Mattyblue

Well obviously, didn’t expect to see him with a Do Not Disturb sign round his neck. John Williams was the same, but he had substance behind the glad handing. SW’s tenure hasn’t offered much else…

He sounds a very amiable chap. When I saw him doing the rounds in the Premier Suite the other week he looked like he was having many a jolly chat. But that isn’t what he’s paid serious cash for…

Totally agree, and that’s where Joe differed, as he believes now calling it a ‘low block’ was a sign of ‘intelligence’ and ‘progressiveness’.

I didn’t know I was making a sweeping statement? Surely it’s a given that the earlier you get exposed to live pro football the more likely you are to be swept away in all that makes being a football fan, a club fan, so great and fulfilling (despite all the lows!).

Well he didn’t mean that actually, as he dismissed those that discussed ‘football intelligence’. He said it’s actually a sign of ‘intelligence’ if players, parrot like, regurgitated jargon. That isn’t what makes an intelligent player, just like it doesn’t make for an ‘intelligent worker’ like that individual that constantly talks in jargon and acronyms in the wider world of work. Yes, of course, there’s a place for data, for better tactical knowledge, indeed a vital place - but Joe often seems to forget about the human, the emotional, the nous element of playing and coaching.

And that’s down to parents, a seven year old can easily get into the habit, engrossed in live football (plenty won’t, obviously, some kids just aren’t interested), but if they already enjoy the game, through playing for a kids team, by playing FIFA etc, it’s an open door, surely?

The problem with this club is they often come up with/stumble on a promising idea but go at it half heartedly or give up fairly quickly.

Of course there is a big chance of catching it, this variant may be milder, bloody hope so, but it is massively transmissible. So it is obviously ‘high risk’ of catching the thing, even if it’s mild.

I mean, I’ve been coming on here for twenty years and for the first time I’m actually speechless. 😳

Getting young fans to Ewood is now ‘taking a back seat’ ?!? Sorry what!? (These the kind of *changes* you are hearing so much about, @Revidge Blue ? ) Jesus.

Then that is quite sad. My nephew is 6 and of course he likes computer games, but he is also enjoying his first season as an Ewood regular. The buzz of the whole day is absolutely everything to him and he doesn’t stop taking about Rovers all week. A lifelong attachment has now been created, so wait until he can go to away games etc. You cannot tell me that buying a ‘blue skin’ for a game in anyway compares? And surely the parent (if they go to games) should also be looking to get them down to an actual football ground?

I’m all for progress, of course the game has moved on tactically, sport does that, as does the general workplace, my line of work has transformed from when my dad started in the same company as me decades ago. Cricket is a prime example in sport, a totally different game in terms of what batsmen, as an example, can now understand and add to their game. But I’m not going to let Joe cannily try and paint those that are sceptical of these mere cosmetic language changes as some kind of backward dinosaurs. Tut tut! 😁 So I’m still waiting for him to explain how not creating a new tactic, but just renaming it, i.e ‘low block’, means you are ‘progressive’ and have a ‘bright mind’ and are ‘intelligent’?

Do you have expectations for all 92 league clubs? xE if you will?

Maybe they just aren’t very intelligent…

Joe doesn’t know what actual ‘football intelligence’ is, I see…

What a load of pretentious twaddle that paragraph is 😁 But fair play to all those that make a living out spouting it…

Doesn’t rile me, more amusing, obviously riles the analysts themselves when they get rumbled though 😁

What am I disliking? I’m merely talking about the crafty re-naming of long established tactics by analysts, not belittling data analysis itself. New tactics spearheaded by data analysts, then ok, certainly ‘progress’… but in what way is calling it a ‘low block’ instead of ‘defending deep’ or ‘two banks of four’ or a ‘pivot’ instead of a ‘holding/deep lying midfielder’ “Progress”?

The only good thing is that by chance more than design it looks like only Blackpool will Cat A post Hudds, due to all the potential ‘big’ away support fixtures falling in the first half of the season. So assuming we don’t go behind closed doors, at least any crowd building momentum won’t be stalled by £36 tickets in the JWU…

Saw the pin and I thought his departure had been announced 😢 (Nice work though, lads!)

It will ‘entice a few’ walk ons, certainly more than if we were 12th, but it all goes back to my mantra of lost ST holders. Say we still had 10,500 ST holders and 4,000 match day tickets got bought (which is the upper end of what gets bought here weekly and would be a good effort a few days before Xmas) plus say, 1,500 away fans - that would be a healthy 16,000 crowd. But when you only have 7,300 ST holders, even with that 4,000 and 1, 500 it’s a much less healthy looking 12,800. The damage was done in the summer and we will pay for it all season unless an absolute shed load of half STs have been sold…

Some of the fans that stopped going in the summer of 2012 I wouldn’t have believed a year or two earlier, these weren’t ‘Premier League fans’, but proper, dyed in the wool types with decades of attendance. They thought the club was taking the piss. A few came back with half STs and a ST in 2013, but plenty more will just have got out of the habit and are now long gone…

Still £30 in the JWU, but yes generally cheaper than PNE/Hudds. People do seem to struggle to realise that if ST sales drop in the summer, match day ticket sales just won’t take up the slack each week as only a finite number will buy for a standard fixture.

Most clubs see a small drop in crowds on relegation, we lost nearly half our ST holders overnight, which is unprecedented - I have always been adamant that a sacking of Kean the night of the Wigan game would have prevented such a calamitous drop off. Keeping him on that summer of 2012 was absolutely toxic for sales. We’ve never recovered ST (and therefore crowd) wise from that insane decision to keep him on that summer.

Here’s hoping that half STs have done well, there will never have been a better PR sales period running up to Christmas for them…