He is half American, so no surprise. The easier paced MLS may help him stay on the pitch. Even mid 30s, overweight Rooney looked fitter than half of them on the clips I saw.

I don’t listen to many Mowbray interviews, as they usually all follow the same ‘point(s) in the bag move on’ (or no points, move on) routine with no discernible change in tone - but that Radio Lancs interview was something else; a bloke kind of knowing his race was run, struggling to get a tune out of his players and pretty much asking to be put out of his misery. And he would be at normal clubs, but here we just stagger on, which leads to this total confusion and malaise you witness on and off the pitch on a match day.

Pretending that Warnock and McCarthy were still unemployed and you were asked by 10 Rovers fans this weekend ‘well who could replace Mowbray that would be any better?’ Mention those two and the majority would reply with something on the lines of ‘shit football, wouldn’t want that here’. Putting to one side the total denial that they must be in if they think they are actually watching ‘good football’ at Ewood Park, it shows how absolutely nothing has been learnt 10 years on from a certain sacking...

I would say they are very ‘soft’ critics, win against Barnsley and half of those on Twitter/LT will be giving it the usual ‘League 1! ‘Stable’ ‘who we gonna get?’ ‘Spoilt fans’. But as you say, it’s all just noise and there’s nothing to suggest those in Pune or their representative on Planet Stability are in any way preparing to pull the trigger...

I would say he’s still miles ahead of those two (and a lot of other managers too) Totally anecdotal obviously, but Im on a WhatsApp group and the performance and tactics were absolutely pilloried last night - but was TM seen at fault or even mentioned? Not at all. If that’d been Kean or Coyle or Lambert or Bowyer, said managers would have had both barrels. As would Allardyce. His halo has slipped in recent weeks, but he’s still as Teflon as any manager we’ve ever had.

I’m not one that puts too much stock in a manager’s demeanour on the touch line. Coyle, for example, never STFU for 90 minutes. However, last night was very striking, he spent the entire game frozen to his seat about 10 rows up the stand, never speaking to his staff or players. Compare to Neil who was cajoling his team from the technical area and in discussion with his coaches. All seems very strange at the moment.

Four teenagers on the pitch at full time, only one is even our player. That tells me we certainly aren’t on a ‘journey’ and so many young players just won’t lead to short term success in a brutal league like this either. Just muddled thinking throughout the club and millions being thrown down the toilet in the process.

No, but that seemingly is how they want it. They have employed a series of non entities and spivs with little executive power for a decade and the result speaks for itself. The 200 million pound question with this lot as always is, why?

We can keep talking about what he inherited, L1 and the like. But he’s had 4 years, never needed to sell a player, free reign at the club, new scouting set ups, Brockhall investments and on it goes. We’ve been back in this league three seasons and are now pretty much we’re we’ve always been this decade - second division mid table, and nothing says to me that season four will be any different. Mowbray or whoever as manager, at what stage do these owners actually expect some bang for their buck? Can there be any other club where this seeming largesse leads to so little? Or perhaps even stranger, is there any other club where these never ending capital injections are pumped in, yet with no obvious expectations of progress or tangible success on the pitch being required?

As in, Leeds had a set way of playing and footballers that knew their roles that led to them winning a lot of football matches? Obviously voodoo stuff that to the sages down Brockhall...

Next month, perfectly timed return to get his (international) match fitness back.

He will be here next season, obviously, but I don’t think the signing of a young full back from Crewe is any sort of marker either way.

Scratch that, Christ knows what the pitch will be like tomorrow as they are training at Ewood again. They can’t use the indoor pitches at Brockhall as Tony ‘doesn’t like artificial surfaces as they cause muscle problems’... Not sure playing on a cabbage patch is great for muscle pulls and strains either, but hey ho.

It’ll be reight, Beetlejuice said so.

The war’s over lads, the sage of football finance, Kieran Maguire, has stated on the Price of Football podcast that the ‘owners have completely won the fans around’.

To be fair, at least every poster on there doesn’t seem to be weighed down with two chips on their shoulders, unlike some other site I could mention... I’m not seeing the usual obsessions about ‘Plastics’ and the proliferation of blue and white shirts in Lostock Hall c1994

Following this game we’ll have a fixture every midweek until the international break at the end of March. Christ knows what our injury list (and pitch) will look like by then...

‘OH YES, OH YES!’

They were nearly disqualified before they’d even started. The quote from Dyche saying he didn’t know Pieters was suspended so named him in the side until Bournemouth pointed it out, ‘as there’s people at the club who keep an eye on these things and it got away from them’ seemed most odd and unprofessional to me. Bournemouth’s press officer knew, and I imagine a load of Burnley fans did too...

Good job he wears ripped jeans...

Chaddy gets bombarded with questions every time we lose about when he’s changing his mind on Mowbray - 1) why is it so important that one bloke on a message board who doesn’t even watch the matches change his mind? 2) He’s a stubborn bugger who enjoys the attention so will obviously double down on his view. It’s boring as feck to see the Chaddy Show every weekend. As for the rest of your post, you can’t have been here long if you think I believe anything I’ve seen this past decade is acceptable for Blackburn Rovers.

I’ve no particular issue with folk being content that they are still writing the cheques, or that we see funds available for players, the academy etc - the club is obviously not the cesspit it was previously. However it grates massively that we should feel some sort of empathy for owners of an international conglomerate having their pants pulled down. It was their arrogance that saw our downfall and we have all paid the price.

Yes Dack isn’t fit and he hasn’t had the impact we hoped. But TM isn’t helping with his approach of chucking on four subs at once like an international friendly and ending up with about 5 forwards on the pitch, but no discernible shape. Does he have a clue of what to do with him in the post Danny Graham team?

Nobody had fallen out with Chaddy more than me... in fact I think he’s the only person that’s ever put me on ignore 😭 But bloody hell, the forum becomes the Spanish Inquisition every time we lose a game. I personally don’t know why he’s seen as such a barometer that his opinion on TM and when he’s going to change it becomes the main talking point every week, not exactly a sage of the game, is he! ... the fella doesn’t even watch games anymore unless they are on Sky!

Full of talent as you’d expect a guy with a few caps for Germany to have. We’ve certainly seen it at times. But he’s too injury prone and presumably too well enumerated to keep on (and I’m not sure how much he is up for the scrap that is the Championship midfield).