StHelensRover

Ref came out and rolled & and dropped it in a couple of areas to the same result (ball not bouncing or rolling). Rovers sent several staff out with pitchforks but they spent ages poking bits of the pitch round the edges and over by the riverside, nowhere near where the ball had been when he ref stopped play and nowhere near the ref rolled/dropped the ball. Staff did none of the pitchfork stuff in the key areas where there was visible standing water, a bizarre decision but might not have made a difference to the ref's assessment.

I laughed my head off when the pen was awarded at the time, I thought it was extremely soft at best. I haven't seen it back though. It might be in the territory of 'soft, but letter of the law' - where you're laughing when you get it, but fuming when it goes against you.

Wow that genuinely really surprises me, I was (99%) sure they would just automatically make the tickets available for re-use. Seems like most clubs would feel the right thing to do is to honour original ticket sales? Or not?

Ah yes, we're being sold down the River (Darwen), by our favourite former orange juice salesman.

I don't think either team gets to 'make a case', I think it's all done behind closed doors by some bureaucrats at the EFL. IMO they'll be in there for about 5 minutes.. "The game was called off for rain" "What do we usually do when that happens?" "We always make them replay the full game" "Okay, we'll do that then"

It hasn't yet been announced, but I'm 99.9% sure that all original tickets will be valid for the replayed fixture. Edit - I wasn't aware I was wrong about this, egg on face

The bottom line is the club need to address the infrastructure as soon as possible (maybe this summer?). Our pitch drains into a river. Many football grounds are near rivers, but the majority are probably not. What does everyone else do? Why is our pitch drainage worse than every other ground in the top two tiers of England? Maybe something that fans could demand is investigated at the next fans forum, or wherever we're allowed to speak to our crank overlords.

I'm only relaying what I heard on radio lancs, maybe he did that because it was their own internal club media. No idea. He looked chuffed at the end of that clip there when he said they'll be back up here in a few weeks.. Oh well.

IMO we need to move on from what happened and just accept that the game couldn't continue, it had become a farce, neither team could pass the ball 5 yards. (I know 20 years ago the game would have continued and in our hearts we wish it had, but we know modern football has changed for better or for worse and that these days they do not play in these conditions). There is no way there will be any other decision from the authorities other than a full replay, there is no precedent for anything other than a full replay where a game is abandoned due to weather. What I think people should be more angry about, is the fact our ground is in such poor repair that we cannot host football matches if there is heavy rain. This isn't a one-off, no other local clubs in the top 3 divisions have this issue, but it is happening often at Ewood Park. Why? Because our owners do not care about running the club properly, so we have outdated drainage that relies on a tiny river behind the ground not being affected by... rain. It's item number #588 to add to the list of ways in which the owners have mismanaged and ruined this club.

Neither club are doing any post-match or any statements because the game has to be referred to a panel to decide what happens about the result. Neither club wants to be seen to be trying to influence the panel so neither club will be making comments on what happened. (I got that from Radio Lancs earlier)

He did make himself look like a bit of an arsehole, but I think any fan would want their own manager to be up to the same shenanigans to look out for their team and gain an advantage. We've done this to ourselves by having incompetent owners who don't keep our ground up to modern standards.

Very pathetic and tinpot from the Ipswich fans and players the way they were celebrating a game being called off I thought, but then it was very pathetic and tinpot not being able to host a football game in 2025 in the 2nd tier of English football because of rain.

We'll be replaying that game on a freezing Tuesday evening in January or February infront of about 9k fans. Ipswich will be in completely different form, probably near the top of the league. We'll be ravaged by injuries and suspensions. We'll lose 2-0, that will be that. It will be because we've got archaic drainage facilities which are the laughing stock of the football league, because we've got some of the worst owners in the football league. It's unacceptable that Ewood Park now can't host football matches if there's going to be heavy rain. The Dingles, Wanderers and Blackpool all managed to play. Chorley, Morecambe too. It probably isn't cheap to fix, might even be a couple of million quid, but our owners are billionaires, so it's pocket change to them. Will they fix it? Or will abandoned/postponed matches just be an annual thing at Ewood Park? We played very well today and would have fully deserved the win. We haven't been robbed by the ref, McKenna or anyone else, we've been robbed by our owners who are too incompetent to bring our stadium into the 21st century.

I listened to the post match hour long show yesterday and I did find it very weird how he always just calls us 'Blackburn' and I really don't like it at all. Maybe he is trying not to sound biased, but that shouldn't be a problem as every pundit on there is picked for their affinity to the local clubs. You would think someone local who played here almost his entire career would know different.

Yes, against Birmingham we played like the away team, in the first half against Norwich at home it felt similar. We can't cower against Ipswich and let them take control of the game, or we'll get smoked like Sheffield United did on Friday.

Much better performance than I expected. Mainly because I expected much more from Watford, Toth had nowt to do. Having said that, you can only beat what is in front of you though and we did. Very impressed with Gudjohnsen. Weekend made there. COYB

Something we have been truly awful at for at least a decade.

Come on boys dig in 🤞

Tavares shirt pull, 90+6

81 mins in, we've been the better side, looked solid, created the most chances. Cannot complain about this. Watford look absolutely dreadful, I'm surprised the home fans sound so calm and relaxed.

Not sure that was definitely a penalty for Gudjohnsen, I'd be really annoyed if that was given at the other end.

How was that not a freekick on Ohashi? Other player is nowhere near the ball and has headed Yuki in the face. Time to get Yuki off and the new striker on surely.

Everything crossed that this makeshift back four can hold it together now, come on.

Get in!

Not a disaster, but realistically not much to choose between two sides offering next to nothing in the final third. Give Yuki another 10-15 minutes then get the Icelandic on and see what he's all about.