A poor day, no doubt about it. Seems like one of those games that everything's gone right for the opposition but we didn't do enough to deserve anything. JDT will face a lot of questions after this, and rightly so, but this isn't a time for knee jerk JDT out reactions IMO.

Wow. Just wow. I agree there are bullsh1tters in football, but how you can argue with a straight face that GB and JDT are amongst them is impressively poor judgment & is just peddling a narrative that everything at the club is rotten.

The Blackpool game's been postponed to make way for the FA Cup tie, which is also an important & v winnable game but nonetheless offers a bit of a welcome distraction to what will otherwise be a bit of a long slog of pressure-filled league matches.

Great post. It would be better if we could all do this down the dog & duck over a pint, a game of darts and a laugh, but alas that's not possible in most cases so we're stuck with forums that, whilst useful, aren't the best way for debating the things that we're all passionate about, which can often get the better of us all. I hope engaging with me yesterday didn't make things any worse for you and that you feel right as rain soon. 👍 I guess a decent transfer window will help, here's hoping!! 🤞

Forgive me if your post wasn't directed at me but at someone else (Eddie?). It did refer to the issues I've been raising and did follow on chronologically from what I'd just posted, and I appreciated I've been a bit outspoken on this thread the last few pages. Perhaps quote the post(s) or poster(s) that you're responding to in future like you did above, then it can avoid further misunderstandings. 👍

Here we go again, don't read and reply with civility, instead just play the man not the ball and resort to swearing back at me and questioning my support of the club despite what I said in my previous post about my background as a season ticket holder for over 35 years. Bang out of order on both counts. You've no idea who I am and I dont dare to presume who you are. I see you only joined this forum in Nov 2021, does that give me the right to question your entitlement to comment or your commitment?? All managers publicly downplay their prospects of success. "We're just taking it one game at a time", "we're looking no further ahead than to the next match" etc. are common phrases from managers. Managers set internal targets which stay internal, whilst publicly they say very different things. Much like when managers give nothing away about transfer targets to fans & the media. Is that so hard to understand? All I'm seeking to do is bring some objectivity to the debate, and put my alternative point of view to that of the critics on here that is wider in scope than just a handful of poor performances & supported by the stats, be that league position, squad strength & demographics, financial limitations, new backroom structure etc. If criticism is due then fair enough, as it was following those performances mentioned, but let it be levelled fairly alongside of praise when that's also due and not just ignore the achievements that have come in between those failures and which, combined, see us in a far better position now than any of us anticipated in the summer. On a final note, it's a shame that you don't give a feck what other people think if it's different to you. It's kind of what message boards are for, to debate and discuss & potentially enlighten. Without constructive criticism of opposing points of view, forums just become echo chambers. I've never once questioned another fan's right to think or say what they do about the club, the team or the management; nor have I resorted to name calling or the bare dismissal of opposing views. I've just said that I don't understand the bleak view that some have of this season overall & JDT in particular.

That's another thing really, the traffic on here is far greater after a defeat or poor performance than after a win. That grates me too, though I have it on good authority from other posters who scrape the barrels of other club's forums that it's the same for all clubs, so I'll let that one slide... 😉

Thanks for the reasoned & well considered post, I appreciate it much more than the "weird behaviour", "bizarre" & "prioner of war / Stockholm syndrome" comments seen from others. For the record, someone else accused me of performing mental gymnastics, so I was responding to that. It was also someone else brought Jack into the conversation & I was responding to that too. Jack Walker is a hero to anyone who has any passion for our club; I will never denigrate him, but I will also not rewrite history. I only get to see home games live due to family & financial commitments. I live in Cheshire now so a 3pm home game for me basically takes up the whole day, but I've had a season ticket for 35 years so have a valid opinion having seen the good, the bad & the ugly over that period, & was at Wembley for the Full Members Cup win etc. in my black rimmed NHS specs as seen on ITV news! I didn't see the Preston home game due to the weather (last season when it snowed it took me 3 hours to get to Ewood, only for the match to be postponed when 500 yards away!), nor the Wigan away game, but I am acutely aware from here, from facebook, from twitter, from JDT, from the LT and Lancs live how poor we were, there was no doubting it! I saw the Burnley debacle on tv & called it out for what it was on here afterwards. I get those results and performances will stick in the craw most for those folk who spent good money & time to attend. If you look at my history of posts on here, hopefully you'll recognise that they're less of the knee jerk type & more objective than most. Perhaps on this occasion I've fallen into blue-and-white tinted specs territory, but if so that's only because I feel the extent of criticism of JDT is so unwarranted. He walked into a shitstorm really in the summer but despite that urrently has us 3rd, has brought half a dozen academy players into the fold (albeit through necessity, but mostly successfully), has made some decent, good value signings (and some admittedly less so, like all managers) and has been honest enough after poor performances to admit they were below par. He came in saying "I was looking for a project, but the project found me". He was open about that from the start. There were some who questioned the wisdom of his appointment, but the majority view was that it's a bold & ambitious appointment, a welcome change from the usual dinosaur merry go round, and that he would need time to rebuild a broken & morale-strapped squad to even make us competitive. Now, due mainly to poor performances against 3 local rivals, he is vilified for every wrong move & deemed lucky when things go our way. Listen to any manager, they all say that young players are prone to inconsistency. If you have half a dozen players aged 23 or less in your team / squad, it's more likely than not that they will put in inconsistent performances from one week to the next week, just like we have done (contrast poor defeats to Burnley, Wigan, Sheff Utd and Preston with deserved wins v QPR, Watford, Blackpool & Swansea). He had 6 weeks to get to know his squad, backroom team, a new internal structure in its infancy, and Broughton himself, to understand the division, and to identify upgrades, before games then came every 3-4 days for 15 weeks in an unprecedented season. All with a thin squad inherited from Mowbray due to contract mismanagement that's been padded out with loans, academy players & a few others known to be injury prone. I just don't get why so many people are so critical of JDT when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I respect people's views & don't pretend to be any kind of Oracle. Nor do I expect to change the minds of others, but I do feel it's right to stick up for fair comment. To round off, Venkys ownership has been nothing short of shambolic. As a consequence, we don't have the muscle, the pull or the stature we did 15 or 20 years ago. We can't just push out our chests and say "We are Blackburn Rovers". Venkys have dismantled what we were. So our short term aims and goals have to be set accordingly, to build from the bottom up, to build up the academy, to become self-sufficient & not rely on handouts. That's the context of JDT's arrival here and it's his job, over time, to usher in a new era for the club and oversee a smooth transition to rising again as a different beast to what we were under Jack. It has to be like that because Venkys won't sell. That's the reality of where we are now, like it or not.

I think there's a lot in this, hence why some people need a reality check re JDTs football bein boring, or people feeling entertained. But ultimately 3rd place is a great place to be at this point in time. This desire for entertainment, has it ever been thus or is it recent phenomenon spawn of the internet & instant gratification? I remember some dull patches under Hughes & Souey especially, isn't it just part of football for some games to be dull & uninspiring? It's before my time, but many on here who I see criticising JDT are some of the same folk who look back fondly to the days of Howard Kendall which, from what I understand, was very much built on 1-0 wins, scoring then shutting up shop. Hardly sounds inspirational, but it was effective ultimately. Bearing in mind JDT has had 6 months in charge, there's surely an inconsistency there?

Hats off to you sir for engaging, I almost feel guilty for taking you to task now (almost)! Let's argue no more as you say. We both want the same in the end.

The valid evidence that JDT has done well is the league table. In June when he took over, with 6 first teamers having left on frees or returned to their parent clubs, most anticipated us being closer to 3rd bottom, not 3rd top. I'm not sure why you've gone down the "Jack would never have appointed him" route, but seeing how you have you should recall that Jack appointed Hodgson; he also got Eriksen to agree to come here. Neither of them had a record in this country. It's a different world now anyway. He also appointed Kidd & Harford, who respectively had zero & little managerial experience at all. Thinking about it, Jack's only truly successful managerial appointment was Kenny. But yes, we'll see if JDT achieves promotion. If he does then that's a massive overachievement, even getting 6th upwards would be given the circs. Realistically he should be given more time to instill his ideas & get his own personnel in. See what J*B said above re how well respected he seems to be at Ewood.

Very true. Are we really having a poor season or boring to watch when all we do is either win games or lose them, and we've won more than we've lost? Don't get me wrong, I'd be happier if we'd won more than we have, or drawn some of those that we've lost, but I don't think we're boring to watch overall, nor underperforming overall. If anything we're overperforming, but I guess that must be in spite of JDT. How stupid & mentally gymnastical of me!

There it is, a pre-formed judgement that you won't budge from despite lots of valid evidence to the contrary. It's clear that you were never on board with JDT's appointment in the first place even before he set foot in the door, so as a consequence he's fighting an uphill battle and being judged as no good on the back of a few admittedly poor performances and results, whilst the bigger picture is being overlooked. By the way Jack (God rest his soul) oversaw the appointments of such successes as Ray Harford (RIP), Roy Hodgson & Brian Kidd. As wonderful for this club as Jack was, he was far from perfect in his managerial appointments.

I sincerely hope not.

Jeez, the be all & end all of this season is not beating Burnley, Preston, Blackpool & Wigan. It's coming 1st or 2nd, or 3rd - 6th & winning the playoffs. That's thinking big; thinking just about local bragging rights is small-minded (as symbolically important as they obviously are). Put it another way. If Jack was still here, would he have sacked JDT after the Burney & Preston games? Course not. If you think beating local rivals is all that counts, then winning the Prem title in 94/95 or the League Cup in 2002 must've meant nothing to you, and you'd prefer it if we'd have won the Manx Cup instead!

From dictionary.com: "Must win - a contest, project, scheme, etc., of which a successful or victorious outcome is essential because anything less would negate all preceding efforts" You're misunderstanding the concept if you seriously believe that every match we play in a 46 game season is "must win". A failure to beat Cardiff would not have negated all previous efforts. Was it important? Of course, but "must win" it absolutely was not. I suggest you stop tying yourself up in knots to justify the unjustifiable.

Ok, it was "must win" if the goal was to ensure that we stayed in 3rd place after that round of matches. But that counts for nothing in May, as there is no direct season-defining consequence of winning or losing that match alone; it wasn't must win in terms of our overall chances of promotion, which is what counts and which was the context of the discussion being had. Someone else on here mentioned mental gymnastics... keep on cartwheeling! 😉

There's no mental gymnastics going on here, the choice being discussed was lose the derbies but get into the playoffs, or win the derbies but miss out on the playoffs. Surely getting into the playoffs is the goal if 1st or 2nd is unachievable, regardless of who we win the points from??

Not anymore I live near Knutsford, but there's a Burnley fan in the village who I've been avoiding for 2 months! But anyway, however realistic it might be the choice between winning 8 local derbies but going down, compared to winning none but then reaching the playoffs, literally should be a no brainer for any fan who wants the club to get up off its knees.

You get nothing for winning 8 derbies either, other than bragging rights & a chance to fight for the L1 title next season. I'd rather lose in the playoffs than that.

The Burnley game was a very stringy rump steak sure, I said as much on here post match; I didn't see the other two matches but clearly they were no better. In mentioning those 3 though, you've omitted mentioning the equally good 28 day-matured sirloin performances & results v Swansea, Blackpool & Watford, for example. I'm just saying there's 2 sides to the coin but everyone seems to focus on the poor whilst ignoring (or worse, dismissing as fortunate) the good. We're still 3rd, for me I'd take losing all 8 of our derby matches in the regular season if it meant we qualify for the playoffs, because that's what really counts come May, right?

Sorry, no white flag waving here. If I was I wouldn't have bothered going yesterday, unlike many others who seem to me to be the ones waving white flags having surrendered to the belief that there's no hope until JDT is gone. I wasn't delighted that we didn't win L1, but I was delighted that we got promoted straight away (which we all knew was the objective) & didn't languish there for 2, 3 or 4+ seasons like many other clubs have of similar stature to us. We're in the top 3 and have been for 2+ months. We're ahead of 2 of the 3 relegated clubs with parachute payments, ahead of more than a dozen city clubs with bigger gates / income than us. To my mind JDT is going for it, whilst managing his limited resources. Whether the club backs him this window we'll see, but if it doesn't that's not his fault. Who said yesterday's game was inconsequential? Straw man argument there because I didn't. You say every match is must win, sorry that's not true. Every match is could or might win, some are should / expect to win, but only games with critical outcomes arising from their result are truly must wins (cup games, play-offs, the last half dozen games in promotion or relegation battles, or when a loss in that games make something unachievable, like going up or staying up). No need for the not-so-sly dig at the end either, we're only expressing points of view on a message board, backed up by objective stats. 👍

As I said, each to their own but I try to look at things both subjectively as a Rovers fan, as objectively as a realist. What JDT does & what the team / players do game to game is not the only thing that impacts the outcome. He's got us far better organised than we were. But it's also injuries, form, opposition, weather, referees, pitch, KO time, luck, all of which conspire on any given day to bring an outcome. I would argue that with us being 3rd after 24 games, he's done far more right than he has done wrong in his brief tenure to date, and has coped better with those variables than 21 other managers in the division.

As I said in the match thread, I'm pretty sure those boos were for the ref, not the team. Look each to their own, but I just don't think the criticism is coming from a place of realism or context. I wish we were steamrollering teams 3 or 4 nil week in week out, but that's not realistic of any team in this division. Look back to the first few pages of this thread. Comments of "he needs cash from the board", "he needs at least 3 windows", "he'll need time to acclimatise & get used to this league", "let's set about rebuilding this squad" etc. No "promotion here we come", "promotion or bust", "I'll give him until Jan 1st, if he's not in the top 2 by then he must be clueless". Why the change in attitude when he had 6 weeks to get to know the squad before the season started, a squad which was shorn of several 1st teamers that had just come off TMs worst ever "death spiral" of relegation form, a much shortened transfer window, has had nearly half a season squeezed into 3 and a bit months with barely any time to train between matches, has had to integrate half a dozen academy graduates into the first team squad, yet is still 3rd in the league?? It baffles me, it really does.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." "Practice makes perfect." Two well known adages that highlight the importance of keeping on plugging away at what you believe in & standing by your principles. Look at what Potter did with Brighton over a period of time, Dyche at Burnley, even Fergie at United way back when. If JDT's approach had us languishing in the bottom third of the table then I could understand this point of view, but that's not where we are is it? Yesterday was a good example of how we can mix it up; playing it around patiently, looking for opportunities, playing through the lines, using longer balls over the top or diagonally, or hoofing it when required. I just don't get the grief he receives, or your conclusion that he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.