I'd be tempted to let anyone out of contract go to be honest. Next season will be like glorified training games anyway, I think it would be a good time to promote more from the under 23's. Give more game time to JRC, Buckley, Chapman, Davenport, Butterworth, and promote people like Thompson, Mols, Carter to the fringes of the side. It might just stand them in good stead to when we get going properly again.

It's strange isn't it. I live in a small town, population circa 30k or so. For as long as I can remember, the town had three barber shops, two in the town centre and one on the outskirts as part of a small complex for people who lived at that end of the town. Now all of a sudden in the past two or thee years another six have opened, and before the lockdown whenever you would walk past them they would all be empty, whilst two of the original three in the town centre would always be very busy.

That was Dion Dublin, had bid accepted but he had no interest of coming here and went Villa instead.

I think this was one of the measures the clubs were advised to take in training, rather than the actual matches themselves. I've watched a bit of the Bundesliga this afternoon to see what it's like. It wasn't bad for a bit of background noise and something to watch for 10 minutes; I don't really follow the league though so it's difficult to get into and care. Be interesting when the prem/champ starts to see how they come across on tv and the intensity levels involved.

I completely agree with this.

Strange one Sherwood really. I thought he was a really good footballer, could switch the play well, good at linking defence to attack, and had an eye for goal running from deep. I never got the impression from him though, despite being captain, that he was the sort of player that would get you on top In a game if things weren't going well, really good player when the team is on song and doing well, but I always thought he hid a bit when things weren't going according to plan. Maybe I'm being unfair on him, but it was always the impression I got for some reason.

I think for just over £2m, Gillespie could be considered a success. Part of our promotion campaign, and a regular in the side that won the league cup. Think they made 2 substitute appearances between them!

With how far we have fallen to be fair, if Gallagher had been with us over the past decade, i'm sure he would be pretty close in our list too.

Yeah, that first 6 months or so we played some fantastic stuff, certainly some of the best "football" I have ever seen from Rovers. On January 31st that season, we had lost 3 out of our first 24 games. We then went on to lose 9 of our last 14 games, just scraping into 6th place and Europe on the last day. After some really poor signings, Peacock, Dailly & Davidson all added to our defence, and Davies to our attack, we never really recovered going into the following season.

Ward and Gallacher, with 5 each!

Perez was a bit of both I think. Actually looked ok in his first few games but like said couldn't settle. I remember being surprised we let Ripley go that summer, he had a really good season in 97-98 and even got on the scoresheet for the first time since 1994!

I think if a Souness type of manager had got hold of Rochina he could have turned out to be a good one, similar to how Jansen thrived under Souness. Rochina was never going to flourish under Ke*n, Berg, Appleton or Bowyer though.

Definitely not. I'm not really missing football in general at the moment to be honest.

Not everyones cup of tea Simon Jordan, but I have always liked him. Tells it as it is.

The integrity of the competition will have already gone out of the window if they have to play at neutral venues.

Mark Hughes as a player would be my shout for this. Played a vital part in our promotion year in 2001, we had been stumbling a bit early season and he came in and made an instant impact with 2 goals on his debut. Important goals against Stockport and Preston that year too. Also, that performance in central midfield against Spurs in the cup final the year after, absolutely bossed it at 38 years old.

I personally don't think Filan was anywhere close to Flowers when he was at his best. Filan was good though, and I'd agree he was better than Robinson. He would probably be 4th for me behind Brad, Flowers & Mimms.

Haha yeah, it was certainly a strange set up. Only thing I have seen that I think is similar is behind the goal at Oxford, although there is no stand behind the car park.

Went down to that Chelsea game with my mum & grandad on the train. Cracking following there, was stood down near the front somewhere and don't recall seeing that much of the game, but a good view of both of our goals.

The same should be done over here, just forget about it until September.

That was in his second season, our first season back in the top flight. 5 goals in 6 games between 5th Jan & 22nd Jan 2002 (2 in the league and 3 in the cup), so nowhere near what Van Nistelrooy was doing but not bad for us at the time.

I find this very strange. Obviously I wanted to win the game, but I remember the conspiracy theories out in full force before the game suggesting that Liverpool would go easy on us and wouldn't be bothered. To stop any rediculous doubts, I think what happened was the best outcome.

They released a better one a few years after that where they got the sponsor more akin to the original. Still poor though.

The rumour at the time (that I heard anyway ?) was that the players didn't like the new red shirt for that season, so reverted back to this to try and change our luck for a couple of games. We didn't win away from home in the 95/96 season until we beat QPR in January, which was in the 94/95 away kit. We went on to win only two games in the actual 95/96 away kit, at Spurs & Chelsea.

Oh yeah completely agree, not really a slight on him that he couldn't get in front of them three. However, when you look at his numbers at Barnsley the previous two seasons, I expected him to come in and have more of an impact than he really did, thought he would be the experienced head that would have complimented them three, remember the season prior to this we were in a complete mess. Still, that free kick at Bolton was a beauty. Think he also scored an injury time one against Stockport too that was a huge three points.