Once you get an opinion on a player, it's hard for them to change your mind, so my biggest complement to Evans is that after thinking that he's not been contributing nearly enough for most of the last four years, he's improved enough that I'm actually chuffed with this. Hopefully this is more to do with fitness and having a proper manager than anything else, but his form over the last 12 months suggests he is a better player than just a Championship journeyman, if at the same time not of the highest quality.

Let's see, but I can see that being surprisingly well attended after a disappointing following at Leeds. Combination of cheaper (if not exactly cheap) tickets, new ground for many, still most people off, better trains running etc.

We've had a few in recent years. Just so long as it's better than a 4 hour trip to Newport, then to be called off at half 2 due to a waterlogged pitch, then I'll be happy!

Assuming we'd still have the 'behind both goals' allocation like last year, Bury would be class. Let's see what the next few years hold, but if we carry on progressing under Mowbray then I think that fixture will be remembered fondly for years and years as a turning point.

Half agree, he's had enough chances to expect to have a couple if he was being ruthless, but then again he's hit the bar & seen efforts blocked which would usually go in. His finishing has looked one of his stronger points in the past, so hopefully he'll just need one and he can get on a roll.

Got a good feeling about Armstrong in this one. Really unlucky not to bag in the last couple of matches, but looking brighter in general play & I think Saturday will be his day.

They're clearly back in something like some form now, albeit with a team that doesn't really frighten me. Don't think there the sort of team that are going to outplay us all that much, but will probably be very difficult to play against all the same. Can see a 2-1 for either side.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/november/charlie-commits-future-to-the-club/ 2 more years for Charlie!

Maybe 15 seats in the corners. Looks pretty full apart from that!

Smallwood's been an amazingly popular figure pretty much since day one. After years of disconnect between players & fans, you probably couldn't have picked a better character & player to come in and he was hugely important in our promotion. This season has probably seen a reasonable number Rovers fans be a bit more apprehensive about how well he can make the step up, but personally I think he's winning over plenty of however many doubters there were. As you say, not the most gifted with the ball at his feet, but has played a big part in beating teams that you'd have to say have probably got better technical players than us, and lays a great platform for the likes of Dack to exploit. Everyone's willing him to do well though. Fairly certain most Rovers fans enjoyed this winner more than we did promotion!

Really disappointed that they're so close together, and that Wigan is on a Wednesday night. I can see us selling out at PNE after such a brisk start, but we'd do reasonably well to shift half that amount so soon after.

Won't pretend to know a great deal about your side but your results show that you clearly know how to dig in, think getting the first goal here could be crucial for Rovers. See that Vaulks is suspended, big loss do you feel?

In the summer I was really hoping we'd still sign him. Risky with a bad injury behind him, but still a good risk/reward trade-off in a position that we seemed to be well short in. With the further fitness issues, & the fact that we regularly have players of the quality of Palmer & Rothwell on the bench, afraid taking him now would just be sentiment, although I really hope for his sake that he has a good career somewhere.

Buying an English midfielder for megabucks and then not play him is textbook Spurs behaviour in fairness. Doubt it enormously, but fair play to him for even getting a semi-credible link to a CL team when he was in the third tear only a few months ago.

This is basically my team too, only with Bennett in for (probably) Rothwell and I'd opt for Graham too. Not seen much of Rotherham, but the impression I've got is that despite not having the quality, they're making teams work hard for taking points off them. Think we might need Bennett's energy and graft in this one, hopefully having the quality elsewhere.

Only on open sale tomorrow too. Not sure if a complete sell out is realistic, but a nice win at the weekend a week before pay day should hopefully take us close!

It's been spoken about a few times over the last 18 months, but this is a really important point which in a way has been playing out on most of the threads on this board. Maybe this is the same at all clubs to a certain extent, but I think the chaos at Rovers over recent years, as well as some of the managerial appointments has made it really easy for fans to get grouped in the 'optimistic' or 'pessimistic' categories (see happy clappers or doom-mongers, if things get pejorative). Consequence of this is that fans get into the habit very easily of looking at any, often almost unrelated issue as a slight against their position, and therefore have a tendency to get very defensive to the point that we have two large groups who are constantly talking past each other. This was happening even under Bowyer. Refusal to recognise poor signings/soft underbelly because of the great work that he did, or indeed vice versa. Might be a bit of a tangent, but it makes points like your last one all the more important. I personally think the sun shines out of TM's backside, but I think amongst his best achievements is that because of what he has done & how much of a step up he is (as a manager and a bloke) than Coyle, it means that we now should be able to talk about things like players costing too much money or if we have a late goals issue without it descending into 'which of the two camps do you belong to' squabbles that we've been having for the last 5 years or more.

Not really a comment on BB, but Antonsson's biggest issue for me was that he was possibly the most frail footballer I've ever seen play for Rovers. Apart from possibly Carlos Villanueva. Worked hard & had a nice finish, but I think that was probably it and he struggled to even make a yard for himself because of his lack of strength and any real pace. Brereton has got the physique to be a real handful, so hopefully we'll be seeing him make the most of that sooner rather than later.

Couldn't agree more about the Championship, fabulous league. Just an ironic shame that winning it means having (probably) less fun in the top flight. Even by normal standards, this year looks extremely hard to predict. We're in November now, and to my mind there's not a single team that stands out as emerging from a pack of 7 or 8 as favourites for automatic promotion. Maybe Derby in recent weeks. Sheffield United are a funny one. For me, they were the best team I've seen at Ewood this year and by a fair distance, but going off that performance you'd never have guessed that they would be leaking goals or dropping points as much as they have in some recent games.

They are horrible in fairness, but the flip side of it is that we'll have 4 and a bit months of the season left having already played West Brom, Sheffield United & Leeds twice. In fact, if we to get enough points to keep us within anywhere near touching distance of the top 6, let's say 4 points from Norwich, Sheff U, Leeds & West Brom, then I'm happy with that. In terms of expectations, I'm not yet in the state of mind when I really believe that we'll finish in the top 6, but I'm increasingly convinced that we're going to get close. At the start of the season I would've taken mid table safety of any description but having seen us against most teams by now, we should be finishing in the top half imo.

Think the Brentford game was the best example of that. I don't think Bennett's the best player in any single position on the pitch, but he's extremely well rounded as a footballer and that with his energy means he's next to guaranteed to get in somewhere.

Wouldn't disagree with this, but there are some pretty big caveats imo. 1. There's a pretty strong chance that (not unreasonably) we can only be spending sums of money like that on players that we have to see as investments. I'd be surprised if we would've been able to spend a similar fee on a couple of players in their late 20s/early 30s. 2. The lad has been here a month. At the moment, Reed is playing out wide and Conway is getting a game. Let's see what we're saying over Christmas/come thing spring/at the end of the season. As I say, this could be another of those £7million plus transfers that Rovers have got badly wrong. But at the same time I don't think that it's a big deal that he isn't being seen as a starter in a certain position yet either.

Game of opinions, but I thought he looked very assured in his spell there against Leeds. Go as far as saying mature beyond his years. Some smart runs, holding the ball up and winning free kicks in good areas. It's obviously fair enough that people should be able to criticise things without being accused of being doom-mongers or anti-Mowbray, but I'm a little surprised at how quickly some are getting a real downer on this. 19 is a baby in footballing terms, he's being eased into the side when everyone else is playing well. Maybe this will turn out to be a shocking investment, but surely we're still as much in the 'wait and see' period as we were when we first signed him?

Guess that just goes to show how rarely you even get the chance to even sell those numbers even when the demand is there. Would be interesting to see how many times Man United do a season now.

Have we not sold over 5k when going to Bolton? We've sold out as recently as the prem relegation season, so if the capacity is enough then we'd have reached it.