Anybody offers that he'll be gone I remember Rovers having a similar young player called David Helliwell in the 1960's just after we were relegated from the First Division. He was a local lad who was a really nice footballer, he could beat people and he had a good eye for a pass. The hope was he would replace Bryan Douglas as the midfield playmaker because Bryan was coming to the end of a great career. He was the MOTM in his debut game and he really looked the part. Unfortunately he was only about 5' 8" tall and at the most 9 stone wet through. I've no doubt the club did their best to build him up but he was always that weight. He fell into the trap of being not strong enough to play in midfield and not fast enough to play on the wing. Eventually he left Rovers and drifted down the leagues.

Whenever Evans gets injured he's usually out for a while. I can't see him figuring tomorrow. That's unless a move to Stoke may be on the cards,

I'm always suspicious when loan players in Tosin's situation finish the preceding game in good shape and then are suddenly " injured in training ". Given the number of games we'll have played over the Xmas period just how much robust training will we have been doing ?

January 2021 ?

The thing is they wouldn't have scored a goal if they'd have played whilst now. If you don't score goals you go down.

If you're going to play 4-4-2 at least one of the wide players has got to be a grafter that gets into the game on their own accord. You can have a mercurial crowd pleaser on one wing but the other winger has got to make his presence felt much more often on attack and defence. What we have at the moment is two players - Armstrong and Rothwell - that flicker in and out of the game and rely on other players giving them the ball.

You're right of course. The standard of football improved massively under Keanochio.

That would have been really interesting. I'd put money on only one of them seeing out the whole game.

I don't know what you're worrying about. Ben Gladwin reckons he's a better player than Dack so I reckon that's problem solved.

Even centre halves ? You could have fooled me.

They were hard working, they had a shape that they stuck to, They had a good spine to the team, they knew pressing our back four would bring results and it did. My main beef was that our guys that were receiving the ball from down field, from the back 4 let's say, weren't side on most of the time so they were easily forced back towards where the ball had just come from.

Morsy helped him on his way. Not at a foul in the strict sense but an un necessary act. I've seen Shearer do the same thing to centre halves when they've gone to head a bouncing ball out by the touchline.

How hard do you reckon they were trying last night Chaddy, first half especially ? I didn't go on the Wigan site but I'll bet what ever complaints they may have been making " We weren't trying " won't be one of them. I'm tired of seeing Rovers teams out enthused by less skillful teams. If you can't see that you weren't watching the same game as I was.

I was talking to the coach of my local pro Rugby League team one day. He said his number one task was " To remove all the excuses the bastards give me for losing ". IE the coach taking them to the game was wrong, the overnight accomedation is wrong, the guy massaging the players is wrong, the kit's too tight, the refreshments aren't right, the balls aren't right etc, etc. He added " pro players are always looking for excuses why they haven't performed, I remove as many as I can but they keep coming up with new ones ! "

Did you hear the interview ? I found it embarrassing. I can't imagine Fergie or Bill Shankly or Cloughie talking like that.

Exactly. There's no rigour at Ewood. It's all too comfortable. I heard Mowbray's interview last night and he was droning on about keeping people happy and not upsetting players. It sounded like he was a PE teacher picking the school year 7 team not the manager of a pro football team.

Why is it our centre halves all seem to be injury prone ? Tosin seems to play two, miss two, and both of the Lenihan and Williams miss games regularly. It's not like the game is as rough and tumble as it used to be for centre halves these days is it ? How these lads would have gone on against Fash the Bash or Andy Blockhead I shudder to think. Even Mike England didn't like playing against Blockhead. A pal of mine once said " If Lochhead was a boxer he'd be wearing a glove on his head ". Only time I saw Mike lose it completely was against Lochead at the Dingle Dome.

Thanks for that matey. Onwards and upwards hopefully.

Wigan are bottom because they are toothless in front of goal. They didn't convert any of the good ball they had in and around our box into goals. A decent team would have done. They out enthused us from 5 minutes in. We allowed them to pull up the arm chairs and get their feet up on the table in the first half, when you do that it's always going to be an uphill struggle.

Maybe he used to be but he isn't now. Don't let your dislike of the guy cloud your judgement regarding ability. Johnson's no longer mobile enough to compete with younger, fitter players.

I agree, the left back looked a class act. He matched both Nyambe and Armstrong for pace and they'd no answer to him after that. The blond centre half played like a centre half should. Morsy is what we're short of, the sort of player that has you looking over your shoulder on and off the ball. We've got too many nice guys. You can see why they are where they are though - absolutely no cutting edge in front of goal, luckily for us.

Nobody told me they were sending their Rugby League team over ! Being honest they're always an ale house team, we should know what to expect by now,

If he manages to get back playing before next season I'll be delighted.

Dead right, too many nice lads and only Travis with any needle to his game. They knew that and that's why they tried to wind him up.

Scorers in that 4-1 win at Turf Moor Oct 9th 1965 - England, Harrison, McEvoy, Douglas. So no hat trick I'm afraid. Having said that definitely the best centre half I've ever seen. If Tosin turns out to be half as good he'll be a world beater.