Gallagher might be, after that no chance.

Branthwaite who was here at the same time came on as a sub for Everton tonight. I don’t think he’s anything like Premier League standard.

When we come out flying we usually do well. If we come out with a lethargic and lackadaisical attitude we usually lose. I can normally tell after 10 minutes how the game will go. When we’re taking the ball stood still from the off I know it’s going to be a long night.

Purely for financial reasons Jim. As a competition it’s as exciting as watching a submarine race. The big four to six clubs are just pulling further and further away as the seasons go by. They should let them leave and form their Euro Super League.

Everton could easily be the ones to fall into the bottom three. I think Newcastle will get out of it.

They’ve no fighters in the team, all big time Charlie’s. That’s why they’re going nowhere. They need to get Rice in as soon as they can.

They aren’t a team at the moment, they’re just a collection of very good individuals. You’ll never have a better chance of getting three points off them.

Not every nation has the same attitude to animals as we do.

My wife was marking GCSE English exam papers a while back. The students had to write an essay about a big decision they’d made in their lives. One kid had written about how he had to choose wether to stay at his local club or move to London and sign for Spurs. He already had an agent at 16 and he was still in year 11. It was the agent who was agitating for him to move down South. In the end he decided to stay with his local club. The lad has had a long career in pro football and has played at Ewood several times.

Dingles v Red Rats tonight. United are in disarray at the moment, lots of dissatisfaction with the coach and players. A good time to play them. Sorry about the italics.

Jones hasn’t improved his decision making since he was 17. Most of his troubles stem from him being drawn to the ball too easily.

Mm, I’m not sure about Khadra, he’s really quick but his decision making isn’t all it should be.

Thanks as always Tony, we need to snap out of this spiral ASAP. We were out enthused again on Saturday. Second to too many 50/50 balls.

We could have done with them staying in the FA Cup.

At least they should come at us so we should be able to play our normal counter attacking game.

Look on the bright side, if we do miss out on the playoffs it’ll be taxi for Tony time.

That’s what happened last night whilst it was 11 v 11. Our front three were by passed much too easily. One it went to 10 v 11 the whole game changed but we were stuck with the same way of playing as before.

I know, I watched it.

It started a few games ago. Just my opinion.

And got away with it.

From a purely defensive point of view Nyambe is as good a right back as there is in the championship.

In the cold light of day it’s becoming obvious that our only way of playing, counter attacking, doesn’t work if your opponents don’t give you the space to counter attack into. We have no plan “ B “. We were sloppy from the off last night in spite of having an early chance. Our intensity was low and we were back to being second best to nearly every 50/50 ball again. I’m also not impressed with our discipline, or lack of it. Rothwell and Buckley’s bookings were poor as was JRC pushing the goalkeeper at a corner. Just plain stupid. Was I the only one embarrassed by Lenihan going down holding his face when he’d obviously got a boot in the chest ? I know other teams do these things but I don’t like to see Rovers players play acting. On the subject of the referee, I thought he was overly fussy. Most of the yellow cards were for trivial incidents and first offences at that. Apart from Giles, who looked a good acquisition, the only plus point to emerge from last nights game was that we already have enough points to avoid relegation. I think any thoughts of promotion have taken a hammering over the last month. I’ve seen us play the last four games and I’ve seen us score one goal. That’s relegation form not promotion form.

Lucky you, I had to sit through all of it. The ones I feel sorry for are the ones who actually went to Swansea.

I’d have started with them and see how it went on.

Yeah, when we had Mike England at least we got a good few seasons out of him. The Jones came along and we got a good few games out of him. Now players are gone and we don’t even get a first team game out of them.