arbitro

Rovers are at home to Forest tonight at Ewood in the semi-final of the PL Cup. It's free for season ticket holders too. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2023/april/11/preview--rovers-under-21s-v-nottingham-forest-under-21s/

Yesterday he actually played all those positions you mention anyway 😂😂. He just pops up everywhere and has been real asset since he came back in December. As someone rightly pointed out yesterday when Joe goes rampaging Carter slips across and covers the right side. Personally I would just leave him he at right back with a licence to roam. One of my friends now calls him Joe Rankin Cancelo 😂😂

We played Bolton in a Friday night live Sky match and the ball was in play for 48 minutes. I think the game unsurprisingly finished 0-0. Time wasting or consuming is an area which has gradually got worse and allowed to fester to such a degree no amount of additional time is surprising. If Collina gets his way (he bloody well should as he's the FIFA Head of Refereeing) it will change. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12830009/one-goal-could-make-a-difference-fifa-head-of-refs-pierluigi-collina-wants-correct-added-time-even-if-score-is-7-0

Dead right. Ball boys are there to get the ball back to the players as quickly as possible, just like the multi ball system. Personally I would do away with them and, as we saw in the World Cup have balls placed on cones around the field. I have done games where the home team is leading and the ball boys have disappeared into the ether, clearly obeying an instruction from above.

He pushed a ball boy who was messing about and wouldn't give him the ball.

I always wore two watches with stop/start features, one a Casio cheap thing and the other a Polar heart date monitor. I regularly stopped Casio one for injuries, cautions etc and when the Polar got to 45 and 90 minutes I had an idea of how long to play by subtracting one from the other. If I try a team were blatantly time wasting I would add a few minutes to that. The trick was though remembering to restart the Casio 😂😂. The additional time announced is the minimum but even during that there are stoppages which, as you say don't always get added on. Timekeeping by the officials is not an exact science and that is why it's so random. It's an area where we could see huge improvement by taking it away from the officials and having an independent time keeper who is in communication with the referee like both codes of rugby. I also think teams would realise there won't be the same latitude given and therefore less likely to be abused. I know it's an area that Collina is keen to improve on as demonstrated in the World Cup.

There can't be retrospective action as the officials saw it and dealt with it.

To be fair the referee used common sense. He simply tapped his temple as if to say to Dolan 'think what you're doing'. I noticed today after about twenty minutes one of the Huddersfield staff taking towels out and giving them to the ball boys. Why after twenty minutes and not the start? My feeling is that if, as the home team you are using towels you have to offer the visitors the same use of them. This has to be agreed before the game. Having come across Warnock many times it's the kind of stroke he would pull along with all the other aspects of gamesmanship Huddersfield showed today.

There appears to be an obsession amongst some posters about 'bulking up' young players. Like Buckley Wharton has terrific balance and can ride challenges so well because of this. He demonstrated against Blackpool that he can tackle too. Tackling is more about timing than steaming in like a bull in a China Shop.

I didn't say we played excellently in the first half, I said we dominated. In the second half we were excellent - do you not agree?

Who knows what to expect over the next few weeks. After the tepid performances against Birmingham and Norwich though today has given me far more cause to be optimistic. Our strengths are all too apparent and if we consistently apply them who knows.

We weren't poor at all. You don't judge a performance on how many saves a goalkeeper has to make do you? We created a few chances and dominated almost every aspect. Are you disappointed that we have come back from two goals down whilst playing excellently?

I haven't a clue what that means.

What a fantastic second half for Rovers as we easily played our best football of the season. On the front foot at every opportunity, pace, passing accuracy and creating lots of chances. The big question is why we had to go two down to start playing in a manner that really suits us. I didn't think we were too bad in the first half but on a few occasions we were found wanting defensively but we still dominated many aspects. I knew how Huddersfield would look to capitalise on set pieces so to concede on their first one was annoying. We were still on top though but contrived to give another soft goal away when quite simply we should do better. Scoring early in the second half have us some impetus and then for fifty minutes I don't think I have seen us dominate a game so conclusively and as I type this I still can't believe we haven't won. So many top, top performers today but JRC was beyond excellent. He could have easily had a hat trick today and that was only one aspect of his game. He was everywhere probing, sprinting, playing one-two's, tackling and passing. I don't like going over the top but I can't recall such an outstanding individual performance in the last fifteen years. Simply brilliant Joe. It was good to see the shackles off a couple of players too as they played really well and on the front foot in the second half. Adam Wharton had a great game too despite him going wide left in the second half. He put in some great crosses from there. Harry Leonard was unlucky not to cap a good debut with a goal. Hopefully he is in and around the team for the rest of the season. One thing that really did please me was after equalising Ryan Hedges grabbed the ball out of the net and sprinted back with it to the centre spot. We weren't just happy to pull two goals back, we bloody well believed we could win it. There is still lots of football to be played yet, lots of twists and turns but if we can get close to the heights of the second half we will be playing in the playoffs, a remarkable achievement.

There is some real perspective in there my friend. Rovers were boasting on social media about the attendance of 18500 on Friday and yet that is Bolton's average crowd. I'll bet my bottom dollar though that their Chief Exec doesn't earn as much as Swag.

There aren't too many of us predicting a win today so, in typical Rovers fashion a win is on the cards. Tomasson needs to get his team selection and tactics right from the start, we need much more intensity and speed in our passing. Huddersfield will be predictable, a typical Warnock team who play on the margins of the laws and don't take chances with over playing, the type of team we have struggled against this season.

And Best, Murphy and Etuhu. I wonder just how much them three stooges cost us.

What an enjoyable watch the Liverpool v Arsenal match was. There was good, bad and indifferent play from both teams but it made a great spectacle for a neutral.

Just imagine had they been sensible, kept the then incumbents in place and maintained our PL position for the last twelve years. That would equate to around £1b in TV and other income. They are idiots, imbeciles and deserve the ire of every Rovers fan. I am delighted we are costing them a lot of money which is all down to their mismanagement.

And even in those games he scored he was a passenger most of the time. He just isn't doing enough to justify a starting place in my view. We need everyone to be at it tomorrow and at the moment he isn't.

Andy, you were the only player I ever came across who put weight on DURING a game. Ouch! 😂😂

There has been millions invested in VAR and several years since it's inception it's no better (arguably worse) which speaks volumes for how it's managed. I think it's allowed referees to go into a comfort zone which takes away their gut feeling which over the years has been a real strength of the top officials. We saw two extreme examples of VAR at its worst yesterday. Brentford were awarded a penalty which the referee quite rightly initially didn't give. He was advised to go to the monitor which put him under pressure straight away. He then gave the penalty. Brighton were denied a stone wall penalty and the referee wasn't sent to the pitch side monitor. The technology is there, it works fine but the operators aren't up to the standard required. Quite how Howard Webb remedies that will be interesting.

Under Warnock we know how Huddersfield will play. If we don't match that aggression and intensity we will lose. And for that reason Garrett, as our most naturally aggressive midfielder has to start. We simply can't afford to be dominated again, we should be on the front foot from the first whistle and maintain a high intensity game, a game which suits our players.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of VAR, it works well generally in other countries. The problem lies with the actual VAR 's and their levels of competence. I have questioned from day one why the VAR operators have to be active or retired officials. Surely knowledge of the Laws and understanding the game are the biggest criteria for any VAR. And the 'clear and obvious error' instruction just muddies the water. A mistake is a mistake and should be corrected. That is fundamentally how the vast majority see VAR but the powers that be think they know better.

Moving Brereton into the middle is a bit like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic. He is, being kind to him out of form. The cynic in me through tells me he is coasting. The Leonard debate is interesting. I have seen him coming through the ranks and would say he is the most natural goalscorer in the squad, more predatory that any others but we have to get the ball into the box more. I lost count on Friday of the number of chances to get an early cross in from wide but the players wanted an extra touch or were looking to pass, often backwards. They have to make better decisions on the ball and be braver.