arbitro

I thought Adam showed up well and was pleased to see him doing so much good work off the ball in terms of closing down and tracking back. He played a couple a clever passes in the second half but the low possession count for Palace meant he couldn't get on the ball too much. He will only get better. Hopefully he will be at Birmingham tonight if Hodgson has given the Palace players a couple of days off 😉.

Follow the dual carriageway to the road that takes you up to St Andrews and go right around the big roundabout so you are heading back where you came from. Once on the dual carriageway turn a left down any of the side roads. There are lots of business premises with plenty of street parking particularly after 6 pm. The benefit of this is that you are facing the right way to get back to the A38 and M6. It's a ten minute walk from there to the ground.

And yet his style and approach was fine when we went on cup runs and were a whisker away from the playoffs. In fact everything seemed good until we went on a horrible run from December onwards. Players look to shift the blame too often for me and that is what Brittain is doing here.

Kidd Dalglish Souness Berg Tomasson

For anybody who enjoyed the recent three part documentary on Channel 4 about the miners strike there is another documentary on BBC 2 on Sunday 18th at 9 pm. The synopsis describes it as the story of fifteen men and women and the life changing year for them.

They can spend money on frivolous appeals and fly to Orlando to try and correct their own huge error but paying to jet wash something as important (to the fans at least) as this will probably be deemed too expensive. Another reason to detest Waggott.

As was Rankin-Costello's. He didn't even lift his head up as he had a picture of what was outside him. With one touch he guided the ball perfectly into Brittain's path.

Interestingly Birminghams next two games are us and Sunderland.

If this new bloke is a set piece specialist let's hope he sees the value of leaving a couple of players upfield when the opposition have corners and free-kicks they are putting into the box. For the life in me I can't see the value of the likes of Dolan or Markanday defending crosses. Also it means the opposition have to leave at least one spare player back to mark them.

Who has?

I saw Birmingham lose at Sheffield Wednesday on Friday and they weren't very good. Their full backs, Laird and Buchanan were as poor on the night as anything I've seen for a while. I didn't realise they have signed the ex Dingle Kevin Long who is as slow as anything. I'm not expecting a flowing feast of football but if we play with intensity and do the basics right we can get something. I would to with the same team simply to try and keep a clean sheet. If we do that the rest will take care of itself.

An incredible week in the life of a Rovers fan at least had a happy ending. I was really pleased to see Hedges on the team sheet as I think he brings a lot to the team and, after being out for so long shows how highly he is rated as he was straight back in the. There looked to be a better balance to the team which have me some hope. Racing into a three goal lead was beyond my wildest dreams but conceding a sloppy goal took the edge off a decent performance. I noticed Stoke were out early for the second half and they clearly had been roasted as they got on the front foot and had a period of dominance which worried me. The penalty have them a real opportunity to get something from the game as I believe had they scored we might have capitulated. Well done to Pears not just for the save but for pushing it out wide too. I was still worried though as we had several tired looking players but in fairness the changes we made our a bit of energy back for us and we finished strong playing the break and could have sneaked couple more goals. Hedges, Chrisene and McFazdean were the pick of the bunch for me. We did adopt a different style of play at times and our set plays were better I thought. Interestingly Eustace appeared in the technical area after about an hour and I thought was quite vocal and animated. He had his coat on for a few minutes but soon dispensed with that and was actually in his short sleeves. Shades of Brian Kidd but hopefully that's were the comparison stops. It was really good to walk off with that winning feeling and for me showing something different in the new managers first game. And a word for the fans who got behind the team but still sang anti Waggott and Venky songs. And to the lads who paraded a Waggott Out banner the JW Lower well done.

Broughton is seen with the new manager towards the end of this video.

If anybody is at Ewood around 2 o'clock this afternoon report to reception. You will be putting the cones out and taking the warm-up drills. The vacancy is because the usual ones are actually deciding what tactics to employ. 😂

I wonder if Eustace will have any influence on tactics and team selection today. My guess is not and he will be in the Directors Box. Hopefully he won't do a Kidd and appear for the second half in a tracksuit and behaving like he was high on acid. Funnily enough that was the highlight of his time here.

And is there is some unease at the way they are asked to play this can have an effect. It's only my opinion but Travis fell into that category as he never looked at ease with the style of playing and often the position he was asked to play.

The issue with that is very few people don't know Rovers owners as anything other than Venky's. There will be Rovers fans who won't know and if you displayed a 'Rao's Out' banner today quite a few would understand the significance. The media always refer to Rovers owners as Venky's and it's been that way for their whole tenure.

Excellent news my friend.

The evening before the QPR match I was driving and listening to Radio Lancashire and one of the guests was Nixon. He was there primarily to talk about the transfer window and the banning of Tomasson from speaking to the press but he definitely said a Rovers delegation is due to fly out to India soon for discussions with the owners. He didn't elaborate any further than that.

There is absolutely a code of 'Omerta' in professional football in which there is rarely criticism in public of fellow professionals and sometimes managers. Most internal squabbles or training ground spats are kept in-house. I do believe though that any outspoken alpha-males in the changing room can wield far too much influence but then I guess that is much the same in most working environments.

I really dislike the 'lost the dressing room' description. By implication the players weren't playing for the manager ergo weren't playing for the club in other words stealing a living. It's a description that's often banded about in football and if there is any truth in it then it says more about the players than any manager.

In reality how many goals did we concede from playing the 'kamikaze football', how many games did we lose because of it. We have probably conceded ten times the number of goals from set pieces. Now that is an area to really be critical of because it actually has cost us points and games. I believe this particular stick with which he is beaten to be a complete misnomer.

Generally it was painful but worth it for the look on Mowbray's face when he was yellow carded. His facial expression to me looked like the 'do you know who I am' routine.

An interesting theory about the power struggle and one I'd never thought of but it might have some legs. If so it puts me in mind of the Shagnew and Singh time which saw us ridiculed as they battled each other, much to the detriment of Rovers. Alongside Waggott I'm assuming will be Suhail whilst Tomasson and Broughton were in the other corner. Didn't Tomasson name check Waggott and Suhail in his very last public interview last Saturday? Of course I'm joining the dots here but this makes more sense than any theory I've heard for some time. Heaven help us 😞

I'm pretty sure Waggott has his family home in Kent and he is frequently there. Given how he used supporters and players this week nothing would surprise me about him. in fairness I don't read the LT comments but from the tone of your denial I'm guessing the guy you're referring to spouts nonsense.