By all means, be an ass about it. Your snarky remark aside, I caught a possible moment where it seems to flash onto his hand as it comes in. The resolution was a bit poor though so it was hard to tell. I don't have Sky, this was Sky's website, where you can't slow the frames down.

I watched the sky sports highlights last night, and it has 2 or 3 replays but I can't really see the handball, definitely not how some people are describing it (catching it). There's a lot going on in the box, very crowded, it obscures the view. Anybody got a replay that shows it clearly? Did look like he barged Pears over the line, definite foul but the ball was already past him and going in I think.

I don't care about justifying the ticket allocation. Doesn't need justifying as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how trouble, damage and possibly people getting hurt 'plays into our hands'. I'd rather everyone enjoys a safe and trouble free evening. Although I don't care about justifying the ticket allocation, they and the police will likely and fairly point out that trouble outside of the DE was made more likely by a low ticket allocation causing Dingles to try to get seats in the home ends, which also makes it harder for the police and stewards to manage. Still the right call though, they shafted us so we returned the favour.

There's something to be said for having at least a bit of experience I'm the squad too though. Just no has-beens please!

I'd compare his intelligence and reading of the game at such a young age to Harvey Elliott. Very exciting potential, now Rovers and Adam just have to make the most of it.

I'm really not liking that it's almost a certainty they will celebrate being champions at Ewood one way or another. Either they wrap it up before they get here, and we are their party, or they wrap it up at Ewood which would be even worse. It's possible but unlikely that they botch both games, given they're the best side in the league. A guard of honour would be utterly unacceptable. And, I feel, dangerous, as it would aggravate a lot of our fans in what's already a bit of a tense situation at times. I can see it kicking off big time after the match, which hasn't really happened in recent times despite the constant security concerns. There has been the odd fracas but nothing to embarrass us on a national level. I worry that Burnley fans will invade the pitch, too, if champions before or after the game. Man City did it, why wouldn't these troglodytes? This would piss us off further, and I'd expect, like City, they will have some fans in our stands (a lot less Rovers fans will be willing to sell their tickets on than they were with City, but there'll be some, and also those who find a way around the system). I think a pitch invasion by this lot would result in Rovers fans going to meet them too. Obviously an ideal scenario is my fears are unfounded, and also that we end up denying them confirmation of the title in a game that means so much to us all. But I can definitely see this all going a bit Pete Tong.

Haven't we done worse in front of big crowds anyway?

That's a shame, cos we are fucking shit in front of goal!

Christ, Steele has forced his way into the Brighton first 11?!

You'd think he's there to teach them a thing or two about shooting. Something JDT also knows about, but clearly they need even more help! There's probably a caption competition in this.

They're probably safe, too many teams below them that need to pick up points. It would be highly gratifying to stay up at their expense though! The good thing about that result though is it means Leicester still have some fight left, and they've still got to play West Ham.

And that's absolutely fine for youth team recruitment. Those are players who took years to come good. A head of recruitment needs to also be able to sign first team ready players. Wrong about Buckley btw, he's been with us since he was 6. He's Manchester born, that might be what you're thinking of.

I know someone who is worse offensively and defensively, and is also lightweight but lacks the fight to make up for it. He starts every week ahead of Adam and his name is Tyler.

Pretty sure I've seen JB himself admit he doesn't have a good track record.

Finished 2-1 to Fulham. Handy, keeps Wolves a point below us with same games played. If they dick their last 2 games up it won't matter what we or anyone else does.

So he has had a few years of being a scout, sending reports to someone else but not making the decisions himself? I wouldn't say that qualifies him for the post, not at a club like ours. In fact if one of those gigs was at Celtic, he may have worked under our previous head of recruitment John Park? This isn't an area we should skimp in. Relative to players, these sorts of roles don't cost us much, but the cost of bad recruitment vs good recruitment is immense. It's a false economy to get someone inexperienced because they're cheap.

Eh?

All I want to know is, has this guy been in charge of recruitment at senior level elsewhere? If he hasn't, he shouldn't be getting near this job. If he has, what was his track record?

Weird comment. Why would the Assistant Academy Manager be responsible for recruiting £5 million strikers? Is it just meant to be a really poor quality nonsensical joke?

They were dropped because they were playing badly on match days. Wharton wasn't.

City have won the league now, so they might not be fully motivated playing against us (or Wolves).

You don't get points for training ground performances. Of course training matters, and following tactics matters, etc. But I don't see anything from Wharton when he plays in situations where points are on the line, that suggests he doesn't work hard enough or causes any detriment to the team. Mark Hughes was a notoriously poor trainer, but a proper winner on matchdays. Would you honestly rather have someone playing on matchdays who is great at training, but crap on matchdays, over someone who is crap in training but great on matchdays? That doesn't make any logical sense. And that's if we even believe the suggestions that Morton is great in training and Wharton isn't. Wharton was BRFCS man of the match against Norwich, which is what I said. https://brfcs.com/magazine/football/match/881187/blackburn-norwich?tab=voting

I'm sure Everton have valuable players they can sell to fund some purchasing. I doubt the owners would refuse to sanction any spending and only sales, because the bounty on offer for returning to the Prem is enormous. If they stay in this league they'll only lose even more money. I'm not that familiar with their financial or ownership situation though. But they'll have enough value in playing assets I'm sure they could afford to sell several, hugely reduce their wage bill, and still have money to buy quality players for this level. I think a Burnley situation is much more likely than a Sunderland one. They're a bigger club than either. This would be the first time they haven't been in the Prem. Whatever anyone says, I'll be afraid of them if they come down until shown otherwise.

I certainly think we should have been able to spare about 2 million or so for a new striker. Sometimes it's easier said than done though, and you can't find anyone for the price you have in mind or who you think represents value for money. There's no point spending for the sake of it, or doing a bad deal. That said, I think there's been a real failure of imagination at the club for a while, the transfer market being no exception. You would hope now there's a settled system and a DoF, that can start to change, but so far they've still failed to bring in a striker. A couple of other points though. I'm not sure things have been less financially pressing since, that would be one for the people more familiar with the accounts, but from what I've heard the last few years we seem to just scrape under the limits each year. The wage bill is meant to have been reduced considerably though, so maybe that can start to change. Also, the sounds from the club do suggest we've 'looked to do it', but that we've failed. They've talked about missing out on striker targets near deadline day for the last few windows I think. Of course, you don't win any prizes for trying to sign players, and it's even possible it's just been smoke and mirrors, but we can't categorically rule out that they've tried. The failings may be incompetence on our behalf (some history to back that up) or budgetary constraints (history for that too). Another thing to consider is that the training ground sale didn't happen til what, March? Knowing the poor lines of communication between India and Blackburn, those running the club over here may not have known that was on the cards, and just seen an impending deficit in the books that was about 10 million over our FFP limits. This would reduce what they felt they could allow for signings. None of this is to say it's acceptable, many of these problems stem from a lack of competency, imagination, planning and structure at the club, often starting in India. The contract rebel situations in particular have been costly, probably costing us something in the region of 30 mill in player assets (another 5 for Arma if he was fully contracted, 15 ish for BBD, 10 ish for Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe combined). It could be less but however you slice it, it's a lot for us. Thankfully Diaz's emergence took some of the goal burden away for a while, but now he's off the boil and leaving in the summer. Unless Leonard starts smashing in goals (and probably even if he does) it's imperative we sign a decent striker in the summer no matter what league we're in. If we have to trade to make it happen then so be it.

3-3 between West Ham and Palace now, into the 85th minute.