It's torturous just watching him bat. Cook going probably means his place to Sri Lanka is saved, but an opening partnership of Jennings and a fella on debut doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

The blackout is even more important for say a small League 1 or League 2 club as the 3/400 away fans make a real difference to the club’s income. At that level, many clubs don’t even sell away tickets in advance, so using yesterday as an example, it was hammering it down - you’d imagine plenty of potential fans would have thought better of travelling and chose ifollow instead. ‘EFL’, pathetic organisation.

I’m not particularly arsed either way, but you do make me laugh roverandout. During the World Cup you were pretty much calling people traitors if they even made a slight criticism of the team, two months later and they are woeful!

Of course, but more than 5,500? Plus, there’s always a chance of Sky coverage against a ‘big team’. End of the day closing it was probably the right idea, but Waggott should have just told the truth instead of using all these non existent ‘big’ followings as an excuse.

So one of the clubs who were used as justification for shutting the Darwen End won’t bring anywhere close to the numbers that would have filled the old allocation, never mind the whole end. Waggott has totally misread the Championship if he thinks there’s a load of clubs out there that will bring hordes of fans - or as is probably the case, it was just an excuse to shut it.

They make up/change the rules as they go along, as we’ve seen on numerous occasions over the past few years.

T’was only in jest! Bloody hell you bash one and they all limp!

From Lytham to Bash... now he definitely has hit rock bottom!

I enjoy a bit of tea time quizzing watching Pointless - what always strikes me is modern cricketers when asked about are totally unknown, but cricketers from the 70s through to Flintoff and Pietersen have big name recognition - why do you think that is? I believe Test matches get around 300/400 thousand viewers daily on Sky - Tests used to get millions. It doesn’t matter how good the coverage is if no bugger’s watching it. And it will only get worse as young people just aren’t exposed to the game.

End of the day international football revolves around a summer tournament every two years - that’s how you are judged at a continental and world level. Everyone gets that and it is a key differentiator from the league structures of club football. This Nations League stuff seems like a right complicated mess; part competition in its own right, part qualifiers for the European Championships. Doesnt matter anyway as ITV have lost the rights to internationals (not on free to air anywhere) so the vast majority of the country can just ignore it and wait for Euro 2020.

Football is enormous in this country, a vast profile and fan base that can survive being behind the paywall. A hell of a lot of that 13 million are there simply for football. Cricket, as it just doesn’t have that following, has gone underground in public profile this past decade. If you put a picture of Burnley’s Jimmy Anderson - one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game in front of 100 say 11 year olds and a picture of some journeyman from Burnley FC - who do you think will be more recognised? Cricket should have adopted the rugby union model - i.e most games behind the paywall, but the biggest events - Six Nations every year and the World Cup on free to air. Rugby Union’s profile outside it’s heartlands - I.e the north has never been bigger, the opposite is true for cricket. Sky is for the ready converted, sport nuts who have the means to pay a hell of a lot of money every month, but what about the potential converts?

But when people said to you on the cricket thread that taking that sport away from free to air TV has ensured that large numbers of kids don’t watch and they’ve lost millions of viewers and therefore potential fans - you disagreed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s the cash.

Indeed JH, great examples of that are when you see Leeds and say Sheff Wednesday fans having massive willy waving contests in those ‘Away Day’ groups on social media. ’HA! only 3,000 to Wigan? Tinpot! We took 5,000 for a 7am kick off!’

Indeed rovers99, me and my crew would have some reight boring train/coach journeys home and we would seem a very dis-passionate lot if after a defeat we just said “ah well, can’t win ‘em all!” And no critiques of the manager’s decisions were permitted.

Leeds pull in the ratings (relatively), saw a stat a few years ago that showed their games had considerably larger numbers of viewers than the rest in the Championship. No surprise when you consider how many armchair Leeds fans there are across Yorkshire.

Who on earth thinks that?

All I can think is that Mowbray sees Rovers as a long term ‘project’ and has got the buy in of the owners. A manager looking at short term solutions and £7 million to spend wouldn’t be splurging the lot on a teenager from the Championship. I imagine these owners like the model proposed - i.e the re-sale potential of young English players and wouldn’t have given the green light to £9 million in a window on older players. Seems eminently sensible in this crackers era we are operating in, but we are still at the whim of a very unpredictable family.

Seemed very odd with so few away fans. Took something away from the occasion for me.

More over the top reactions on social media!

I’m pretty sure the arrangement with the EFL is any game outside the banned 3pm on a Saturday time slot can be shown. So generally that’s night matches, but any anomalies like Bristol City moving their game to a Sunday and Sky will show that too.

Of course he can let his hair down. Mowbray will certainly notice any drop in his performance levels or weight changes etc, so I’ll leave it up to him. End of the day you have Lloris, elite level footballer getting arrested for drink driving, so obviously you can still make it whilst being fond of a night out. I would just look at Dack’s physique and hope he knows that too much partying (if it isn’t pop he’s supping) could prevent him from hitting the level he has to potential to get to.

Don’t think so, but we always seemed to play them at night in recent years. I doubt we’ll be taking it to the University of Bolton Stadium (!) either at £30 a ticket live on Sky.

May have been supping dandelion and burdock for all I know, but why do all people of that age plaster their lives on social media - especially when you have a public profile? Just draws unnecessary attention to yourself - even more so when out injured.

Big clamour for Bruce’s sacking on their forums. With new owners, possibly a new manager in time for our meeting?