Our lot have forgotten how to play football, and have no plan, no tactics, no focus and no direction. We rely upon the rub of the green, which has sadly been missing from recent games. Sunderland have enough in the locker to despatch Rovers quite comfortably, based on recent form. Is there anyone left at Rovers who actually gives a fook? What a dire end to a season that started with such promise. What the fook kind of business deliberately sets out to fail? What kind of set up is intentionally undermined to ensure failure? What is the mentality of owners who appear to want no return from their considerable investment in their business? The bonfire of the Venekies... that's what. Rovers on fire, and the owners fiddling whilst Ewood burns.

Perhaps the game is to avoid playing the 6 fingered derby twice next season at all costs.

No coherence, cohesion, competence or confidence in that team today. Whilst Ipswich didn't do anything really worth the win, Rovers did nothing but huff and puff, like handbags at thirty paces. If we go down it will be because of nothing performances like today. Poor across the whole team.

What Chrisene brings to the side I fail to see.

Rovers look like a League 1 side already. Making Ipswich look like a class above. 😞 Sad indeed.

Not sure that is going to do anything to help the Rovers get anything out of this game... lol

Fair play to you Scarface for coming onto the Rovers board (oh for a more influential version of that!!) and for your measured assessment of the fixture this afternoon. I thought for a second or two when I started reading, that you were in fact a Dingle troll, come to rub our noses gleefully in their expensive learning curve this season, but once I'd clocked that you were in fact a Tractor Boy I felt comfortable with what you laid out. The thing to remember I guess, in football, is that there are a lot of swings and roundabouts along the way. I used to have a soft spot for Ipswich in the glory days of Arnold Muhren and the likes of Paul Cooper, George Burley, Mick Mills, Franz Thijssen, Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, John Wark, Paul Mariner (from Chorley), Alan Brazil, Gates. Kevin Beattie and McCall. Memories fade, but that team played football years ahead of its time, and was a joy to watch, unless you were playing them as opposition! On today's fixture, we can all see that the pendulum has swung a long way between the fortunes of these two sides, and that on paper, trajectory, recent form and common sense there should be only one outcome. But then again, perhaps that is the joy of this crazy game - All we can wish for as football fans is for our team to give a good account of themselves in the game. All we can hope for as home supporters is for some measure of pride in a performance 'against the odds' at the final whistle, and a walk up Livesey Branch Road with heads held high. With any luck Rovers will find the guts and guile to nick a win, and send you Tractor Boys with long faces and cries of what might have been back on the long trek to the bland wilderness of Suffolk (lol, I'm sure the town is somewhat more pleasant in many respects than our counterpart in East Lancs).. Let's be having a proper football match first! COYB!

My question is, why do they even bother sending the fabled £20 million dollops over at all? It's worse than sending feck all and abandoning any pretence that they have an interest in our famous old club. They don't. 😞 Feck em.

Naahh, it's a barometer / reality check for the remainder of the season. Might as well either gird our loins, or administer last rights. No point letting them duck the axe. Found out this week that Ainsley Pears is dating one of my lad's old school chums.. She doesn't seem to have cottoned on to the definition of goal-digger just yet, but I'd wager she'll be offski if the financial outlook takes a turn for the worse at the end of the season. Watch this space 😉

Burble burble burble, blahbladdyblah. Three nil to the Tractor Boys, John Eustace won't go far... This is Rovers' cup final for this season. Rise to the occasion and maybe the campaign could end with a little pride and a flourish. Baulk or worse still freeze in the headlights, and the downward trajectory might become a little too compelling to avoid a galling tailspin into the third division. Dark days at the home of football. Oh, and just as an aside, I was speaking with a neighbour who is a dyed in the wool follower of all things shite at th'Turd, and he reckons that this season is actually "going to plan" with the beanie bloke looking to rebuild through another dominant season in the Champ, before taking a re-vitalised army of knuckle-draggers back to Mid Prem permanence. I know, I've had a warning already for talking non-football matters on the forum, but really, a 5 year plan including boing boing?? The idea of a bouncing turd really does nothing for my love of football. C'mon Rovers players tomorrow. Give it some welly, and play for a bit of pride.

Aye, best not to speak ill of the dead.. There's a few I'd forgotten, no doubt, and some who should be consigned to history.

That'll be the Mick Rose whose dad was Fred, and brother Peter who both taught at the College back in the day. Not sure if Mick might have retired from the Holly Tree Chippy these days, and passed it on to the younger generation, but I think his missus (or daughter) can still be seen there from time to time.. There are many ex St. Mary's College folk lurking on these pages - you know who you are (in Thailand, Redditch and the like 🙂 ) Some of us have ended up back in Blackburn and let's be honest, there really are a lot worse places to live! Father Stuart, Fred Arkwright, Mick Devoy, Joe Rigby (died last week at 96 I heard, RIP), Father Cassidy, John (?) Eastham (Spam), Ma Riley, Ma Burns, Fat Colly Collinridge, Dirty Denis Mahon, Joe Pilling (Groundsman), Tommy Duckworth, Father Wynne, And many others.. Not happy days for me, but for some, no doubt the time of your lives :O) A good school for football.

Well I'm not really dead, but the nom de plume has been retired / killed off. The posts remain somewhat adjacent, though perhaps a little toned down to reduce my tendency to offend folks 😭, but it is still me, except I'm now officially an Old Codger 😉

Sponsored by Holly Tree Chippy! Come on Mick Rose, you know you want to..!!

Not sure how many will trudge up the A19 for this one, but fair play to those hardy bastards who make the trip. I hope you are rewarded for your blind optimism with a display of attacking flair, resolute defending and midfield tenacity / creativity in equal measure. The form book looks somewhat telling: Boro - Last 6 = won 4 lost two Rovers - Last 6 drawn 5 lost one. Just like every single game from now to the end of the season, we need something from this one. I think though, on balance, that all we will get is disappointment and anger at what might have been. Hoping I'm wrong. Both sides have something to play for, but at opposite ends of the table. Both sides have players back. Both sides have players capable of changing a game. Both have players who coast like entitled babies instead of blazing like footballing gods. Hoping for a Rovers miracle. Expecting a Rovers reverse 😞 But FFS! COYB! F-WAGGOTT OUT! F-VENKYRAODESAIWASTRELS OUT! F-SUHAILPASHAHIDINGLIKEAWANKER OUT!

Have the players stopped believing in possibilities? Has a terminal gloom settled on the squad? Has the manager (head coach bah) got anything in the locker? I think we are about to find out, folks. Kansas may be about to go bye bye..

Beware the Ides of March... Omens not good, and the form book and outlook for games to come pretty bleak too. We can go on about lies, damned lies and statistics, but at the end of the day having the second worst defensive record and being so reliant on one player to provide 'moments of magic' really doesn't help me to feel any confidence we can stop the tail-spin. If we don't get anything from the next two games, for whatever reason, I'm inclined to think we'll just sink into oblivion. Damn those VenkyRaoDesaiPasha scum. Balls to Mr Stephen cut your granny's throat for a laugh Waggott Feck them all. How dare they allow this on their watch?

Boro have won this evening at Big Club, which continues their renaissance after the return of some key players. Given that football is a confidence game where momentum is vital, their positive movement upwards meeting our virtual stasis going nowhere would seem to suggest there will only be one likely outcome. This is where we see what is in the locker from the new management team, and from the players. If there isn't a significant change in both formation and attitude, we will definitely start to have the stink of a sinking ship. Watch out you don't get bitten, rat fans... Here's our glorious new leader, hamming it up on the One Show a few years back..

I think at least a 3-0 bashing is on the cards. Whilst Carrick's side has been inconsistent this season, they have had some key players out, who are now back available and starting to make the team gel once again. Where Boro have strength in depth, coherence and a plan, we seem to have holes in the squad, a chaotic and ineffective approach, and no plan whatsoever other than to hoof and hope. Consequently it is difficult to see anything other than a further dent in our confidence, a crushing blow to those hardy enough to make the trek up to Teesside, and a further deepening of our goals against crisis. As ever, I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong, but there's no recent evidence that these players have the balls to deliver anything else. Bollix.

Well, that was a dose of reality bites for the rose tinted bespectacled optimists amongst us who kept saying Rovers should win this... the BBC match statistics make for sobering reading: It isn't going to look any prettier on here either, if we don't somehow start to play with some form of coherence and conviction. It just wasn't there today. Nobody to blame but ourselves for swallowing the bullshit that JDT leaving and being replaced by 'a safe pair of hands' was anything other than another game of death by a thousand cuts. F-OFF VENKY-RAO-DESAI Football Luddites F-OFF WAGGOTT AND SUHAIL Football Stooges F-OFF VENKY APOLOGISTS AND BLINKERED SUPPORTERS WHO CAN'T SEE THIS IS DELIBERATE VENKYS OUT

Attack, Attack, Attack attack attack!! Oh, ok then,.... Tippy tap, tippy tap, tippy tippy tippy tap... oh bollux 😞 Someone down at Ewood, close to the dressing room - please could you put the shooting boots out this afteroon? Ta, muchly.

70s were cracking times to be a Rovers fan - bovril on a wet Tuesday evening against Hereford, the baying of rabid opposition supporters separated only by the merest whiff of metalwork, coins flying through the air from (and to) the Darwen End, being able to walk right round the ground so you were behind the 'scoring end' for the whole game, the smell of the crowd, Hollands pies, players training at Pleasington quite happily, talking with players getting the bus to the ground, proper turnstiles, teddy bears at half time in the Riverside, celebrating 1975, players and managers less concerned with 'systems' and more with sticking the ball in the onion bag, legendary goalkeepers and players living across the road (Roger Jones on Hollytree, Tony Parkes on Livesey Branch Rd opposite Station Garage when it was a petrol station), when 'being there' was more important that 'who owns the club'. Them wer't days. Miss em.

en mi cabeza hijo ¿Te estás riendo árbitro? ¡Tenerlo! (on my head son, / Are you having a laugh ref / Have IT!!) How difficult could it be?

Gallagher summed up last night for me - in dangerous positions several times, but far too slow to react, far too easy to knock off the ball, far too easy to out-muscle, and far too relaxed when it comes to doing his job (i.e. striker = score goals). I can't imagine for one nanosecond that Speedie, Bellamy, Jansen, McCarthy, or that weird Geordie turncoat would have done anything other than smash the ball into the net in most of the positions Gally got himself into. And as for all that passing the ball backwards and across the line instead of putting it into danger areas, REALLY? FFS, bash the fooking ball into their net. Simples. Going down, going down, going down. 😞 FFS FFS FFS!!

Lack of urgency. Lack of a coherent plan. Lack of leadership. Lack of quality in front of goal. Lack of concentration. Lack of energy. Lack of guile. Lack of a plan. Lack of pride in the shirt. Lack of options. Lack of concern. Lack of connection to the fans. Lack of action to put things right. At this rate, we are going to need to be renamed as 'Lackburn Rovers' 😞