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.

I must have seen a worse first half but I can't remember one. We were out enthused again. They wanted it more, ran harder, ran further, won most of the second balls. bullied us when they needed to. We had a good five minutes, after that it was a disjointed shambles with our manager stood there like a bloke waiting for the last bus home. Second half was a slight improvement but nowhere near good enough to win the game. Walking football won't beat running football ever. Too many players were talking the ball stood still, not enough movement, not enough balls played into a space for players to run on to etc etc. Totally underwhelming performance.We got murdered in midfield, the two " wingers " never got in the game and playing both of Travis and Evans in midfield at home against the bottom of the league club tells you all you need to know. No link between attack and defence. Made to look 2nd best for large parts of the game by the bottom club at home - again. Walton 8 Good save at the death bit allowed himself to be knocked over near the end. I'm not convinced. Nyambe 6 Defended ok but no end product going forward. Lenihan 7 Our best defender. Williams 5 Is this guy colour blind ? Downing 6 Not his best game but got no help from those around him. Armstrong 5 Hardly in the game. Travis 7 Worked hard but doesn't get forward enough. Evans 5 Normal service resumed. Rothwell 5 Did next to nothing Dack 5 Same as Rothwell. Graham 6 Came closest to scoring Subs Johnson 5 Hardly in it. Holtby 7 Made a difference when he came on. Gallagher 5 Hardly in it.

To be honest with you I'd rather keep Samuel and loan Brererton out in January. At least Samuel will put himself about.

Give him time ? How long ? If he comes in and it's like playing with ten men and we lose a couple of games just when we're in play off range what happens then ? Nobody gets 6 games in the hope they might just do something. If Dack has a couple of games were he goes missing people on here will be saying give him a break and let's try Holtby or Rothwell there.

How about purchasing players with the hope that they can actually hold down a first team place ? This buying players as long term investments is nonsense given the league position we find ourselves in. If we'd have paid £250k for him fair enough but £7 million ? Crazy signing.

Boo Hoo. I'd been playing earlier that day and we were in town watching the scores come in on the old teleprinter in a TV rental shop window. Reading that sentence back brings home how much technology has changed our lives. No mobile phones then. Anyway now and again they'd get the scores wrong right after the game and subsequently it would be corrected. When Oxford Utd 3 - Blackburn Rovers 1 came through I said to one of my team mates " They've got that one the wrong way around ! " Oh no they hadn't !

It was the only game kicking off at 11.00 am that day. Why that was I don't know. Rovers must have travelled down on Xmas day. As I said I didn't find out that we'd even played whilst after the game. Co incidentally it's our wedding anniversary today and as a present Mrs Shoelaces has bought me a copy of " Football History Through Newspaper Headlines - Blackburn Rovers " and I was just reading the " Daily Mirror " report about that game. Of course there's no mention of the game at Ewood were we played like we'd been celebrating since Boxing Day. Returning to Willie Anderson and George Best playing against the Dingles. Anderson was 16 yrs old, making his debut and Best was 17 and making his 2nd start. Apparently Best ran Alex Elder, a really classy left back, ragged. They must be the all time youngest pair of wingers to feature in top flight football. Then you read people saying Big Ben is only a kid.

And then you went to the return match a couple of days later and came back down to earth. Just reading about the late Martin Peters, he was supposed to be marking Bryan Douglas in the Boxing Day game. Dougie ran him ragged enough for him to be dropped for the return game at Ewood. There were some other queer results that Xmas, in the game I went to the Dingles won 6-1 against Utd on Boxing Day and then lost their return game at Old Trafford 5-1 I think. I remember reading the Burnley match report in the old " Last Sports " on the bus on the way home from the West Ham game. Matt Busby had given the Red Rats team a shake up and played two young wingers I'd never heard of before, Willie Anderson and a lad called George Best. I wonder what happened to them ?

Nice report matey. Let me be the first one to " name that tune ". " For What It's Worth " by the excellent Buffalo Springfield. One of those songs were the title never appears in the lyrics. Under Venkies maybe this bit might have been more appropriate - " Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid " . ! Hope that's right as I'm quoting from memory.

Not every young player gets better with age. He's not doing much at Bristol City as far as I can see.

When it's your place of work obviously good conditions make a massive difference. I see Rochdale training in public on what are Lacrosse pitches near the cricket ground. If you know Rochdale at all they're on what were the old Redbrook school playing fields quite near what's called " The Crown Oil Arena these days. They can walk from the ground to the training pitches in 5 minutes and the younger players do sometimes.