Idiots on the pitch. They won’t be smiling as much from the cell they end up in. Croatia on the attack at the time.

No way Tom. If you can’t take my word for it just listen to all the ex footballers on the TV panel. It was to be deliberate. Like Linekar just said they need to change the rule so that am contact with the hand is handball because the current rule just allows a decision to be made which favours one team or another. The ref didn’t think it was a penalty. Then he had doubt put in his mind because of the VAR team. He has then decided he made a ‘clear and obvious error’. Not a chance. VAR is a brilliant tool for match fixing.

It’s a complete joke. VAR is just lost time.

Robbery. Just makes it worse that it’s France that have benefited. Deliberate handball? Not in a million years. ’Clear and obvious error’? How can’t it be clear and obvious if it divides opinion?

Cheers for that. Finding it hard to get enthused about a FRA-CRO final so it has helped to get us in the mood for no other reason than a reminder of the history of the competition. The soundtrack however is wildly inappropriate thanks to lots of sweary rap music!

Moot then

Not sure why Nuttall is getting grief. Mowbray has to take the blame for how his season went. Being dropped for Samuel despite being in form ruined his confidence. In his subsequent first team appearances he was half the player he was becoming in the U23s.

That logo looks really good with our shirt. So I doubt that’ll be it. Is it meant to be out this next week?

Yep. Exactly where I want my best goal threat to be. In the centre circle collecting the ball. Armchair experts with their pithy ‘running the channels’ and ‘all round game’ are all well and good, but goals win football matches. I prefer midfielders to do the leg work.

Goal scorers aren’t valued any more.

Personally I don’t want Gallagher back. He was part of our relegation squad and only just survived last year with Birmingham. A reminder of the worst of times when we need to be looking forward. At the end of the day though it will come down to the quality we can afford for the budget available.

Hence “ripple effect”. Big clubs will let other players go, or go on loan, once they have better ones. We may be third or even fourth tier in that ripple but still.

Thinks will start to pick up after tomorrow I expect. Once the big boys start picking up the WC players the ripple effect should begin.

Like I said Rev, the goalposts keep moving on this one. But I guess yes, the bit in bold is where I was. The original version was promotion for Rovers (generically) rather than England winning the World Cup. Which is like getting a new job at work or your dad winning the lottery. Would I choose Rovers to win the PL a second time in my lifetime or England winning the World Cup once in my lifetime - a straight binary choice? I’ll take England winning the WC and will carry on following Rovers whichever league they are in. Like any other non-proper fan.

‘Proper’ fans eh?

No doubt but the question was a binary one. Every single football player would see winning the World Cup as the pinnacle of their career. How can fans not feel the same way? Wanting success for your club as much as wanting your national team to do well is natural but not instead of - although I could see a moral argument if every Rovers player lived no further away than Houghton or Great Harwood. The World Cup is a rarity. You could live 80 years and have 79 years of prioritising Rovers success and 1 year for England. That’s surely not too much to ask.

You are happy with Rovers in the PL (not even winning the thing) but in return England never win the World Cup? The world has gone mad. Genuinely astonished.

You can’t keep widening the target area or we’ll soon be playing rugby! However Rovers “in the PL” ahead of England winning the World Cup?? I think one of us needs to lay off the beer.

I am equally shocked that you wouldn’t want England to win the World Cup. [moves goalposts to match opposition] Club football has ups and downs, the World Cup is something else. There have only been 12 in my lifetime and 21 in total.

Well if it’s not you, you just be related. Idiosyncratic in the extreme.

Cool. What’s wrong with you blueboyzzz account, btw? Forgot your password?

Pleased for you.

Don’t worry, I know who the Bell is.

Nah

Bell didn’t show any natural ability going forward last season. It does seem lined up to have Williams at the left of a three and Bell getting up and down the pitch but he has a lot to prove. The final third seemed like foreign soil to him. It’s a good attacking formation but it didn’t work without the necessary players in L1 - do we really have better exponents of it to do better in the Championship? Not convinced.