Decided to brave a 5am Megabus for this one after Sky kindly moved it to a train-unfriendly time. No idea what to expect as we are so hot and cold. A slow start is a must avoid as teams like Watford (as they showed v QPR) can blow you away on their day.

You'll be shocked to hear I haven't watched it, but remember thinking the same watching the City documentary a few years ago.

100%. Their statement hinted at a duty of care as an 'employee' - I'd be absolutely shocked if they showed the same leniency towards someone working in the club shop if the same evidence was presented to them. I'd also wager that if he was a bench warmer he'd be long gone too.

Legally, he is sadly entitled to come back and is entitled to earn his money. Morally, I would argue that there is no place for him in football and I certainly wouldn't want him wearing our colours. I am sadly not a supremely talented athlete, but I like to think I'd be jobless if my boss found photo/video evidence of my partner battered and bruised, combined with some very difficult to hear voice recordings of him being an abusive wanker (whilst also demonstrating a total lack of respect for consent). United have clearly made their mind up and are prepping his return, which I find to be a great shame and a stain on their name. As an aside, a lot of the nobheads on Twitter (usually from abroad) keep trying to peddle the suggestion the videos might be a forgery - of course that isn't true, as if there was any evidence of forgery or inaccuracy he would have been back long ago. It's almost indisputable the evidence is very, very real (and there is no reason not to believe the victim), and there does not appear to be any hint of remorse.

It's not really based on much empirical evidence, he just seems to conduct himself in a way that strikes me as someone who will do well. And yes, they did have a superior budget (although a lot of that generated by selling players), but he still did what other clubs in similar positions (Watford, Norwich amongst others) failed to do. Games against City won't judge their season. Given Sheffield United's fire sale and Luton being Luton, I only realistically see one spot up for grabs, with Wolves trying their best to fill it. I'm not proclaiming him to be the next Pep Guardiola or anything special, I just think they're in relatively safe hands and think there are 3 worse teams than them. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and can promise that my assessment of Kompany is not based on BBC/Sky propaganda (I actively avoid anything Dingle related) - just a combination of gut instinct and pretty much everything I've heard of him from former team-mates and players who play under him - as well as second hand (possibly biased) assessments of his work at Anderlecht. I've been unfortunate enough to see some of the nauseating arse licking on social media and the painting their promotion as some sort of miracle - it's obviously some way off that. I hope he does shite and fails.

Sadly I am confident there will be at least 3 teams worse than the Dingles this year. I don't know enough about their squad but Kompany seems to know what he's doing.

You're a legend - exactly the video and website I was after. Thank you very much 🙂

Love to read this sort of stuff. Being born in 1992 I was spoilt growing up, so perhaps didn't appreciate it as much as I should. As I posted earlier in the thread, I'll never forget the tributes before the Norwich game in 2000. Barely a dry eye in the stadium. Your Dad sounds like a great man, as was Uncle Jack - the world was clearly a poorer place that week with their passing. Oh - and a very happy birthday to you!

I've tried searching to no avail and any help appreciated. Someone in here at some point posted a great website where they had hosted a load of old Rovers videos/DVDs - can't for the life of me remember the name of it and lost the bookmark I had. Any help appreciated (it wasn't YouTube). I am specifically looking for the 'time to say goodbye' Jack Walker tribute from 2000 which they showed on the big screen before the Norwich game. Think the famous poem is contained in the same video.

Jota as well who has left Celtic. A cracking player, only 25 I think. He's gone under the radar due to playing in Scotland but I really rate him. He signed a month ago and now due to squad registration issues (i.e. they want bigger names) they might be loaning him out. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up at Newcastle.

They might well be taking the scenic route this year

In that game alone there was that decision and Beckham's free kick being taken as our player was still on his way off the pitch. Then you have the Saha handball before the Smith equaliser in 2004, the potential Scholes handball in the cup semi (not 100% on this one mind), the soft penalty to win them the league in 2011 at Ewood, not sending off their keeper in 2002/2003 (which would have resulted in a player in net).

This sums it up. As ever, the video comments have a few Dingles below rightfully criticising the perpetrators and reassuring everyone it's a minority, but recent visits to Turf Moor show it's a very large 'minority' and is in no way the tiny contingent they like to tell us. Also seen a few of their sadder fans resorting to abusing Sammie Szmodics on Twitter for the crime of posting about a game of football in a league below them with no Burnley involvement. His cutting reply forced a swift deletion of one of the offending tweets.... I really do feel for their more normal fans, they really do have a disproportionate amount of numpties amongst their support.

Leicester should go up, although they rode their luck at times at Huddersfield. Leeds might need a year in transition, Southampton at times looked excellent at Sheffield Wednesday but seem to have a soft underbelly. Extremely lucky to get a draw vs Norwich - that 2nd penalty was never a foul in a million years imo. Norwich look pretty strong though as well, can see them going well. As for other promotion contenders - Sunderland seem to be going backwards, and West Brom look similar to last year. The jury's still out on Watford, whilst Ipswich have started strongly. I didn't catch all the Coventry game, but they were apparently brilliant first half. Second half they barely attacked but got 2 goals on the break - that new winger looks a good un. Stoke already looking inconsistent, Birmingham potential dark horses and Millwall followed up an impressive away win with an equally tepid home defeat. Boro look powderpuff in front of goal but could easily spend the Akpom money on someone to solve that problem. To summarise - not a bloody clue! It seems to be as wide open as ever. No reason we can't break in with a few signings, which I appreciate is a big ask atm.

A huge issue, that got considerably worse over the last year. Think we equalised twice in the entirety of last season.

I fully agree with it. Huddersfield last year was a joke, the ball was barely in play in the 2nd half and they did everything they could to kill our momentum. Seem to remember that despite this, only 4 minutes were added on. It should have been 10! I genuinely think if the referee did his job properly we win that game 3-2. There will be some silly amounts of added on time, but hopefully that will just serve to clamp down on the time wasting us fans are subjected to. No doubt it will get a lot of airtime and quietly be reneged upon by Christmas. Reminds me of some of the other rules that were quietly dropped - does anyone remember when dissent (I think?) would result in the free kick moving forward another 10 yards? Not always helpful but that seemed to disappear overnight.

I loved his reply to JDT after the game 'I should have scored 3'. Just what we need - a striker who craves goals. He should have got a couple more, but it's night and day when comparing to Gally who never seemed to find himself in those positions.

Absolutely fantastic. No matter how successful a football player is, they're real people - despite often being reduced to mere pawns in the world of football. He comes across fantastically.

It is incredibly optimistic but I enjoy the breakdown in each position and hard to disagree with a lot of it. I think we are about on par with last year, maybe slightly behind. We potentially overperformed last year - I'm torn whether some of our 'luckier' wins will revert to draws or whether our increased integration with JDT's way of playing will make us even better. Last season was a funnier one - we played some of our better stuff in the latter part of the season when results turned against us! Lots of ifs regarding new strikers etc, but a big one for me is JDT - even if he stays, is he as hungry? Will the players detect a drop in intensity from him?

I was absolutely gutted when he left, but I do understand it: At his wages, you have to be one of the main man. He sadly isn't that man anymore. There is a clear difference of opinion between him and JDT. People have mentioned Dack's attitude during JDT's first training session (anyone got the video? Couldn't find it) and the posts above confirm it. Ultimately, it isn't in JDT's interests to have a high earning, influential player sat on the bench most weeks, likely very unhappy he's not playing. There were times last year we were crying out for Dack, but think some of the furore dissipated somewhat as Szmodics really asserted himself in the team. Sammie is much more of a JDT player, a system in which the front 3 or 4 need to apply incessant pressure and run themselves into the ground. Sadly, Dack isn't able to do that. Wish him all the best.

Makes sense - love the work you've put in and it's nigh on impossible to get it 100% spot on. I'm one of the non-renewers. I barely make any games from Cardiff and I didn't see much benefit last year with regards to priority for away games. My brother (who shares it with me) has also moved to Manchester, so might not make all the midweek games. I also thought there may be an uplift, but the confusing messaging regarding early bird deadlines was a bit messy and can't have helped.

The estimates suggested that, but if the club say 8,000 then it's probably that (unless it's a typo or copy and paste from an old article)

I'm not sure I agree that we could be in a dogfight. The only weakening of our squad is the exit of Brereton, which may be offset (at least to an extent) by Sigurdsson and Ennis. Let's not forget how ineffectual Brereton was for the second half of last season. Our midfield remains the exact same minus the much maligned Morton and with the new lad Tronstad in. it would take a colossal fall off for us to fall from 7th to anything approaching a dogfight, and as of yet I don't think we are sufficiently weakened to be suitably concerned. At worst I think we bobble around in mid table.

This feels accurate. We started to pass it better, but more crucially we also found a more pragmatic approach. We did start to pass it forward more often rather than panicking across our back line. That Burnley game still gives me the fear - we were shown the benchmark by Sheffield United the week before and totally ignored it.

You can always take a game in isolation and say 'this cost us the play offs'. Obviously we were shite in those games, but doesn't mean I don't think the style of play (particularly as it has bedded in) is a bad thing. We just executed it appallingly at times in the first half of the season.