easily been enough to see us safe that season, even if that's a bit of a speculator. Easily the worst use of money, even if we have better reasons to dislike some of the turkeys which came along later.

On paper, this one should have been the easiest one to get done. Even so, a relief to see one of them get over the line.

Partially serious counterpoint: Brentford are getting plaudits from everywhere for their success using a model which prioritises performance on different metrics over results, assuming that the results will eventually follow. The problem comes when performances have also been poor, as has been the case at Rovers.

If it turns out that we get 5 million for him, I think that's approaching getting a pretty reasonable deal.

Yes, over time there have been plenty of examples of shooting ourselves in the foot to go along with some bad luck. Sometimes in the same game, like Beckham getting sent off and Campbell (again!) scoring a perfectly good goal against Argentina. Every country will have probably their own examples, but I'd be surprised if anybody's list is as long as ours! Mainly agree that the 06 team was stronger too, although Scholes wasn't there in 06, which is a big loss even if he was starting on the left. There was a great interview with Sven on Sky a year or two ago where he made a case for playing him out of position. Wasn't totally convinced, but he was pretty persuasive. Pointed out that he occasionally was played out there for United too, so maybe that's overdone. One often forgotten area where we were slightly unlucky in 06 was that Owen got badly injured early on. In theory that should've been a very small window when both him and Rooney should've been near the top of their game, which sadly we never really saw.

Didn't see another thread on this, so I started a fresh one. Rovers to play Bolton and AFC. Fylde in pre-season friendlies. https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19329495.blackburn-rovers-announce-two-friendlies-including-bolton-trip/

Exactly this. And coupled with tournaments themselves only coming around every two years, a good crop of players can often have a fairly small window to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. They take responsibility for things like Rooney's red card, or wilting when it comes to penalty shoot-outs, but the fine-margins and the sheer randomness you get in football matter so much more in knockout competitions. Longer term, I look at England's lack of success in tournament football not too dissimilarly to Liverpool's barren years. Some periods when we've been miles away from being good enough. But others when we we've been very good and close to where we need to be. I think/hope we're about to enter another one of these phases now, so we just need to hope that they play near their best and hope that their luck is better than the good teams of the 90s and 2000s.

I was going to say the same in an earlier post, but then I was thinking about Maldini, Cannavaro, Nesta & Panucci. Some defence. Even then it's not obvious to me which was better, which goes to show how well stocked we were, especially thinking of some of the players we had the likes of Carragher, King and Woodgate as 4th, 5th and 6th choice. I know the settled opinion on the Sven era was that we badly underperformed, and that's understandable given the players available, but I think the manner of our getting knocked out gets brushed under the carpet slightly too much in my view. Portugal in 2004, Campbell won that game fair and square in the 90 minutes before the goal being disallowed. They go on to reach a very winnable final vs Greece. Even in 2006, we came pretty close to winning that game with 10 men if I recall. People rightly talk about how we should've got more from a midfield that good, or were too mentally weak when it came to pens etc., but we were seriously unlucky at times too.

Think you're right on the 2004/2006 team, but I think that really just shows how we underachieved in those tournaments. A defence including Campbell/Terry/Ferdinand/Cole was exceptional, as should've been a midfield with Beckham, Gerrard, Scholes & Lampard. I'd take this squad over any we've had in the last 10 years though, and I think it's miles ahead of some of those going a bit further back before the Sven era.

I think you're completely right about the street naming a few years ago. The penny was dropping when he was still playing though. I might be misremembering some of the specifics but he got a great ovation from us in (I think) his final season and he made a point of bringing that up in his programme notes the week later. Or it might have been a BBC column, something like that anyway. It seems that these days he speaks about the club with genuine, uncomplicated fondness now. It would've been a real shame if he still held a grudge from those first years after he left. A match made in heaven, for a while.

I think either of those (or a Sol Campbell) and I'd suddenly feel extremely bullish about our chances. Henderson's lack of fitness is a bit of a worry too, but all of a sudden we have a group of attacking players that other countries will genuinely fear.

The strength in depth at right back is ridiculous, but I'm with you in wanting TAA in the squad. Harsh on James who is a very good player, but I'd have Walker starting and then I'd rather have Alexander-Arnold as a different option in reserve. Loving the options we have going forward. Just a shame that it hasn't coincided with a vintage group of defenders (right back aside). Maguire and Stones are good on their day, but they're obviously a bit accident prone there's not much behind them. Far cry from a few years ago when players like Woodgate struggled to even get into squads.

I think that's right, but at the same time some of the responsibility for his inconsistency lies with the player too. He has the ability to be our best player, even including Armstrong and a fully fit Dack in my opinion, and so whilst the manager takes a fair amount of the responsibility for his inconsistency, it shouldn't entirely shield Rothwell from criticism either. Fully agree that he'll be a snip for the £1million (?) or whatever it is we'll be able to get for him. Worth a lot more than that even at his current levels if he had a couple of years more on his contract, and if he can get more consistent in his end product he could easily play in the top division.

I don't agree that he bangs on about it at every possible opportunity. As far as I can see it's come up in maybe a handful of interviews over the last few years, of which he gives several every week. I'd bet that if men who do spells on oil rigs had to give interviews every time they had a bad day at work, they'd be plenty who mention that they miss their family and if they did nobody in their right mind would say they were whinging. Anyway, I'm not saying we need to get the violins out either. Like you say, lots of others do it tough. But I find it incredibly distasteful to use this as a stick to beat him with, and imply that he's being selfish, underhand or whatever, for what is for me a very natural response. There are so many sound, footballing reasons to want him replaced, and so zoning in on this strikes me as at best unnecessary, if not quite a bit worse than that.

Sorry, that's ridiculously unfair. Mowbray is the same position as lots of people where the best way they can provide for their family is by accepting an antisocial/long distance job. Not take the job? Fine, but how else is someone who has only ever known football going to earn decent money at his age? Move his family down? Fine, but that means taking his teenage kids out of school, and probably away from literally everyone they know. These are really difficult decisions and he's entitled to miss his kids without the likes of us having a go at him for it. I wouldn't care but there are more than enough footballing reasons to want TM gone. I don't understand why so much attention needs to be paid to throw away comments he makes when someone shoves a microphone under his nose, especially when it comes to something like this.