arbitro

There has to be a huge effect on the local economy when around 50,000 less people are visiting the area in a season. We need less match day staff in the form of stewards and catering staff as a result of the vastly reduced crowds. It will be a similar story on the ticketing and retail side too. And the blame lies firmly on the errant ones several thousand miles away. It really isn't difficult to understand.

In truth I really had doubts about Tomasson around that period last season as the style and his method of playing clearly wasn't working. The penny must have dropped as suddenly we were playing with pace and intensity and we looked a different team. Also at this time JRC came into the team and added another dimension to our attacking play. JRC has been a huge miss undoubtedly and his qualities might have been the difference in some of those close defeats. Whoever has played at right back since just can't step into midfield like he can and get forward from central positions too. Hopefully Tomasson can come up with a plan to see this bad period through even if it means temporarily abandoning his principles.

I'm still struggling to come to terms over how bad we were on Boxing Day. Not one player in my view comes out of that with any credit as they quite often struggled with the basics, things like passing the ball five yards to a team mate. And at the back of my mind I know we are nowhere near as bad as we showed at Huddersfield but we simply have to cut the mistakes out and start to rebuild some confidence by doing the basics right. Undoubtedly in my view this is the most testing time of Tomasson's reign so he too had to react in the right way and perhaps change his footballing emphasis and try to frustrate Hull by defending properly and playing more on the counter.

Having seen plenty of Hilton in the under 21's I absolutely would not start him. I agree Walstedt needs leaving out but my opinion is that Hilton is much worse. In my view Jordan Eastham would be a better option.

No argument from me on his howler but pretty much every player yesterday has to ask themselves about their performances and unenforced errors. Too many were insipid and didn't seem to want to accept responsibility. The body language of far too many told it's own story for me.

He had a point though. Don't get me wrong he should have saved it comfortably but Brittain and Moran were almost as culpable as neither tried to close the Huddersfield player down. And that was a snapshot of the match, a match where I haven't seen so many collective and individual errors from our team in a long time.

Our real weakness recently has been too many individual mistakes by players and poor decision making all over the pitch. The last five goals we have conceded are all down to player error and a manager just can't legislate for that. I really don't think we are conceding goals because we aren't competing or because we have small players. With the recent exceptions of Sheffield Wednesday and today we have competed well enough. Today was summed up by a free kick we had about twenty yards out to the right of goal. The centre halves come up but instead of putting it in the box it is played short to Szmodics who for some unfathomable reason wants to play Brittain in but plays a lazy pass behind him, they get possession and swiftly counter. That is one example of poor decision making and choices of which there were many.

Out of interest what do you think are the strengths of the current squad.

In all but the Sheffield Wednesday game I have found some comfort in our performance, some positives despite the horrible taste of defeat. Today I simply can't offer anything in excuses, no positives whatsoever but instead lots of negatives and a sick feeling brought about by a gutless, spineless and utterly weak performance. I can't blame having injuries to key players when the starting eleven are so devoid of the passion we crave from our players. Not one player comes out of today with any credit at all. Slow, pedantic, poor decision making and physically weak was evident all over the pitch today and they all epitomised how poor we really were. Some of the players body language was awful today which is a huge worry for me going forward. They looked like they were feeling sorry for themselves and that is totally unacceptable.

I'm not sure where this physical Huddersfield notion is from. Looking at their team on Saturday only Helik and Hogg strike me as being robust. Pearson and Ward are doubtful with their regular keeper, Nicholls (who in the past has starred against us) definitely out. Their manager likes to play in a specific way but with the pressure piling up on him if we can score first it can be damning for them.

With still what is a depleted squad Tomasson has to be mindful of the fact we have three games in six days. In my view it would be folly to start Hyam after he got an hour on Saturday. Clearly Hill was rested on Saturday with this in mind and Carter (although I think he is our best centre half) needs a break. So my preferred centre halves would be Hill and Wharton. Unfortunately we don't really have that luxury in midfield and attack so it looks like several of these are going to get beasted over the next three games.

Merry Christmas to everyone particularly the ones who put the time in to keep this site going. Here's to three points, some outstanding football and a safe journey for everybody on Tuesday.

Yesterday our midfield three were excellent for seventy minutes and pretty much everything that was good came from them. The balance of the three worked perfectly well and whilst Wharton caught the eye with his silky skills the hard yards that Garrett put in was really good, his two blocks in the first half exemplified his game and he was ridiculously booked for what I think is the tackle of the season so far. Tronstad is one of the cleanest tacklers I have seen for a long time. He completely disproves the theory that you need to be a brute to tackle, it's about timing. He short passing game and ability to keep the ball moving is something I really enjoy watching. There are so many good things about Rovers right now but they come from the football side through the players and coaching staff. I really dislike losing but the football we are playing at times gets me off my feet. If only the owners and hierarchy at our club could match the desire, drive and ambition of the playing side.

Firstly extremely well done to the various supporter organisations who really showed the hierarchy at Ewood what the real potential of this great club of ours has. You all did yourselves, your organisations and the club proud. Once again it was a sense of disappointment walking out of Ewood at the result but certainly not the performance. We had several outstanding players today but Adam Wharton was terrific. Ultimately we we undone by some pacy counter attacks and our own errors. Walhstedt will know he should have caught the ball instead of punching and hopefully he will learn from it but I refuse to hang him out to dry. Once again our opponents have real quality to bring on and we simply have inexperience, they had real game changers, we didn't. If anybody is looking to apportion blame it should be directed at these woeful, uncaring shysters who masquerade as our owners. The manager and players are going above and beyond in my opinion but are absolutely hamstrung by those people. I'm looking forward to Huddersfield on Boxing Day now when we can hopefully come back with three points.

Does that include corporate and complimentary tickets Mike?

Privatisation. There are several buses going to Ewood from various pubs at the top end of Darwen but these are run privately. The guys that organise these do a sterling job but one of my many gripes is that Rovers should at least be looking at and perhaps trialling such a service from the various town centres.

Great news Mike. Where is the netted area in the JW?

It was a similar picture in Darren Gav. The old red Darren Corporation buses would be queued out Woolies at the Circus and ferry supporters to Ewood. After the match the buses would be parked at the bottom of Cravens Brow for the return journey. There would always be someone with a transistor radio so we could listen to James Alexander Gordon reading the results at 5 o'clock.

It's a feeble excuse for Szmodics not to play - I bet Ismael is delighted that the Championship top scored is out. They have just had a week between games, I could understand it if he had been left out when we have had Saturday, midweek, Saturday games but not now.

This is from Southampton last week where two coaches were used along with a van to take the kit down. They are having us over.

And therein lies the problem for me Mike. In theory Waggott could sell 100 tickets at super exorbitant prices and meet his target. As well as a financial target there should be a target of the number of tickets sold. The benefits of selling more season tickets have been well documented. Giving such targets would mean that Waggott and his team would have to be more creative instead of the cut and paste offers of the last few years. With the current set up it hardly seems in Waggott's interests to sell more and reinforces my view that he isn't too concerned about the long term health of the club.

As we don't have much stock of new kits it looks like mascots for the rest of the season will be wearing their own kit. What a flaming mess our club is in.

Hatching up more plans to piss the fans off. 🤣

One of Jack's grandsons was there. It looks like Steve Foster who was the physio during Kenny's time was there too.

Good find. Staunch habits????? What an arrogant thing to say about life long supporters. He sounds like another corporate blagger.