I’m not one for banging on about ‘style’, it’s a results business. But we’ve played no better football than this in 20 years? I mean, honestly, the mental gymnastics are something to behold at times! 🤦‍♂️

Seemingly the whole ethos of BRFC - as proven last January. A very strange football club.

Ipswich no, so not fussed about them. Bolton very much so as throughout history we’ve always been fairly similarly supported. Also ‘population of the borough’ as the basis of your argument is not an exact science as support comes from outside borough boundaries, indeed parts of Bolton borough are historically not even BWFC hotbeds, they just got bundled in with the town in the local government changes of 1974, whereas the town of Bolton is not significantly larger than BwD. Third division Bolton have higher crowds for one reason - season tickets with an entry point of £220/£230

360 degrees is about right. He was already talking tripe before he went in…

Problem is it was never a ‘new’ Riverside, just a patch up job that has lasted 30+ years.

*Fans on social media.

Are we in a ‘false position’? No, because the position is the position at the halfway point of the season and we’ve won at least three more games than any club below us. Though I do agree we will probably fall away. However, 3rd ‘means nothing’ because it’s ‘boring’? No 3rd means a great deal for any club in a league that has a promotion slot via a playoff system.

Ha, well I suppose we all waste far too much time on here droning on about things we can’t influence one iota, so why not have a fantasy shopping list.

Oh I see. Bit of a waste of your time then, no?

Five players in January and spending multi millions whilst doing it, thought you said we weren’t that kind of club?

You get a ‘run of games’ by offering something in the cameos you do get. But your solution is to just start him regardless against all the evidence for what, 4,5,6 games? We’ll be about 10th by then. What is you obsession with starting some loanee a county mile out of his depth? Thought you were a Rovers fan, not a Leicester/George Hirst fan.

All ‘up north’, aren’t they…

That last paragraph, you’ve literally just nicked that from J*B. Try getting your opinions in 2023…

The EFL are seeing dollar signs. They’ll have looked at tickets sold for ifollow/red button night games and thought that people are still buying. Which they are, but there are far less actual bums on seats for those games, as many ST holders give them a swerve (but still buy a ST as it’s only 4/5 games out of 23, still worth their while). But put every game on and just watch how many ST holders keep their cash in their pockets and stop bothering completely.

They have vast support across County Durham and Tyne and Wear. ‘An area full of sheep’ that happens to have a population of 2 million and just 2 league clubs. Compare and contrast that to what we are up against in a forty mile radius. They are bloody lucky when it comes to geography.

I’m not sure he is trying to buy himself time. It really does seem the way that the club wants to go.

Shows the daftness of the loan system if some 24 year old, who isn’t even our player, ends up taking one of our own lad’s spots in the youth set up.

They may not be able to send him back in January as per the loan agreement.

They don’t have to be local derbies, but local-ish. So say Rovers v Huddersfield/Stoke.

An average crowd of 30k. We had an average crowd of 13k in that league. So why is 30k ‘fantastic loyalty’ when they have a vastly bigger catchment area? They are just lucky to be where they are. Imagine if the only league clubs in the whole of old Lancashire was say us, City and Everton… what crowds do you think we’d be getting? They are no more ‘loyal’ than any set of fans.

Rovers/Cardiff, NYD (and that’s even before Sky got involved with KO times), so say no more to the esteem the authorities have for football fans…

Brentford’s ‘model’ allows for that. They actually develop, sell, re-invest.

I’ve no issue with utilising the academy, has to be the way. That doesn’t mean that we need to spend our time going down ‘metricated’ rabbit holes and hearing nonsense like ‘playing from the back adds value’, ‘performances over results’ etc. This is a relentless, highly professional division, not development/youth football. As noble as these aims are, the reality of this level of football will hit you in the face. Oh and we rarely see profits from players as these owners refuse to sell them (Armstrong aside), so the whole thing is incoherent. The best laid plans, ‘models’ derailed by the whims of unpredictable owners- so comparisons to other clubs are moot. We’ve had years of this, with fans projecting what they think is/should be happening, variations on a theme of; ‘trading club’, ‘slow builds’, ‘develop, sell, re-invest’ over actual reality.

What professional football club of any ambition doesn’t prioritise results? By publicly stating that the club only exists to develop players and not for a hard headed quest for three points (as it’s those points that drives the lot; interest, revenue, crowds, sponsorship, better players, better coaches) in this bloody tough league it’s a recipe for mediocrity, and at best, treading water, at worst a slip back to the third division. £430 to £530 for a season ticket (some of the most expensive in the league) to watch a development club?

It could literally have been a TM quote. It’s pretty obvious that this is not a normal football club in which the bee all and end all is getting the best possible players on the pitch attempting to get the best possible results. Indeed, that is the whole point of professional sport… BRFC is going down a different path; the question, as always, is why?