Yeah its a farce really. Everyone wonders why nobody takes it seriously anymore and that's one of the main reasons why. Used to love third round day with so many clubs kicking off at the same time in the same competition.

Looks like most of them have. Only 10 Saturday 3pm games left out of the 32 ties. Although there is a little disclaimer at the bottom of the FA article saying "further overseas TV selections will be communicated in due course"

Confirmed for Saturday 8th January, at 3pm.

There was no chance it would be moved for UK TV with all the top PL sides in action. We were actually one of the few to have a Saturday 3pm KO last season. Don't think we will this season.

You can still go in if you haven't been jabbed and show a negative LF test. You know, the ones you can put into the website as being negative without even having to take them 🙄

Yeah, we'll do well to get a Saturday 3pm kick off for this, the past three years kick off times for the 3rd round have been all over the place.

Some rotten times aswell. 1st January 2007 last time we won there!

No. The club wouldn't stop banging on about it if that was the case, especially with half season tickets on sale. "Ryan Nyambe is committed, are YOU? Half Season Tickets on sale now etc etc"

Huge banana skin this is.

Young adult bridges the gap between 18-22 I think? Where folk have probably gone off to further college/uni and only have part time jobs etc.

Over 20k on that night too. We really were light years ahead of them at that point, great times.

The novelty was always bound to wear off there, same happened with us in the mid 00's. Some of our away followings were horrendous during that period.

Whilst I don't really "blame" Mowbray that much for our relegation in 2017, it's worth noting that when he joined, we were only 2 points adrift with 15 games to play. All we had to do was beat the mighty Burton Albion in his first game and match there results over the next 14 games. So lets not pretend that the club was dead and buried when he joined, he certainly failed in his first task here. Going down to the third division was the best thing to happen to Mowbray, and the worst possible thing to happen to the club.

Yeah he's been brilliant just recently. Would like to see him try and some goals to his game now.

Chris Samba is an employee. Of course he is only here until something better crops up, to think otherwise is ridiculous.

The club would be making a huge song and dance about it if we were close to selling the 2k allocation. Think around 1500 or so is about right usually for Stoke. Big game, but still don't see us having enough about us to beat someone above us in the league, especially away from home. 1-1 or a 2-1 defeat.

Nyambe, Rothwell & Lenihan are mid table second division footballers. I know the narrative will be that they are all asking for too much money, but I very much doubt that is the case. I suspect it's because we wont pay the going rate for mid table second division footballers, whatever that is these days.

On about Ryan Hedges from Aberdeen I think. He seems to be the classic modern way winger that is left footed but plays on the right hand side.

No, because if you look at the past 3 February's, then we're pretty much guaranteed to finish somewhere between 15th-12th whatever Mowbray does in Jan. The last thing we need is him signing a new contract.

If we're still in a similar position come Christmas, and these games were being marketed now at £20 for both I think you would get a huge uptake, Christmas is the best time to strike with a lot being home for the holidays or back from Uni or whatever. You could still charge away fans between £25/30 too. Isn't the Wigan game 2 years ago still the most Rovers fans we have had inside Ewood at this level since relegation? That was a Monday night, the night before Christmas Eve and priced at £15 a ticket if I remember correctly. Fully expecting nothing, especially for the Hudds game as there is potential to get 2/3000 away fans in for that.

I'm not sure about that. For managers looking in, they will see that Mowbray has had 5 pretty much pressure free years at the job, decent backing overall with transfer fees, free transfers (if they are from Middlesbrough), loan fees/wages. He's only had to sell one player in his time here, and even employed his own CEO. Who wouldn't want some of that action?

I also think this was the last league game that we won "6-something". A few 7's and plenty of 5's since then but never a 6 goal win. In the cup I can remember 6-0/1 wins against Watford, Preston and Rochdale since then.

Dolan at wing back sounds a very Mowbray thing to do.

I think they offered it him knowing full well he was never going to stay.

I'm expecting an announcement at some point over the next 6 months that Mowbray has signed a 12 month rolling extension to his contract.