Will wait for the official announcement but if he's as good as you say he is, sounds very promising. How old is he?

Very worrying to hear the way TM is bulling up Conway. It would be a shocking decision to offer him a new deal of any sort imo, especially if funds are limited.

Excellent article on our recent history both pre and post Venky's from David Conn. Factual comprehensive accurate and none of the usual conspiracy nonsense about shadow owners and the like. As for next season going forward the owners have absorbed a loss well in excess of 100m to date, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't accept a further loss of say 10m next season if they could be persuaded that by doing so further progress would be made.

The level of investment over the summer will determine the sort of level we're competing at next year. If we're going to compete towards the top end of the division I'd say we need ideally: Big nasty centre back experienced at Championship level. Big nasty midfielder experienced at Championship level, Creative midfielder, 2 wingers one of which hopefully Chapman if he can demonstrate his fitness. Proven goal scorer at Championship level. Out: Caddis, Williams, Evans, Conway, Samuel, Whittingham

Why? Unless he has improved substantially I thought Gallagher was some way short of the standard required at that level when he was here. Started well but faded very badly.

There was a Sunderland fan moaning on a phone in on Talk Sport last night and one of the points he made was that they sold Pickford and Mannone and brought in the 2 worst keepers he'd ever seen in a Sunderland shirt. I did laugh. Then I became more reflective of the fact that if we'd shown some balls and fired off Steele in favour of Raya a lot earlier last season we'd probably have stayed up. Yes he would have made a few mistakes but would probably have pulled off enough point winning saves to keep us up given we only went down on goal difference. Steele never saved anything. Practically every time the opposition had a shot on target it was a goal.

All true. That said in chaddy's defence whilst you can't ever completely discount the possibility of a Club coming in and offering way more than you think one of your players is actually worth, the bit of feedback I've had is that we have no intention whatsoever of selling Dack.

Maybe not now, that's rather the idea! Dack is a bit "Besty" isn't he which is probably why he is still plying his trade in League 1 at this stage of his career. However if he doesn"t let himself go too much in the close season and unlike this season hits the ground running I see no reason whatsoever why he can't bag another 20 goals in the Championship. Then I would say those are the kind of figures you would be talking about, particularly if transfer fees continue to go through the roof generally. Someone told me a month or two ago that he had the best percentage stats of any player in Europe at that point in terms of scoring and contributing in goals for other people combined. No idea if that is true or not.

I Didn't actually think the fee we got for Cairney was a bad one given that at the time he had failed to achieve any real consistency and appeared to be a player who flirted in and out of games. Obviously he went on to be a far more influential player after he moved to Fulham but hindsight is a wonderful thing sometimes. As for Sir Bradley, never mind who might be coming in if we go up, the first task for me should be to tie him down on a vastly improved contract with a release clause in the order of £20m which will hopefully deter any interest in him.

Shocking fight, the referee was one of the worst I've ever seen, as soon as it looked like there was going to be a bit of action he jumped in way too early. Not sure if I'd blame either fighter, Joshua quickly figured out he could win risk free on points by keeping Parker at long range on tbe end of his jab. Parker showed great durability but the only chance he had of winning was by getting up close to Joshua and the referee intervened whenever he tried. Also hated the pre fight razmatazz with all the pyrotechnics going off while Joshus preened to the crowd. There was even a bloody x on the walkway indicating where he should stop and pose. If then after that you dont really perform you end up looking a bit of a tit. Eddie Hearn is turning it into the WWE. A normal basic ring walk is plenty dramatic enough.

Good shout although you're still potentially going to run into problems with situations that are subjective and open to interpretation. Technology works for black and white situations such as is the ball over the line, or in other sports is the ball in or out in tennis or with the aid of CGI in cricket would the ball have hit the stumps etc. It's no help at all in situations that are open to interpretation. Plus in the other sports such as tennis or cricket there are natural breaks in play after every ball or point which there aren't in football. Im amazed so many in the media who were all for VAR are surprised that it has been an unmitigated disaster thus far. I'd go even further than you Stu and scrap VAR altogether just sticking with goal line rechnology. At an absolute pinch maybe you could check for any disputed offsides after a goal is scored.

"Congratulations. You've won the speedboat! Shame you live in Birmingham.!" Just had a quick look online and forgot he along with many others first came to our attention as a stand up comic on The Comedians. I enjoyed him at that as well with his deadpan the "whole world is conspiring against me" persona far removed from his cuddly Bullseye image.

Sad news about Jim Bowen. Went up on stage with him very many moons ago at a pantomime somewhere in Blackburn when I was about six and ended up singing Old McDonald had a farm. Lol. Very nice man. RIP

Your argument about supply and demand only stacks up if price is the only thing stopping 18 -24 year olds from attending foorball and whilst that may be the case at Premier League level where season ticket prices can run into 4 figures, as already explained I dont think it i is in our case The Club has already made football affordable for nearly all by introducing the direct debit scheme a number of years ago and a season ticket in the Riverside is a fraction over 30 quid a month for 9 months. No-one has to find £400 or even £279 up front. Without wishing to sound too harsh if you can't afford that then you should probably not be thinking about buying football season tickets but spending your income on essentials instead. The other point you made was about the across the board price reductions years ago. They were a good idea because they benefitted everyone not just a small proportion of the fan base. As Old gregg points out there will be quite a lot of 18 -24 year olds who still live at home and have quite a bit of disposable income. Equally there will be many who are hard up but there'll also be many people who are hard up in any other age range you care to mention as well. Why should someone aged 18-24 get a cheap ticket, but someone who's aged say 28 -34 and who is struggling financially for whatever reason doesn't? Not that I'm saying either group should benefit as the price of tickets isn't means tested (other than on the very basic level of whether you're allowed to work or not) and the idea seems very unfair to me.

What rubbish, I'd love a brand new car but can't afford one. By your "logic" that's Ford's fault so they should halve the price of their new cars so I and thousands like me could possibly afford one. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be averse to doing something really drastic to try and fill the stadium, like reduce prices for everyone to a fiver as long as the owners were happy to take the financial hit and lose even more money but to virtually give tickets away to a small section of the adult population who are perfectly capable of full time work purely on account of their age seems a terrible idea to me. If I'm in the minority on that so be it.

If you want to catch young people then the time to do it is when they are children and get them hooked. I'd be amazed if the main reason young adults didn't go to Rovers was the price per se, i'd guess at that age it would be more to do with choice, deciding that it was more important to go out socialising and chasing the opposite sex as oppposed to wasting your leisure time watching a mediore championship/League 1 side.

It works out about £30 p.m. on a season ticket on D/D in the Darwen End. If people can't afford that it isn't really the Club's fault and I imagine the majority of the lads and lasses we're talking about wouldn't blink at spending £50 upwards getting lashed on a night out.

I'm all for cheap prices for 16 -18 year olds or anyone over 18 in full time education. Orherwise why should a ticket for an over 18 be any cheaper than an adult one? In relative terms the season tickets are cheap as chips anyway.

Spot on. Graham is no good unless you play the ball right up to him with his back to goal and Samuel is no good unless you play balls in front of him to try to run on to. If you reverse it Graham hasn't got the pace to get onto anything, and Samuel hasn't got the close control to play with his back to goal. We played to Graham's strengths perfectly when he was on yesterday but played exactly the same when Samuel came on as well.

I think that was it, it was before Howard Kendall was appointed, we wanted Jimmy as manager, he turned us down but advised us during our search for the right man and fortunately we very much found the right man in Howard Kendall.

Always seemed to be a very nice bloke and completely devoted to his beloved Blackpool. They dont make them like Jimmy, Finney, Ronnie and Duggy anymore more's the pity. Didn't Bill Bancroft want him as manager at one point in the 70's? He turned us down but helped the Club in an advisory capacity for a period as I recall.

To be fair the majority of people on here were dismissing him before he signed as an injury prone crock and another dodgy signing by Coyle in that he was just handing a contract to one of his mates who'd never be out of the treatment room. So perhaps it's understandable he went through some sort of trial process. Got to hand it to Coyle on this one. Great signing.

It's just some bollux on the internet. There's not the slightest suggestion the player wants to move or we have any interest in selling. Hypothetically, if the player was desperate to move, then we'd have to be asking Norwich to hand over the 14m they received for Pritchard.

From what I've heard that's quite an understatement. From what I've been told the Club have intervened to help him out and I hope he is given the chance to repay the faith shown in him. From what bits I've seen of him he looks a cracking player and I'd play him ahead of Evans every day of the week personally.

Who have you seen so far this season that looks a better bet than us for promotion? I must admit after the Fleetwood game I never expected us to go on a long winning run or suddenly start scoring three or four per game but having finally hit the magic 2 points per game mark that usually ensures automatic promotion id be desperately disappointed if we dont go up automatically now. Shrewsbury and Charlton seem to be dropping back and even Wigan looked terrible when we played them imo. I wish we'd gone at them with the more positive attitude we've shown during the winning run but nevertheless they're now within sight and very catchable imo.