My two pennyworth: I agree that Southgate should have checked the team before they went out of the dressing room at the start of each half to make sure they weren't wearing a vest with a message underneath the shirt. Arguably, it's the most stupid yellow card to concede. Also, if I can see that we needed substitutes - and I was shouting, "Get some bloody subs on!" at the TV for the last 15 minutes of the game - why couldn't Southgate? Poland were much the stronger team in that period of the game and a goal from them looked almost inevitable. Which it turned out to be. I know that last Sunday's game was only the equivalent of a 3rd Round FA Cup-tie between the Premier League Champions and a non-League team, but I thought Bellingham was magnificent in that game. He was one of the subs I'd have introduced to Wednesday's game. If it had been a League game with a limited number of substitutes to choose from, I'd always have him on the bench, especially when the Referee was, imo, conned into issuing an early yellow card to one of our midfielders.

Apart from the occasional Lucky dip on the National Lottery, I don't gamble; but I reckon that the confidence Brereton Días obviously got from playing for Chile makes that a wager worth considering.🤔

Ta!

Please put my name against the Blackpool [A] game on 2/10/21, Mike.

I saw what you did there, @Wing Wizard Windy Miller Very clever! 😂

What an absolutely superb opening post, @Mike E; thanks for it.

The Millwall [A] game that I remember best was in, I think, the 76/77 season. I'd gone down to London with a fellow season ticket-holder; a mutual colleague of Leonard Venkhater's and mine. We were spending the weekend with my mate's eldest brother who lived south east of Millwall, and was as passionate about Rovers as we were - his office wall was festooned with press cuttings, team photographs, etc. Anyway, we drove as near to the ground as possible; parked up and remained as schtum as possible; it was well before EastEnders, so we couldn't 'do the accent' very well. Until we got back into the elder brother's VW after the game, locked the doors and set off back home with a 0-1 win in our pockets and then cheered! We were on an un-segregated terrace - they were, in those days - and none of the home fans could tell from our behaviour or, from our blue and white scarves, either before we scored - just after half an hour, from memory - or for the remainder of the game, which team we followed. The following Monday, BBC1's Panorama did a feature on 'Football Hooliganism', majoring on the match we'd been at. Mainly because of Millwall's fans' reputations. After that trip down memory lane, I'm hoping for a similar result tomorrow with our 'back five' holding out for a similar result with 45 years ago. 🤞🤞🤞

Before I appreciated properly how poor Mowbray is as a manager, I used to cut him some slack by saying that we were in more or less the same League position in Division 2 as we were when I first remember following Rovers in 1953. Before posting this, I looked where Morecambe were that same year; they were in the now-defunct Lancashire Combination; probably, if I'm being generous to them, of the equivalent of the National League [North]. Is there anyone who can get into Balaji's thick skull that, if he can sack a manager like BFS, whose USP - until last season, anyway - was that he could guarantee keeping a team in the Premier League, then he can certainly sack a manager who can't manage or motivate his team to beat a team who have never played at a higher level than they are doing this season? Please? Anyone?

I saw the first game I can remember my Dad taking me to [2-2 draw v. Fulham; November 1953] on the Riverside; I look forward to seeing my last - not just yet, though! - game there, too. Which leads me onto another matter I thought would have been mentioned on here; did the attendance look to those of you who were there like the - just - five-figure that it's being reported to have been?

Yeah; apparently due to various "operational and internal problems, Rovers are unable to fulfil this fixture." What IS going on at this once-Great Club Of Ours? "Do they not want any support?", asks the man who was going to the Geordie Shore to tick another ground where I've seen a Rovers team play. Yes, I know; sad, isn't it? Just as well as it was part of a 'Friends and football' weekend in the North East. At least I've still got me mates to see on the Sunday and Monday.

Sadly, that's probably true, gumboots; but hoping that there's a drop of common sense in Venky Towers, and that someone there reads those of us who actually care about This Great Club of Ours, can I put forward - again? I think I suggested him when his team won the Scottish League Cup earlier this season - the name of Callum Davidson? Listening to his St. Johnstone team beating Hibernian in Scottish Cup as I type this, he's coming across as a really savvy, younger - early 40s - manager.

Reading the reports in today's sports pages about the Cup Final, my main thought has been, "Please can we find a benevolent Thai billionaire to offer Venky's an irresistible sum for us and then run this once-great club of ours like Leicester's owners run them?" It's not too greedy of me, is it?

I saw what you did in that first paragraph, @bluebruce!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the football universe, the Government's talking about having a review of how football is organised in this country. One idea they're said to be looking into is a similar system to the one that applies in Germany - and probably one reason why there were no German teams in the prototype E.S.L. - namely a significant amount of fans' representation on the Boards of football clubs. Let's hope that review does its job quickly and our owners are brought to realise that they can't just sit in Pune, apparently not giving a toss about This Great Club Of Ours.

As I remember being told at school many years ago, "Don't call him an arsehole; an arsehole's useful." "Not one that big!"