The Raya one was a freak accident. I just remember Morsy cynically clattering into Dack on the touchline. Maybe I'm wrong, but Morsy was certainly a shit-houser.

I really feel for Dack because it'll always be a case of "what if"... Deep down, I reckon he'll resent Sam Morsy for the rest of his life. Some idiot did the same to me at university when I was 19 in a training match. I know he didn't intend it, but he was totally reckless and, for whatever reason, I resent him to this day because I then did my other ACL after returning. Or my knees are shit. 😄 I hope Dack does well for himself because he gave his all for Rovers, but I think we have made the right call on him because he's lost a big chunk of his game.

I wish we did that after winning the title when players could have been queueing up to come to Rovers! Matty Holmes... 😩

That's roughly double his rate in the last two years, isn't it?

This might ruffle a few feathers because I liked Bradley Dack as much as the next Rovers supporter, but I'm with the podcasters from The Second Tier on their opinion of Dack as of today. I just don't think Dack can keep up with the pace and intensity of this league from what I've seen from him in the last season or two:

I think we sold less than 8,000 at the discounted price (see my estimates, above). We sold 700 more at the higher price by the start of the season or thereabouts.

Match report here. Phillips was a substitute that came on in the 90th minute. I'll put us winning in injury time down to him, then. 😁 They play again on Tuesday against Portugal, so I suspect they were giving him a bit of a rest given the quick turnaround in matches.

Wigan Athletic's unpaid players can rip up their contracts on Friday if they still haven't been paid. That's a lot of money to throw away unless you're confident of getting a contract elsewhere. They're already on -8 points and I assume they'll be due some more docked points if they don't pay up.

Looks like England U18 have scored an injury-time winner against Australia U18. I believe Phillips is playing, but can't find any information on the game other than a live score. Phillips has been captaining the U18 side because I think he's on the verge of moving to the next tier (U19 or U20). I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the senior squad this season.

Any positives on the numbers are going to be marginal. Waggott talks about marginal gains, and that's exactly what you're going to get if everything goes according to his plan. When last season's Kwik Save period ended on 30th June, Rovers sold an estimated 7,977 season tickets. Over the last four days (the only reliable sample I can use), we're selling around 10 season tickets per day. If that average daily sales figure continues, by 1st July, we'll have sold around 8,300 compared to 7,977 last year. So we should, at the very least, be 300 season tickets ahead of last season. I think that would be the worst case scenario. The only way I can see that being better than just a few hundred extra season ticket holders is good transfer activity, a pay day or two, a spike of people buying late, etc. It's a bit hard to tell.

Manchester City => UAE. Newcastle United => Saudi Arabia. I think Sheffield United are (or were) owned by Saudi Arabia, too. And now we have Qatar attempting to purchase Manchester United, seemingly with some help from Paris Saint-Germain's Qatari owners. Being married to a foreigner and living abroad, I'm no xenophobe, but it's little wonder there is a general feeling of disaffection from football if you're not privy to all the oil money that buys you the best players in the world. That's why Man City's treble and the ridiculous tears and "emotions" that go with it are boring and soulless. Rovers' success under Walker, even if relatively short-lived, will never be repeated. A local supporter who made it in the steel industry pumped it all back into the club he loved. We are so lucky to have had what we had, and I bet City supporters (even proper ones) will never ever feel what we felt. Times change...

Season Ticket Estimate Latest: 8,106 (+16) Notes: The estimate is based upon the total number of saleable seats to home supporters (18,210), minus the amount of unavailable (sold) seats. (+xx) represents the difference in season ticket sales from the previous estimate (usually 24 hours). 159 seats in block W01 are marked as unavailable (sold), but are not saleable due to being cordoned-off. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. 376 seats for supporters requiring ground-level font-row access are marked as unavailable (sold), but appear to be block-reserved rather than fully sold. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. A seat is marked as unavailable for up to 28 minutes when added to the basket. It is not possible to exclude these from the estimate.

Inter dicked around for most of the match. Their game plan was clear (to take it to penalties or wear down the opposition). After City took the lead, Inter actually showed they can play, and should have levelled what with City's nervousness kicking in. Inter might have got somewhere in this game and created an epic if they'd done that from the start, but since they chose not to, it was mostly a load of garbage for the neutral.

Not to mention a few they've replaced. Luton (lowest in the league). Blackpool (fourth lowest). Reading (fifth lowest). Incidentally, we were the seventh lowest.

I heard a rumour that we're in talks with Alka-Seltzer. Just a bit worried they'll get dissolved too.

Bringing this over here so the JDT thread doesn't go off-topic. You're not allowed Daniel Farke for the Leeds United job because I mentioned him first! Your response was that Carlos Corberan would get that job, so you have to stick with him. It's the rules. Daniel Farke for the Leeds United job. You saw it here first. As for Leicester City... I'll go for Brendan Rodgers. 😁 Only joking. I'll go for Daniel Farke. 😄

I think Feyenoord was what the poster meant, but not to worry, as both Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven have sorted out managers, now. I think it's down to Leicester City and Leeds United, and whether either would be interested in Tomasson. The former has been rejected by Potter, so they're going to be looking elsewhere, and it looks like the latter are on the verge of sorting out ownership, so you'd expect them to be targetting who they want, too. Hopefully, neither of them are looking this way. I'm more worried about whether Tomasson is actually going to India to meet the owners or not. If he doesn't go, I think that might be the first indicator of how he feels about being here.

Season Ticket Estimate Latest: 8,090 (+11) Notes: The estimate is based upon the total number of saleable seats to home supporters (18,210), minus the amount of unavailable (sold) seats. (+xx) represents the difference in season ticket sales from the previous estimate (usually 24 hours). 159 seats in block W01 are marked as unavailable (sold), but are not saleable due to being cordoned-off. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. 376 seats for supporters requiring ground-level font-row access are marked as unavailable (sold), but appear to be block-reserved rather than fully sold. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. A seat is marked as unavailable for up to 28 minutes when added to the basket. It is not possible to exclude these from the estimate.

Season Ticket Estimate Latest: 8,079 (+7) Notes: The estimate is based upon the total number of saleable seats to home supporters (18,210), minus the amount of unavailable (sold) seats. (+xx) represents the difference in season ticket sales from the previous estimate (usually 24 hours). 159 seats in block W01 are marked as unavailable (sold), but are not saleable due to being cordoned-off. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. 376 seats for supporters requiring ground-level font-row access are marked as unavailable (sold), but appear to be block-reserved rather than fully sold. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. A seat is marked as unavailable for up to 28 minutes when added to the basket. It is not possible to exclude these from the estimate.

Nothing we didn't already know. If we had 3,000 or 4,000 more season ticket holders in the stadium and it brought in less revenue, that could be the difference between finishing outside of the play-offs on goal difference, or getting into them and getting a financial boost to make up for it. All we needed was one more point, and there were a few things that could have turned it for us in the end. Having a louder twelfth man/woman could have been that difference.

There are probably two sub-groups there. Those who will never forgive them for their disastrous running of the club, and simply will not return while they are in charge. Those who will forgive them if they can see a semblance of a normal-run club again. How many are in each group is hard to tell, but there will be a good few thousand or more in the second group that can be recovered. The club needs to respect supporters more in terms of season ticket prices, and we need to see how the new staff handle transfer windows from here forward. Only those two points would see us get thousands more season ticket holders back, rather than the hundreds which our CEO is hailing as a success.

Season Ticket Estimate Latest: 8,072 (+3) Notes: The estimate is based upon the total number of saleable seats to home supporters (18,210), minus the amount of unavailable (sold) seats. (+xx) represents the difference in season ticket sales from the previous estimate (usually 24 hours). 159 seats in block W01 are marked as unavailable (sold), but are not saleable due to being cordoned-off. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. 376 seats for supporters requiring ground-level font-row access are marked as unavailable (sold), but appear to be block-reserved rather than fully sold. These are therefore excluded from the season ticket estimate. A seat is marked as unavailable for up to 28 minutes when added to the basket. It is not possible to exclude these from the estimate.

Szmodics will be buzzing. He got tickets for the game, apparently. Happy for him.

They do. 5% of any transfer fee (not the profit). They'll be due £4.425m.

There were reports that a club in Saudi Arabia (one of the four now owned by the state) had offered Lionel Messi €1bn for a two-year contract (€9.6m per week). Karim Benzema has already gone to Saudi Arabia for a reported €400m two-year contract (€3.8m per week), including as an ambassador for their 2030 World Cup bid. Ngolo Kante is on the verge of moving to Saudi Arabia, too, for a report €100m two-year contract (€1m per week). They are throwing money around at big names, presumably in an all-out effort to land the World Cup in 2030.