Great cause. Shame it won't make any money out of this board membership though, as I'm with JoeH! I'll chip in a fiver though too at the end of the season if Boro finish above us. In return, can you agree likewise for Alzheimer's Society? No worries if not as I realise it's likely to get expensive for you!! ?

If Dack truly is a PL player in waiting, then he ought to be able to adapt his game enough to be capable of having an impact in a 433 provided he's given the right role in it. I agree with the principle that as a club, we should be playing a system that suits the majority of the squad, especially if the club has designs to cash in Dack's chips in the next 12 months.

Calm down everyone, these were the bookies' odds from last season; there's not a huge amount they got right there....

Feeling bizarrely positive about today, mainly from the point of view that I don't think we've anything to lose. We're away at a team relegated from the PL (albeit in transition themselves), with us having a definite weaker back 4 than last season + a completely unknown keeper, I think that's preferable to Wycombe at home, for example. That said, there are stats to suggest that a Nyambe / Lenihan / Williams / Bell backline can perform well; let's hope they've worked hard this week in training & formed a good understanding with Kaminski. And that they defend better than West Ham did! Offensively I'm confident we have enough to trouble any defence, and sufficient depth to make changes tactical if required. With Gallagher injured we're just missing a big man up front, but he's no DG so maybe not such a bug miss. Could be an end to end thriller! Hoping for the win, won't moan too much at a defeat, a draw I think most feasible. Let's go! COYB!!

Sorry to hear that rigger, I hope you are able to find something soon. There are plenty of businesses recruiting for whom this virus has turned into an opportunity, perhaps you can get fixed up with one of them. Fingers crossed anyhow. In the meantime, at least you have this board to read to keep your spirits up...

Blimey talk about pot kettle black!! ?

Just so long as Bennett is only a substitute, right?!

How boring. It was a typo after all. ?

If Sharp leaked it, then surely there was something to leak, I.e. a bid made for a player that had been accepted by those to whom he was under contract. Saying that the club have manufactured bids for players just to give the impression we were trying is utterly nonsensensical.

There is inevitable pressure to perform in front of fans in a stadium, even if those fans are supportive of the player's efforts (which I think is what you're driving at). I acknowledge that the Rovers fans have generally been supportive of him on matchday but, with no fans in attendance currently, I suspect it makes it easier for a young player low on confidence & who's trying to justify a huge price tag, to perform better.

But there's an emerging body of evidence that he has something effective to offer the club, so let's support the kid & give him a proper chance to prove himself. Defenders hate forwards running at them and turning them inside out, he has that type of style and I think is growing in confidence to be able to show that ability more frequently. He could be one of those players where lockdown has done him a favour by taking away fan pressure.

Fair enough, it was a great one!

Not Beckham v Argentina? That's the most (in)famous isn't it?

Well, in our last competitive game his driving run set up the equalising goal, and his pass to Bell brought about the penalty which won us the game. So he has started doing something constructive in competitive games, albeit not directly in front of goal yet. I'm sure there's more, much more, to come from Brereton in terms of goals, assists & other meaningful contributions. With no Graham or Samuel on the scene, and Gallagher without a pre-season, now is the perfect opportunity for him to put a marker down and prove he is worthy of a starting place.

How youthful are you, and can you play left back?

Shock was perhaps the wrong word; upset would've been better. I take your point re pre-season; it was just intended to be an observation that 6 of our league competitors went out to mostly lower league opposition in circumstances where had we done the same many would be foaming at the mouth, but no-one seemed to bat an eyelid that such results had occurred to other clubs that supposedly have better managers than ours and / or better transfer policies. You're right about the cream rising by November; so let's see where we are then before starting to pass judgment on this weird transfer window.

Brum too, lost at home to Cambridge. Not an ideal start for Karanka.

I see Forest, Norwich, Huddersfield, Swansea & Cardiff all got dumped out of the cup in shock results today, & of course Derby scraped through against Barrow on pens. Besides Derby (who had a young team out) I've no idea what strength sides were put out for each match but they're all teams you'd expect to be pushing for promotion next season. Whether or not they've taken the view of preferring just to concentrate on the league, I can only imagine the furore on here if we'd been amongst them for failing to beat Doncaster...

Now? No, he doesn't have enough experience. In 12 or 24 months time? Maybe.

You think a new manager would come in and make Academy players the nucleus of his team? Of course he wouldn't; like all new managers he would look to bring in his own choice of players from elsewhere as his key men and use them to supplement what comes through from the academy. If you want Academy players to thrive at Ewood in numbers and be given game time, Mowbray is probably the most likely to give them that opportunity I reckon given how well he knows them after 3 years here and how many he has integrated into the squad already, with the help of Damien Johnson assisting them in the transition. Yes he might dig them out every now and then but isn't that part of helping them develop & grow in the long term to become better, more rounded professionals?

It was a friendly, the most important thing is getting game time into players. If it turns out we don't get a CB in before Bournemouth & if Lenihan picks up an injury with Ireland, then one or both of Williams & Magloire will be needed to step in. Neither have played all year so needed game time, whereas Wharton has played what, 25 games? So quite sensible I'd say, with the added positive that it worked out pretty well.

You can't honestly believe that to be the case surely??

I think most of us are waiting for Bell to go off aren't we?!

Ok, so why does Mowbray get so many pelters on here from many for his complimentary comments about our opponents, if it's just to be accepted as football politics when others do it? Double standards don't you think? I just feel Mowbray gets unfairly critiqued on every aspect of his management style by folk who just can't wait to get a dig in. There's room for improvement of course, and I'm not opposed to fair criticism. But there's a context & a bigger picture that gets ignored.

Comments from Brendan Rogers: "You can see Blackburn are playing competitive football already in the Carabao Cup, so they're up and running and you can see with all the players, they're a good side. They're a team that will be up challenging in the Championship next season. It was always going be a really good test for us, but I'm pleased for likes of Daniel Amartey coming back, his first game in a long time." As I've said previously, knowledgeable people outside of Ewood respect what is going on at Rovers and consider TM to be building something creditable, albeit we all know there's work to do. It's far from all doom & gloom as is often inferred on these boards. That's also the first goal Leicester have conceded all preseason apparently. That's no mean feat either, esp as we apparently had other good chances too.