Some great talent there Den but like alcid says a lot of dross too, carried by the splendid remnants of a potential Championship side. And no depth in the squad either. In those days we has 11 starters and not much else. That's why the best centre-half in Europe was playing up front! Where was Duggie that day? Injured? Or was he already on the way out?

A truly beautiful spot, Ribble Valley with less rain!

Will benefit Arsenal most!

You can argue he hasn't said enough about Rovers plight under Venkys if you want to. However you can't possibly argue he isn't a Rovers supporter. He has been one , for years, he regularly attends matches. If he isn't one how many Rovers supporters are there? 50? On what criteria? You have got yourself into a stupid position here and you are too stubborn to back down.

Clearly you are right in your final assessment because we concede too many goals. If we are 1-0 up and under pressure could we hold out? Probably not and 3 points will become 1.

Have only seen the 5 min highlights from Sky, but it is obvious even from that that we are playing a much more pressing and aggressive game. There's 2 or 3 examples of us chasing and harrying opponents and bullying them out of the ball. We were not doing this earlier in the season and I don't know why. However, we now look the goods for this division and that 3rd goal was indeed sublime.

I think Oystons will show as much care and diligence in the sale of the club as the Walker Trust did.

1) Fans were united, inventive and, above all, dogged. You think that didn't help? At all? 2)Sale won't get anywhere near 31 million.

Well, looks as though protests and boycotts ARE able to produce a result, (unless there are selling the Club to pay the costs of legal action). Who would have thought?

Goes beyond mere incompetence imo.

"Oystons ordered to buy out Blackpool shareholder for £31m after losing court battle" Very interesting Guardian article. In summary Oystons have to pay millions in compensation to another major share-holder for loss of value in his shares after relegation from Premier League. Judge's verdict--------damage caused by asset-stripping i.e. sale of best players. Illustrates that while their behaviour was not illegal and couldn't attract criminal charges and penalties, it was prejudicial to the interests of another and therefore was contestable in a civil court and big damages were applied.

I agree. I can't see how anyone could seriously think we could make one of the two automatic promotion positions from here. Its a toss-up as to whether we'll finish 6th or 5th or miss out altogether A dramatic turn round in performance would be needed to do better and does not look forth-coming.

You sing the praises of the Youth Squad, how attractive the football is, how they all know their role etc etc and go on to say "the complete opposite of the first team" and that's not a severe criticism of the Mowbot?

That is a severe criticism of the first-team manager. Yet you want him to stay!

The thing is, I believe that for Venkys loans are the norm, no matter what league we are in.

There are several others who could also have played though. It wasn't like that when we loaned Archibald and Ardilles despite your constant attempt to convince us nothing is really different. Its not till Venkys came along, with " Madame "specifically stating that we didn't need a big transfer budget because we could borrow players from other clubs that loans played much of a part in our club at all. You're the history man, how many loans did we take on between 1992 and 2010?

They were late "top-ups" to get us up. How many other loans did we have at the time? None maybe? Its entirely different when you are borrowing half the side from the start of the season.

True and I agree,but only few months ago we were laughing (in despair) at the prospect. He's a bit to go yet I'd think. Simply reflects how desperate we are knowing that its either Johnson or another massive Venky stuff-up.

I gave my opinion. Your's is personal, as always, provocative and rubbish. As to whether he deserves the job or not that would depend on who applied and won on merit, in a real club. This annointing of the successor from within is not the way to do it. However, I'd give him a chance just like I have all the others (apart from Kean and Coyle.)

Its a gamble(or would be) which we all hope would pay off. But if we keep plundering the lower down areas of the club then that becomes the next area to fix. Its true what I said though isn't it? We did joke about them getting the job. The danger is they'll disappoint through no fault of their own and we'll have stuffed up the youth set-up as well. We are doing this because of an unerring Venky ability not to find the right manager in the first place. Not because someone has decided Johnson has earned the berth.

He's making out a very good case for playing him isn't he?!

We need a winger, we need pace and we need to be able to counter-attack. noticeable in the Shrewsbury game that they got from A to B much quicker than we did. His non-selection as a starter is just another example of how everyone but the manager can see a problem and a potential solution. The ball pulled back from the bye-line---still the most effective move in football.

some while ago we joked on here about Johnson or Dunn or both getting the next manager job! Now we are begging for it! An astonishing example of the dumbing down in expectations Venkys have brought about in our once-great Club.

They could set a new record for length of time spent in Div 3 or they could set a new record for dumping us in Div 4 for the first time ever. That, imo, is all we have to look forward to.

True,and I agree with everything you say but attendances in the Championship this weekend were nearer 30000 than 20. Thats unprecedented isn't it?