Good half given we were supposed to get mullered. Giving as good as we get. Ref is pathetic.

Other than Garner and Sellars, that was a pretty poor Mackay team. In hindsight, he was lucky to stay in charge for the start of the next season.

Cracking picture of a packed old Ewood. Only trouble is it’s seconds after McGrath scored Utd’s second in the cup tie

I’m loving watching Dolan, he wins the ball back high up the pitch and rarely makes a bad choice on how to use it.

Plenty to enjoy about that. We have some cracking youngsters.

Decent first half. Holtby the playmaker and Johnson looking fitter, haven’t noticed Travis much. Personally I didn’t think it was a great ball by Nyambe, there was no way Armstrong was getting to it without being offside. Restricting a top 6 club to one long range effort on goal isn’t bad for any defence, let alone this one.

Moving from being a joke to being irrelevant to them is some kind of progress...!

I suspect they were a lot happier when Kean, Shebbie, Shagnew et al were at the wheel.

Sounds like he should’ve been taking penalties as we’d missed 9 out of 12

...other than the fact you assured us they had no pot to piss in, had to cut £10m from the wage bill and sell one or two of our top assets.

“he does just what I want. He has intensity, he has urgency, he plays on the front foot, he’s positive.” Mowbray hoist by his own petard there! He’ll soon be coaching him to run into blind alleys, misplace passes, put crosses into the Riverside and shoot at the goalie’s midriff, just like he did with Rothwell.

I would add to that his initial control of the ball was perfect, put in exactly the right direction and pace to execute as you describe.

Or because they simply have an opinion of Nyambe that is not a cypher for their opinion of Mowbray.

I agree, he’s pretty unbeatable in a foot race going either way and is very strong, doesn’t get knocked off the ball. But, for me has a big weakness also at both ends of situational awareness. For a player who can get past a fullback to only have one good assist is ludicrous, but his final ball is almost always a hit and hope. Equally, at the back I can think of numerous goals conceded where he was unaware of what his man was up to. Hard to coach either IMO as it’s in the head: pattern recognition, projecting multiple vectors etc.

Chapman’s delight at starting must be tempered by the sight of Dolan on the bench, who will have his place within a fortnight IMO.

I’m surprised no-one mentioned the best thing about it: the sponsor is a company that makes things to improve lives, not ruin them. Proper blue trumps trim details to me.

Or Johnny Lenrose, as my dad was convinced he was called.

...apart from five FA Cups won in five different decades, league championship, league cup and charity shield.

I always thought it was unsustainable for us because we were also a selling club: we only partly reinvested monies from Duff, Bentley, RSC etc essentially to subsidise the ever-increasing wages of the Emertons, MGPs etc who no-one thought good enough to buy.

He picked Rothwell far more last season than I would’ve done, he being the prime exponent of a running player who gives the ball away. Seems clear to me it’s the lack of tracking back that’s Mowbray’s issue with him - on full display again tonight.

Very noticeable difference tonight, along with a similar difference in attacking threat.

There hasn’t exactly been an exodus of disaffected players though, has there? Plenty of positives tonight: - If you didn’t know any different, you’d swear BB was the 17-goal man and Arma the nervy youngster. - I quite like Johnston sitting deep, he has a good long pass - JR-C is quality in the final third, not so much in our third - Dolan!!! He gets everywhere and always seems to make good choices. - Fisher looked pretty good. On the downside: - Chapman, Rothwell ineffective, Rothwell dragging a shot wide from a great position. Taxi for Evans.

Or an illustration that Chapman isn’t very good? There’s about 7 of these Mowbrayed youngsters on the pitch right now - damn him!!! The other four are all Dolan it seems - two of him just robbed the keeper and scored.

He was so impactful at Middlesbrough as well...

Dolan making a strong case to be our impact bench player ahead of Rothwell and Chapman.