I'll take 38 (or 46) 1-0 wins and a title with poor football every day of the week. My problem with Allardyce's brand is firstly prioritising fixtures, for me you give 100% in every game, but also the fact that if you're only going to survive or finish mid table, you want to be entertained and watch an exciting style of football. Sad to say, as I like him as a personality, Big Sam rapidly seems to be becoming yesterday's man despite his attempts to keep himself in the limelight as a pundit. What could have been with England had he not chucked it all away through greed.

Sorry, that's completely wrong imo, Bennett, constantly picked in favour of Nyambe to the point where the latter probably became disenchanted and now won't sign a new contract meaning we now lose one of of brightest talents for nothing. Evans, continual pick alongside Smallwood even though the combination was completely wrong. Still a regular first choice until injury ruled him out. Walton, had the chance to send him back in January, (which Stevie Wonder would have done) decided to give him another chance. Smallwood - paid for 12 months for doing nothing as a result of being given an unnecessarily generous contract, then, to rub salt in the wound, got another month. Mulgrew - as above but substitute 24 months for 12 months! Williams - if as you claim it was thought he wasn't good enough, how come he's still here and now back in the side? As a result we've seen two years of stagnation and two fairly dismal years on the pitch. It's a good job Venky's had the patience and pockets to fund the same. If there is now a sea change behind the scenes in terms of selection and personnel then it's very welcome, if two years too late, but I have my suspicions the driving force is Mowbray. In general, leopards don't change their spots especially at his stage of his career.

My recollection was that Jones had a relatively nominal release clause in his original contract which according to Jerome Anderson was renegotiated and replaced by a figure of £16m in his new deal in the window when we also signed Rochina, Formica etc. Man Ure came in for him at some point later, Venky's dug their heels in a bit and my recollection was we got more than the £16m in the release clause. For all we know we might have lost him for a relative pittance had he not signed a new contract with the improved clause. Either way I can't see that the fact Manure knew about it is a particularly big deal, if these things are meant to be a state secret how did Chelsea know about Duff's £17m release clause? I'd imagine if a Club wants to sell or a player wants to leave a Club I'd imagine its relatively common place that would be suitors are tipped off either by the Club themselves or the players' agent.

Errr..... wouldn't his agent have told the Red Scum about the clause. As I recall Venky's actually did quite well to screw a bit more money out of Man Ure after digging their heels in.

Disagree, I think it was Graham that made us extremely one dimensional. As daft as it sounds I thought Armstrong had a really poor game today. Don't want to lose either but if we HAD to sell either of Dack or Armstrong for £20m and Dack was back to full fitness I'd keep Dack all day long.

In the case of Evans and Gallagher....... that's the worry!!!!! The change in our team selection, formation, attacking ethos and pressing style of play since the end of last season is quite remarkable. We even look infinitely fitter than at any stage since Mowbray has been in charge and whilst Mowbray has to take the credit I'm wondering if Johnson has had much more of an input this season. Either way it's working and long may it continue.

Come off it, no-one could have predicted the way we've played the last couple of games. We were terrible after lockdown and pretty poor as recently as the opening fixture against Doncaster. The League form this season has come out of absolutely nowhere. Not complaining though, long may it last.

Absolutely outstanding, 3-0 up and Armstrong has been rubbish. Hardly touched the ball, should have scored from point blank range then missed an easy chance to play Brereton in. Dolan, Rothwell outstanding, Brereton really good again just needs a couple of breaks in front of goal. Really good to watch. Keep it up lads.

? Took one for the team there!

Was it ever in any doubt? Has been treated appallingly by Mowbray throughout his time here.

You're right of course, it's the sensible thing to do. Done. Relax everyone, with my normal luck in betting that probably means we'll be 3 up inside 20 mins and never in any danger.

Yep.

Good stuff Stuart. But apart from that, you're fairly happy? ?

This will be an acid test of Mowbray's management, after a 5-0 win and playing well in general there is no excuse whatsoever for changing the starting line up with the possible exception of bringing back Nyambe (who hadn't done anything whatsoever wrong in the first place) for JRC. Either way, Dolan shouldn't be dropped. Will Tony give the players their head and say 'same again" or overthink it and retreat into his shell and swap it about and go safety first based on his perceived view of the opposition strengths? On a personal level I wouldn't mind a win tomorrow, had a £5 free bet on Betfair midweek on most of the favourites in the League Cup plus Rovers. £399 if we win. Can cash out now for £122. ?

That's no way to talk about our Prime Minister and Government! ? I don't agree the decision about fans is a sensible one but from a Rovers point of view given the Government's track record on the virus to date I think it was entirely foreseeable they'd bottle out of their original plan and perform a U turn. As a Club we should have been completely on top of it. Instead we were misjudging the mood totally, and issuing a plea to let fans back in asap just as the Government went down the opposite route.

Course it's at his door. We can argue until the cows come home about the timing of season tickets/memberships going on sale. To me it was the most obvious thing in the world to keep people engaged and prevent them losing interest and sign them up on a nominal membership initially and as early as possible then upgrade them to a price commensurate with an I follow pass once the Government made their decision on fans and upgrade again to the full ST price if and when fans are finally allowed back in. What surely can not be disputed though, is that if you have a product on offer which isn't as good as the one you had on sale before, you don't put prices up!

What a great post. Spot on. Waggott doesn't deserve supporters like you and the lady I met last night. ?

What a great response from the Colchester Chairman. Top man. The "Government's whack a mole" approach to high risk areas. What a great way of putting it but sadly true. Whilst Boris and the medics play silly theoretical games which will never have any impact whatsoever on them, in real life people are losing their jobs, businesses and entire sectors of the economy are at risk of going under. BTW, can you imagine Waggott going to the trouble of removing 1800 seats or changing the surrounds to the stadium around in an effort to get games on? We can't even be bothered to open the Club shop or keep the surrounds of Ewood Park tidy and free of rubbish!

Unbelievable. in the light of the Government's (predictable) cave in on allowing fans back in to live sporting events, most rational people would be admitting they made a huge mistake and coming back to supporters on bended knee asking for forgiveness. Waggott has obviously never heard of the phrase "When you're in a hole stop digging." His response?, double down on the original mistake on 20, hope that people will miraculously change their minds and suddenly won't object to being taken for granted and to being asked to pay more for something they're not actually getting in the first place, and hope that that miracle ace comes out. It's mind blowing, it really is.

The only thing Rovers could do is hold their hands up and acknowledge they'd made a horrendous mistake with the pricing at this particular time and re-issue prices along the lines of the cost of an i-follow pass to be upgraded when fans are finally allowed back inside the ground. On the assumption the Club get a cut of I follow subscriptions for individual games anyway, that move might not alter finances drastically until fans are allowed back in, but it would might restore a degree of good will and ensure that some of the missing fans are signed up and on board and ready to go when the time comes and not disenchanted and potentially lost forever. The only downside would be that that would be unfair on the noble bunch who have already renewed but I'm sure some further rebate could be worked out for them. I spoke to one such lady last night who was in JW and she thought her ticket had gone up about £50. She said she had to think about it given the likely non attendance but then thought about what had happened at Bolton and the fact she was worried about the prospect of non playing staff going unpaid. All power to her.

I can't see any harm in leaving them on sale for anyone who wants to help the Club out bearing in mind you supposedly get a rebate off next season's prices. The problem is that any such numbers will be minimal given that Waggott has destroyed any feeling of goodwill towards the Club with the price increases. Your other point is spot on though, months of inertia was excused by saying that we couldn't put on sale what we couldn't guarantee.......then when we finally emerged from hibernation we went on to do exactly that!

You keep saying this but I suspect it's a complete non issue. If the Clubs concerned sold on the condition there would be no refunds in the case of Covid enforced non attendance there isn't a problem.

So by a combination of not putting memberships on sale early enough and when they were finally put on sale raising prices by up to 25% at a point in time when it was obvious that it would not be possible to attend in person for large parts of the season, Waggott has single handedly managed to decimate the season ticket base from around 8'500 to c1200. Hats off to the bloke, genius, that takes some doing even in the current climate.

Did you put the £660 on? ?

Not wanting to "moan" but I think the fact Evans and Gallagher are out of the reckoning is a huge bonus and I think their pedestrian style would be a huge hindrance to the free flowing line up we saw today. Terrific stuff today. Dolan. Wow, just wow. If he carries on like this we'll have to give him an improved contract to scare potential suitors off. Brereton, did really well without scoring. JRC very good game. First time I've been impressed with him. Johnson ditto, best game he's had for the Club imo. Chapman looked decent when he came on ditto Buckley. Armstrong finally looked to be enjoying himself a bit more and you can't argue with four goals from two games. Let's hope we can keep it up. We appear to have performed really well in the last 3 games and I hope the manager doesn't kill the momentum by mixing it up too much to give everyone a game. Edit: forgot Rothwell, one of his better games. Well done everyone!