XLM

You never seen a map of Europe? Italy is clearly one of the legs, what's at the top of the legs? The arse. What's at the top of Italy? Austria.

Having a vaping company as our primary sponsor is not a great look (regardless of the MS Paint logo) when there are plentiful stories in the media about an increase in under age usage. Particularly of disposables, which are also terrible environmentally. Usage is up 50% year-on-year in under 18s according to https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-young-people-in-great-britain. There are some comments along the lines of "they're for adults", "it's illegal to sell to children so it's irrelevant" etc. which is true, but it's not illegal to give them to children free of charge oddly enough, and the promotion of e-cigarettes where children see them is also increasing... Like on their footballing idols for instance. I'm not anti-vape in general, as a smoker the benefits are obvious. They may be bad, but cannot be worse than traditional cigarettes. But that doesn't mean having them front and centre of the Rovers "brand" is a good idea. Rovers could be used as an example of vaping companies advertising to children. What if in a BBC news piece they show the Rovers kit then transition to a shot of kids stood outside school vaping and poking dead squirrels or whatever kids do. It just shows it hasn't been thought through. Add to that, the financials surely can't be that great. The company's turnover isn't huge by any stretch. So it feels like an easy, unimaginative option that is probably sub-par financially, has the potential to paint Rovers in a negative light, means kids can't wear the same shirt as the team, and the logo looks shit. Not the biggest commercial fuck up over the past 5-10 years, but definitely another one for me.

It is mine view

Maybe it would be better for everyone if the teams that dominate those leagues join the ones that dominate ours for a breakout league in the middle east then?

Competition? If you say so. The fact that only 9 different clubs have finished in the top 4 since England got a fourth Champions League spot 22 years ago would say that word isn't the best choice. Chelsea, Arsenal, United, City and Liverpool account for nearly 90% of all top 4 finished in getting on for a quarter of a century. The system is beyond broken in terms of "competitiveness".

I do. What you mean is fans of United, Chelsea, Arsenal et al, the Premier League and UEFA don't want it. The PL and UEFA merely want to protect their revenue and those fans have benefited plenty over the last 25 years from the pseudo closed shop we already have. If they're collateral damage to a more fair and competitive pyramid then those clubs can't go soon enough for me.

Ah. Still kind of get it, if/when we do get back to the prem there will be a tinge of deflation thinking about VAR and watching players earning £10m a year

I don't want Rovers to compete in the same league as state run clubs either, with plastic fans on the other side of the globe who care more about celebrity than sport, who's sole reason for success is to indoctrinate the next generation. I want Rovers to be in the top division, I just want those clubs to either lose their nefarious owners or fuck off to a Super League so I can enjoy the football I watch without the need to scrub my soul clean at 5pm on a Saturday (or more likely 6pm on a Sunday, or 10pm on a fucking Friday). I presume that's the same point JB is making.

The amount of urinals is fairly adequate

Fair enough. It's not what he goes by, or ever has done I guess was my point

I love how that article gets Xavi's name wrong... "Xavier". Little did they know. I used to watch a lot of Spanish football back then, and I remember being extremely confused by the team sheet using the "proper" last names of the players. Torre instead of Gabri, Hernandez instead of Xavi, Martinez Garcia instead of Luis Enrique etc.

Sold out

I'm 35, recently moved back to the area, I've had season tickets in the past, and I can afford the £400+... But there's no chance I'll pay it when the match day experience is crap. The ground is 2/3 empty and I still can't get a pint (of crap beer) at half time. Premium price for a half arsed product. I'm not having the piss taken out of me, so I won't pay it. A VPN and a RoversTV subscription is far better value. Or just watch the games on Sky since half are on there anyway. Shit as it is, the atmosphere in my living room is just as good and the beer is better. Twice the number of people in, and I'd buy one. Decent beers on tap and the ability to actually buy it, I'd get one. £250, maybe I'd get one.

I wouldn't use Burnley to back up that argument when they comfortably had the highest average possession in the league. There are many ways to skin a cat. There are crap teams that try to control the ball, crap teams that play on the counter and crap teams that play for set-pieces. You definitely don't need a "particular type of manager to get out of the championship", that's nonsense.

Coyley? ... 🤮 Also, I wouldn't give him my dog's shit to put in a bin. It would somehow end up smeared on a window.

I'm not sure I agree with us having less control when we've been in the lead. The two recent example of Preston and Coventry, they didn't look like they were going to score playing for weeks until the two fluke goals. Those could just as easily have happened earlier in the season but didn't. That's kind of what I mean about the luck evening itself out. If we'd carried on as we had at the start of the season, with no progress and still ended up where we did, I'd be much less optimistic for next season. I think the style we've adopted - or I'd argue what was always the plan and that we've started to look like we can execute on - does suit us. How many times in the last few years have we bemoaned not being able to break teams down who have come to Ewood for a point? I can see us working towards overcoming that and actually creating chances when we're dominating the ball. We're still good on the counter, but if you want to be a top side in any league that's rarely enough. It means you've always got to score early. Concede the first goal and you're screwed (as we were for 3/4 of the season).

We weren't the second best side in the league going into the world cup break. We put up some awful performances and got swept away by some crap teams. But somehow we were managing to win any game where we weren't blown out. In the 4 games prior to yesterday we could easily have had 7 more points with the exact same performances, exact same games but with more luck or correct refereeing decisions in the last minute of each. Had those gone our way we'd be 4th. They didn't and on balance of the season I think that probably evened out. Looking beyond the results I am confident in saying we are better now than we were at the start of the season. Better than we were when we were in second. That's the difference. The coach has actually improved the team. Hopefully we'll get the chance to see that improvement bear fruit next season.

Very similar outcomes and January windows. Very different story on the pitch. This season we got better as the season went on. We got so much more confident in possession, the style of play became much clearer and we actually started dominating games rather than scoring with our one shot and holding on. Unfortunately we used up all our luck pre World Cup and it came back to bite us in the last month. Over the whole season we weren't good enough to be in the top 6 but by the end of the season I'm convinced we were easily one of the 6 best teams. Compare that to last season where we looked good until Christmas and faded badly towards the end. In both results and performances. Again, we didn't deserve to be in the playoffs over the entire season and we definitely weren't one of the best 6 teams in the league by the time the season was over. So much so that most probably fearer for how we'd fare this season. You can see what we're trying to do now, what we're trying to be. That was never the case in 5 years under the old manager. A few astute signings in the summer, JDT still being here and I will be counting down the days to the first game.

Have it right, they secured 21st place in the country and a pointless piece of tin. Big woop. If they want to give that the big 'un then so what? Shows their aspirations. That's probably the best Burnley side that have shown up at Ewood since Venkys came and probably the best performance we've put up in that time too. It wasn't enough, but today wasn't the shambles of November

A brilliant strike from outside the box against the run of play. If that goes into the stand you aren't saying they "looked like scoring". One of those things. We got done by the extra class that they have

Neither did they

https://www.gettyimages.ae/photos/blackburn-rovers-v-kitchee-2011-asia-trophy 👍

They've been above us in the league for, what, a decade? And still the biggest issue for them is their allocation at Ewood. Our success in the 90s/00s has well and truly messed their heads up. They have no idea how to handle it. I was born in the 80s and can honestly say I barely gave Burnley a second thought until 2000, and then promptly forgot about them again for nearly a decade. We could be in the National League North and they'd still be desperately refreshing live scores at 4:40 on a Saturday in the hope that Kings Lynn scrape an equaliser. It's so unbelievably small time that it's beyond funny, through to excruciating and back around to funny again. And the fact that their chairman has felt the need to get involved while they're walking to promotion just shows that it's going to take a hell of a long time for them to overcome it. Never change dingles, it's a comfort to know that no matter how bad it may get at Rovers, you'll always be there to break our fall.

That's not effort you're complaining about. The lad basically needs oxygen after 80 mins every game through busting a gut. You're complaining about a lack of striker's instinct, which he definitely lacks.

Really!? I honestly can't believe that take. I've given him pelters (albeit not on here) more times than I can count, but not once have I ever seen the need to question his effort.