Tough one, as there is ability there, but his lack of pace and decision making let him down. However, as fans we are often harsher on our own players as we see them every week, i.e. we’ve generally no idea how some Championship journeyman at Bristol City or wherever is performing every week in comparison. There’s a lot of mediocre players in this division getting a game. But in the medium term, wouldn’t surprise me to see him in League 1.

The huge gates folk always remember from the 50s and 60s were for FA Cup ties, a national phenomenon in that era. Our top flight league gates were largely similar to what we had in the 90s/2000s

If that’s the case, surely that means the standard of the league he’s playing in is too high for him, not that he isn’t up to being a professional footballer. Players eventually find their level.

Rollercoaster of emotions in MercerWorld

Remember when you actually could have a ‘big Friday night out’ in Blackburn?

Don’t think anybody is being ‘harsh’ on JDT. It’s the owners and the down-sizers they employ that have led us to this sad state of affairs.

They seem fairly representative of the fanbase (away from brfcs, of course). They have never been as popular as they are at the moment, can’t remember the last time I heard a dissenting voice towards them at Ewood.

Well at least they’ve now remembered the other teams actually need to ‘buy’ them, not ‘be given’ them bit…

Exactly, the future autobiographies of Buttler et al will be a telling a very different tale of this World Cup…

The only honest thing this club ever comes out with is the fact that promotion is not remotely a priority, merely developing players. An academy with a professional club bolted on.

When do players, in any sport, come out and blame the manager/coach? The truth always finds its way out in the end.

He did well to actually get hold of a shirt.

To be fair we had plenty of spankings down there in the 2000s… 90s another issue though.

Exactly that. The wider fanbase generally still think the owners are ruddy marvellous, so in reality if it had been made clear that due to this oh so very temporary cashflow issue they are struggling through and how every penny counts at the moment they'd largely have understood.

What was Swag saying again? That you would need to staff/operate the the Blackburn End in the same manner for one person in there as 5000? Obviously total nonsense. It certainly was logical from a on paper straight cash in/cash viewpoint as with no owner liquidity coming in, lets try and find any piddling savings where we can. However, it was illogical in the round as it obviously led to fewer punters on the day and a disgruntled customer base, so what savings were actually made?

It's the disingenuous-ness that gets me. Why not just come out and give the real reason for the Blackburn End closure instead of tripe about occupancy rates, I suppose 'the club' has spent so long engaging in smoke and mirrors on behalf of these owners it's just second nature to them now.

At 16 when living at home like most of these lads and lasses will be? Of course. Like tomphil says just a Saturday job for a bit of pocket money that I bet we all did back in the day. The £10 adult rate is the far bigger issue.

Matt Jansen is a prime example. Obviously different circumstances but post the accident the moves on the pitch he used to do by instinct he was suddenly thinking about, ‘should I pass or turn?’, ‘should I make that run?’, and at the highest levels that hesitation is fatal.

That’s the Mowbray who you backed to the hilt.

Resorting to semantics so yeah I’ll leave it there.

I know, as you’ve now made it clear you know nowt about the other teams, which makes thinking our side should be at the bottom an even more odd opinion.

It’s called a ‘league’ jim, it obviously matters how crap other teams are, we don’t play amongst ourselves at Brockhall every week.

So you can’t understand how we aren’t at the bottom even though you don’t know much about the other teams, how does that work then?

You said: ‘That's such a weak team it's hard to understand why we're not struggling near the bottom.’… But we aren’t, therefore many other teams must then be worse, ergo you must be overestimating them if you think we should be at the bottom (not discounting the JDT effect). Of course that doesn’t take away from the fact that this Rovers team is much poorer than many other sides of ours in days gone by, luckily that doesn’t matter in the here and now when you are in a league of crap teams and journeymen footballers.

A decade down here and folk still overestimate the players playing elsewhere. If you think this is a weak team have a look at most non parachute sides, all much of a muchness.