Great programme, and one that seems to be very rarely repeated.

I thought Bell was much improved before the season shut down. Might have had something to do with him trying to impress enough to warrant a new deal but still miles better than the dreadful Williams at LB imo.

I said something similar to my mate's son, only my T shirt would read "Mowbray out!"

I can't decide if this is a stroke of genius or utter insanity but hot on the heels of the announcement the other day I'm more inclined towards the latter. That said, I'll no doubt have a go so it probably say a lot about me! ?

Do you think it's a wise move letting your girlfriend go round the training ground with Bradley Dack? ?

But if we did sign him no doubt you'd be saying it was a managerial masterstroke! ?

The main thing that strikes me from that list is how heavily we relied on Mulgrew's input from set pieces. And he hasn't even played for us since the opening day.

That would be the worst possible move. He is absolutely useless. It beggars belief that we didn't exercise our option to end him back in January as it is since it seems we knew we wouldn't be looking to take him on permanently then. "He's not good enough and we won't be looking to sign him permanently but hey, I know what we'll do, we'll give him another few months until the end of the season!"

The goalkeeping part surely shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

I did wonder about this, but from the opposite perspective, whether he had made the decision off his own batt and the owners might actually be upset with him about it. Whilst Rovers seem to be a very expensive filly where the V's are concerned, they do still have experiences of running much larger concerns than us and you might have thought that they'd raise concerns about losing core customers in the long run over a relatively trivial refund.

You've got to applaud whoever compiled the report on the game for bare faced front. Saying we now need to "fine tune" our preparations in time for the start of the season. What, so we only get beaten 5-0 next time out? That's the sort of thing you'd write if we'd battled our way to a plucky 1-1 drawer something!

I'm not sure I follow this line of argument. Firstly, I'd be astounded if the Authorities didn't temporarily relax FFP to allow for losses caused by the Pandemic. It would be unbelievably harsh not to. Secondly doesn't FFP run on a rolling 3 year basis whereby you can lose £39m in that period? It would have to be a very specific and unfortunate cut off point for a few refunds to make the difference between us going over or being compliant with FFP. Let's say we have to give back 3k refunds. (If we'd handled it better and "done a Derby" I'd bet the numbers would have been in the hundreds) Even at 3k refunds you're only talking sub 200 k which I know is a lot if you've not got it but surely that could be saved somewhere on next year's budget and if you piss a ST holder off, for the sake of that £60 refund, you'll probably lose a £350 renewal and the year after and the year after that etc etc.

Agreed. If you really can't afford to give a refund, be honest and up front about it and say you can't afford it, it's on you, and you're most deeply sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Don't be sneaky about it and put the supporters on a guilt trip and try to shift the blame and insinuate that whether we remain competitive or not going forward hinges on whether or not you demand a refund. Which of course is complete and utter cobblers. Ironically, if we'd have done "a Derby" and looked like they were being magnanimous and offered a full range of options they'd have kept fan dissatisfaction and requests for refunds to a minimum. By doing it like this, not admitting we're actually in a lot of financial trouble if that is indeed the case, but not offering a lot of refund either and stating it's purely a matter of supporters' conscience, we've probably guaranteed the maximum possible number of requests for refunds and subsequent non renewals if there's any prevaricating thereafter.

Not very encouraging. The "Liverpool are ahead of us in their preparation line" is a bit thin when they only start 3 days before us. 11 subs and Chapman still couldn't get on. What must he be thinking?

I'm not as offended by the £3 matchday surcharge as most. I understand the argument it is unnecessary and that t might discourage floating fans and I wouldn't object to it being removed. Overall though my view would be that if you really object to paying that extra £3, buy your ticket in advance. For those who genuinely don't know until the day whether they can attend, then if you're put off by paying an extra £3 then you probably weren't that bothered about going in the first place. However £7.50 for a (crap) pie and a pint and then advertising it as an unbeatable offer we as fans should be falling all over ourselves to get - do me a favour it's like sticking 2 fingers up at everyone.

They haven't said specifically they are allowing refunds, they have only said that they would prefer it if people didn't take them. They've then attempted to guilt trip everyone with the "We won't have enough money to be competitive if everyone asks for a refund" line. We know all this and I would never have dreamed of asking for a refund personally. However there will be some who would have preferred a refund and I think this is absolutely atrocious customer service from the Club. They should have offered a range of options similar to Derby and specifically acknowledged that they realised some supporters would still want a refund and that any such requests would be met by a prompt no quibble response. We don't know yet either whether any actual requests for refunds will be met with a prompt cheery response, a refusal or a protracted dragging out which will be like getting blood out of a stone. Either of the latter two would be absolutely disastrous for Club/fan relations. You really do wonder what Waggott does to justify his salary. Any old mug could just sit there and test the loyalty of an ever dwindling hardcore by charging them the maximum they think they can get away with. Actually trying to entice more fans into the ground requires a bit more ingenuity and thought. Actions speak louder than words and the longer he is here the less impressed you become whether it is in the form of yet another disastrous transfer window or unimaginative interaction with the fanbase.

I remember that game for the fact that Barcelona, one of the best teams in the world, couldn't get the ball off Damien Duff. They couldn't get near him. Phenomenal player here and in his first year or two at Chelsea.

I think the one thing you can criticise the EFL for is leaving the decision on whether they wanted to finish the season in the hands of the Clubs. Realistically only the 3 Clubs currently in the relegation places and the ones in say 7th -11 th are going to want to carry on staging games BCD with stringent testing at a huge loss therefore if you only need a 51% majority the vote is a foregone conclusion. That said if the EFL had ordered the Clubs to complete their fixtures (which would have been nice) it really would have been incumbent upon them to secure the funding and maybe that really wasnt available. Or maybe they didn't try. Who knows.

As we've said a million times before this is an unprecedented situation and no one solution is completely fair or will keep everyone happy. It all boils down to the fact as to whether it's fairer to scrap a season that's been 80 % completed already or use what has happened thus far to calculate finishing positions. I can't even begin to understand why anyone would think the first option is fairer but each to their own I suppose. To answer one or two of your points: - obviously things can change, but there's probably been times when a team has fallen into the bottom 3 for the first time on the final day of the season and on the face of it that doesn't really seem particularly fair either. It's just a different cut off point this season due to necessity. - You can't relegate and promote based on bare positions when the season was stopped as some teams had played more games. PPG goes some way to addressing this. - whilst there might be a slight variation in run ins if you're in the bottom 3 after 37 or so games it's basically because you've been rubbish all season. It's not because all your hard games were weighted up front and the easier ones are yet to come. - one of my main gripes is that teams in danger of being relegated Ifrom the top 2 leagues seem to want to complete their fixtures to secure their TV revenue and hopefully play their way out of trouble. Then if they're not good enough and that doesn't work they want to claim that any Clubs below them who haven't completed their fixtures (through no fault of their own) should not be promoted. They want to have their cake and eat it.

It's not difficult to understand. The fairest outcome is for any League that can afford to do so to complete its fixtures. The Championship can afford to so, Leagues 1 and 2 have decided they can't. If Luton Barnsley or Hull finish bottom after 46 games they fully deserve to go down irrespective of what happens below them. As far as the Leagues below are concerned, if needs must, it's much fairer to finish a season that has already been 80% completed on a PPG basis than ignore what has happened altogether. Far from ideal, but by far the least worst solution imo. It's infinitely fairer to finish 2 Leagues fairly and take the next best solution for the other 2 Leagues through financial necessity than have an absolute travesty of justice in all 4 Leagues by scrapping them and completely ignoring what's gone on in a season that's already been 80% completed.

The voting system is flawed as turkeys won't vote for Christmas and Clubs are obviously going to vote according to their own self interest. However if Society as a whole is ordered to be overly cautious in emerging from lockdown and football in particular has to endure a stringent testing regime before it can even emerge BCD, then surely it would be even more undemocratic for the EFL to order the Clubs to return when they can't afford to do so. The only other thing the EFL could have done imo is to secure a package of financial support from Government or the PL which would have enabled all their members to finish this season. Whether enough was done to explore that possibility I've no idea. Looking forward the EFL and the Clubs probably need to agree a rule to cater for what is to happen if something similar happens in future. It would obviously be unfair if teams were to be promoted or relegated having played only five or six games but to my mind it's equally unfair to expunged records with around 80% of the season completed so Clubs will have to decide on a fair and reasonable point at which results should stand. All subject to the proviso that if at all possible the season should be completed obviously.

Fitness will be absolutely key for this run in, any side that could somehow find a way to come back in physically and mentally sharper than everyone else could absolutely breeze through the last few games. Not holding my breath based on what I've seen of us in the past but you never know.

Always someone else's fault with Lambert. Now he'll be able to point to the fact the season never finished and pretend they were about to come with a late run and deflect attention away from the fact they had a monumental collapse. Teflon man.

It's even unfairer to scrap the season meaning that team's efforts are unrewarded if they've done well or they've got away with it if they've tanked. The fairest solution is for ANY League that can afford to do so to play the League out in full. If any other Leagues can't afford to do so that's a mutually exclusive issue and needs must unfortunately. Just say for the sake of argument that Norwich played 38 games and finished in the bottom 3 and the Championship can't finish for some reason and final positions there have to be allocated on a PPG basis. To me it's still a lot fairer that Norwich and the other bottom 2 still go down and the teams that finished in the top 3 places on a PPG basis go up from the Chamionship to replace them than they get away with it.

Because they can just about afford not to and League 1 and League 2 Clubs can't. Too much self interest at play. More Clubs with nothing left to play for this season than ones with anything at stake. A desperately sad day for the integrity of the game and the current pyramid in general imo. Wonder if we'll ever see a lot of those Leagues 1 and 2 clubs again. Mind you it's hard to have too much sympathy with any Club who voted to finish the season early out of self interest who subsequently find themselves staring down the barrel.