It was an awful penalty, Southgatesque, everything was wrong about the way he took it. He telegraphed where it was going, it was at a saveable height without a great deal of power. How not to take a penalty. I could have saved it. What’s this “ create value in the squad “ ? I thought the idea was to win games.

Quite possibly.

Very good player in his day, only problem - his day wasn’t at Rovers.

The only problem with that is they are big lads that don’t play like big lads. Give me David Speedie over any of them.

Chocolate soldiers I’m afraid.

You must be the only one thinking that on this board.

If you’re only 1-0 up with 10 minutes to go it’s a pound to a penny that. 1) You’ll end up hanging on. 2) The opposition will get 1 decent chance in that 10 minutes. If they take that chance is another story. That’s any team, not just Burnley.

I’m talking about knowing what your best team will be to play Rotherham on Saturday.

There’s more to it than a “ style “ . Individual players need to be much better on the ball, better touch, more two footed, have a trick or two, able to get their head up etc. if you can’t do that at 22 or 23 and you’ve been at a pro club since you were 8 the next two months aren’t going to change that much. Different positions demand different skills sets. If Ayala was a brilliant ball player he’d be in the Premier League.

Yeah we’re back where Mowbray left us. Nobody, including the manager, knows what our best team is. 10 blokes could post a team on here and every team could be different and all 10 could be wrong on Saturday.

Yeah but when they got wet, which was often up here, they were bloody heavy then.

The boots they wore then didn’t help and the cumbersome shin pads.

The secret to any pass and move team is MOVE. We’re not giving the guy on the ball enough options and we’re taking the ball stood still.

Maybe the players just don’t want to play the system.

Would you be expecting him to take the next one then ?

He’ll never get a better chance to open his account.

That’s the difference. Defenders who are able to play their way out of trouble are few and far between and cost many millions.

What I’m calling for is for the manager to realise he’s at Blackburn Rovers in the championship and not still back at AC Milan in the champions league.

I agree about playing in our opponents half.

It’s like he went away on holiday in summer and his twin brother came back in his place. To try and lighten the mood this morning. A story about my Rugby League team. The directors had gone scouting a rugby union player in deepest Gloucestershire after the last war. As was things in those days it was all cloak and dagger, rugby league directors were poison to union officials. The centre they were scouting had a great game and the directors decided to sign him. They spotted the guy come into the club house after the game for a pint and took him to one side. “ Would you like to sign a contract with us and play professional rugby ?” They asked him. The guy said “ I’d love to sign for you gentlemen but what about this ? “ With that he lifted his trousers bottoms slightly to reveal an artificial leg ! He’d been wounded in the war and he was the twin brother of the lad they had been scouting.

You had to watch the strikers I played with. They’d be fighting over who had the ball !

I things don’t pick up between now and then and the worst happens at the dingledome it could be taxi for Tomasson. He needs to wake up and smell the roses, he’s not here for a holiday..

If you’re not going to press 100% you might as well not bother at all. Being half hearted about it is the worst of all worlds.

It’s a good job we’re at home, I wouldn’t fancy us away for a minute. We get “ travel sick” too easily at the moment.

Like I said Tony, we’re really easy to play against. We were like that when Hughes came in, and Big Sam for that matter. The first thing they did was make us hard to play against. The expansive football can come later.