I wasn’t expecting them to go long ball down the middle as much as they did. They’d obviously figured out the 4 at the back instead of 5 was our weak point.

I’d say Lambert was an ambitious appointment, especially when you look at the staff he had. The Chokers managed to find a way to fuck that up though.

In that case he’ll fit right in at Ewood.

As you say there’ll be lots of clubs after him unfortunately.

Not every player progresses at the rate. Some never progress. I remember seeing Billy Wilson playing in our “ A “ tam and thinking how does that fat kid get a game at Rovers. About 18 months later he wasn’t a fat kid and he was playing in the first team. The lad that was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch that day was released at the end of the season and had a long career in the Northern Premier League.

If he does come in it’s an appointment I couldn’t criticise. Possibly as good as we could expect to get ?

If he left in 2017 that’s old history.

Well obviously I’ve not seen any of them in action behind the scenes. You see what I see . Did you get the impression that Rovers this season were physically fitter, stronger, better prepared both mentally and tactically than most of the opposition ? I don’t think I did.

Fred Eyre’s son was a top youth coach at City. He didn’t last a season at Rochdale.

And cheap no doubt.

Mm, would we be interested if he wasn’t an ex Rover ?

It’s been a pleasure reading your reports over the season, win lose or draw. Of course some have brought more pleasure than others. Just one more game to go now and we can all have a break.

I agree. Regarding foul play, there aren’t any dirty teams these days. There can’t be when you can get a yellow card for nothing. How many cards were there in the last two games and there wasn’t a really bad tackle in 180 minutes ?

As well as replacing Venus and Lowe hopefully.

That’s the only positive, but replacing that lot needs to start now. New manager ASAP . At least all the other guys leaving sort of confirms Mowbray is going.

He could be struggling with that back injury. Maybe he can’t train as much as he’d like. As we’ve discussed before back injuries don’t make you a better player.

I respect the amount of time and effort you put in Tony. As far as I’m concerned if you say so, fair enough, you’ve done the hard work. I just watched it once in real time.

I read somewhere that Maja has scored one goal so far at Stoke so it sounds like he wasn’t much of a loss.

Well Howe’s no mug so he must rate the guy but did we really look like a team that was full of running ? Not in my book.

I wouldn’t say Khadra has been a success. He’s been ok, no more than that. The only real success has been Van Hecke. Hedges I don’t rate, time will tell if I‘m right. On a 4 year contract apparently ! I’ll have a bet that he doesn’t see his contract out at Rovers. Giles ? Vanished off the face of the earth. Zefuik - done nothing apart from limp out of two games. Markanday, played the last ten minutes of a game out and then never kicked another ball for the season. Time will tell again. From what I saw he looked to be in the Dolan, Khadra, Poveda mould. Obviously that was when we were collecting wingers. Brown - hasn’t played at first team level. What we needed was players or just one player, that would go straight into the team and visibly raise the level of performance of the side. Berkovic being the obvious example. He came into a very good team but he still looked a better player than most of what we already had. If I was doing Park’s job I’d consider in the short term I’d have not achieved my targets.

Which ever team will struggle the most to get back up will do me. We already know we’ll be competing with Norwich and Watford.

The usual vote of thanks Tony. As you say, an embarrassing game all around. We looked scared to really take Bournemouth on. When we needed to play with more urgency we were passing it back and forth along the back four again. It could have been a game were a back 5 again would have been the better bet. Our two centre halves had a busy afternoon against the pace of Bournemouth’s strikers. I’m surprised you had Pickering down as MOM I thought nobody in the team came out with much credit and he was no exception.

Being fair to him this is true. Plus Wharton on his inside seemed to be struggling with either season end fatigue or he’s struggling to come to terms with playing in a back 4 instead of a 5. When Brererton is in front of him runs about a bit but he’s not really a defensive minded player. Having said all that these factors don’t affect an individuals running speed, passing ability, heading ability or effectiveness in the tackle.

Anybody else underwhelmed that Park is leaving. He hasn’t exactly been a success story in my book.

The new Paul Ince ?