In a sh1t or bust season I’m not sure I’d have put the kids in more often than Mowbray did. Raya and Nyambe weren’t exactly veterans but they were picked every game available. Nuttall has been on the pitch 620 mins, equivalent of 7 full games, not bad considering Graham and Dack are must picks, and IMO he didn’t earn any more time. Travis was thrown on in some critical situations then completely ballsed up in a crucial game. And, most importantly, we will be going up without having needed them.

Derrick Williams after that miss yesterday. Even worse that Barry Endean putting one over the bar from a foot out at Rochdale in ‘73.

Dominic Samuel is like Pele compared with John O’Mara, indisputably the worst in my time. He’s also not as bad as Brian Conlon.

I feel the comments saying Mowbray has achieved nothing yet because we haven’t confirmed promotion are taking a very one-dimensional view that the only thing wrong with the club was the division we are playing in. The fan base is more united than it has been since even before Venkys appeared. Lambert and Bowyer didn’t achieve that. I never read happy clappers etc etc now. We have a united squad playing for the shirt and in tune with the fan base for the first time since Kean was here. We have exciting players with the potential to get better. We’ve never had so many of the u23s in or knocking on the door of the squad, Everything is never perfect but the turnaround in the club has been remarkable IMO, and Tony Mowbray has been at the heart of it.

I too suspect the days of those financial outlays are gone. One of the few good things about where we are now is the forward salary bill excluding legacy payments to paid off deadbeats must be dramatically smaller than a couple of years ago. Under the latter days of the Trust the sales of our best players were funding the salaries of those nobody wanted to buy. Where did the Duff money go? In part to pay Brett Emerton £30k/week. So we never were operating sustainably. At least now we are operating less unsustainably than when Danny Murphy was trousering the GDP of Darwen every week.

Maybe it wasn’t logic but emotion. I get the impression they trust Tony a lot more than the previous two managers to spend their money well.

It’s interesting how it has been introduced in baseball, and they are sticking to issues of fact, so one of the most disputed areas - strike or ball - can’t be reviewed as that’s opinion, whereas did a player or the ball get to the base first is reviewed endlessly. Umpires can decide to review a home run, the guy on the monitor can’t initiate anything.

Perhaps Mendez is a global super agent and Anderson isn’t because Mendez had the brains to appoint a good manager to make the plan work. Once a spiv, always a spiv.

Malcolm Darling wasn’t much cop either. Was the Oates playing for Blackpool the same Graham Oates signed by Furphy a few years later?

Armfield coined the memorable and accurate quote that the Ewood faithful were “more a jury than a crowd”.

In the MSL final, VAR was a complete annoyance both times it featured. First time was after Toronto scored: Altedore beat the offside and put it in. A bit close but clearly onside, no defenders claiming for it, yet everyone stood around for at least a minute after the celebrations had died down while it was checked. Complete atmosphere killer. Second time was a total mystery: ref had to stop the game at a corner while VAR checked for God knows what. Eventual consensus was that something may have happened off the ball. But everyone was stood around for a couple of minutes in freezing conditions with no-one on the field or in the stands having a clue why. Nothing was given.

I would add Duncan McKenzie’s virtuoso performance to that list

Can anyone remember us winning four away games on the trot scoring at least 3 in each game? I can’t. 50s probably, if ever!

The more I read about Mowbray the better I feel. The man seems a million miles away from the likes of Kean and Coyle in character, his overall management record is better than many who give it a go, and it's not often fans of past clubs are so positive. Yes he's been fired a few times but then so had Souness, whose appointment was greeted on here with much negativity. Obviously he's got question marks but that's where we are today. Are we also now without a goalkeeping coach? Good! Jobs for the boys post apart from those used by elite keepers. Steele doesn't need a coach, he needs a career counsellor.

The only inevitables in life are death and taxes...

What struck me about that record was more wins than losses in every job. So while he got fired a few times for losing runs, he must've had good winning runs in those jobs too, and that's all we need right now. I'm an optimist and see him as the best we could get right now - we are more damaged goods than he is. He was a defender, and a good one at that, so hopefully will improve our powderpuff central defence and I also noticed on Wiki he is teetotal.

While Barry Gray is in no way famous, his work is known and loved by many millions; there can barely be an adult in the country who doesn't recognise the Thunderbirds music. More of a legacy than Russell Harty, Anthony Valentine and the like I would argue.

I have only just discovered that Barry Gray, composer of all the music and theme tunes for the Gerry Anderson Supermarionation series, was born and bred in Blackburn, receiving some of his musical education at the cathedral. Surely being the composer of such iconic tunes as Thunderbirds, Stingray, Fireball XL5, Joe 90, Captain Scarlett and the like makes him more widely appreciated than any other Blackburnian in history??

His crossfield passes to Kevin Hird were both unerringly accurate and stopped almost dead they had so much backspin. And who can ever forget his getting the opening goal on Boxing Day '77!

Or perhaps the people saying that weren't privy to the manager's thoughts and you had no idea who would be picked for tonight (and come on as sub). If your post proves anyone to be clueless, it isn't the manager.

I agree with this. Ince inherited a much better team than Baldy did yet had us going down before he'd even got his nameplate up on the door. But for the miracle that was Jon Stead, Souness would have taken us down also.

Excellent result. 3 wins out of last 4, no way would we have got those under Appleton

Super Atko at his very best

I found my copy of the programme from this signed by all the players only yesterday. Remembered that I cried when the teams came out.