Which is a good 30-35 years and covers all recent history (good and bad). I think it's a pretty good span, to be fair. My team would be mostly similar, but with Nelsen in for Henchoz, Berg in for Neill and probably Ripley replacing Dunn.

The record books only show winners, not methods or performances 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Good job they didn't.

It's hard to compare era to era, due to the quality of the opposition. Better coaching, diets, lack of smoking & drinking, etc. Either way, we certainly haven't seen anyone close to Shearer's levels in my lifetime, in that position. A one-off and we were lucky to have seen the best of him at Ewood.

He's our best player, so being the top earner isn't really any kind of revelation. He's been the first to admit that his output wasn't good enough last season, but he's started this pre-season very well and his qualities are pretty clear to see, if you watch our games. He'll be huge for us this season.

Yeah, at the kit release thing last week, he said that Taveres had rolled his ankle during his first session with us - just one of those things. He was on the grass, expected to play during the Spain games, then likely ready for the 2nd league game of the season, all being well.

Levels above Pears. Just a shame it took so long for us to drop Calamity and give Toth a run of games. But hopefully at least it means we have a decent, competent GK at this level for the first time since TK.

Always injured, yeah - but definitely had talent. That we fucked him off for a combination of Woodrow and Dennis last January is borderline criminal neglect. Even a half fit Arnor contributes more than both did for us.

I'm not sure, to be honest - we were creating a lot of chances under JDT, but the likes of Gallagher were not converting them. A ST the quality of Undav would have made a huge difference and, in my mind, would have got us comfortably into the top 6. And for moving for money (Dolan), we all absolutely would do the same. I'm really happy with where I work now, everything is great - but I was headhunted a few months ago and, quite honestly, the salary on offer turned my head and I had some discussions with the other business. (Ended up staying, actually out of loyalty, so maybe I've negated my actual point on this...).

Yeah, agreed - I was excited for us to sign him at the time, but each time we've played him since, he's really not looked that good. Also Leonard to Accy, if he's going to get regular games, is a good move for me. Needs minutes and goals at this point, the level is less important (within reason).

I think he finished the season pretty well, but generally, I'd agree that he was a very average player overall. I think Tyjon has a much higher ceiling - and will contribute a greater GA output than Dolan, if he plays a similar amount of games. And I actually think that Kargbo will turn out to contribute more for us, pending avoidance of injury.

Without wanting to make this into an anti-drinking thing, 2-3 bottles a day is a lot - and it will be doing a lot of damage, which may not show until later in your life. I've seen alcohol do so much damage, both personally and professionally in my life - I gave it up a long time ago. Everyone has their choices, of course, but it's a huge problem in this country.

It's a real shame what alcohol did to him - and what he let it do to him. Both professionally and personally.

Pretty shoddy to not even receive a holding message response. I have Customer Service teams reporting into me in my day job and the absolute basic requirement for customer contact is to acknowledge the query/request, even if it's a 'I don't know, but I'll find out'. Complete radio silence is very poor.

'Derby has joined the bidding, but Boro remain interested. Rovers hold hope of keeping him'. All agent talk, non-committal. Aye.

His basic positioning is terrible, which isn't as obvious as some of the more prominent errors, but is equally contributory. He benefitted greatly from having a more organised defence for periods of last season, but I don't think there's any doubt that Pears has proven his incompetence regularly, across a prolonged period. And hopefully he's played his last game for us.

Thing is with any GK though, is that they need a run of games to get their match sharpness, work out how the CBs play, etc. That Pears was still awful 8 times out of 10, despite being made first choice for a couple of years, speaks volumes about his (lack of basic) competence. Toth looks decent, he'll do well for us this season hopefully.

There was the Yasir guy, the new Marketing Sales Manager (Zach) and a few people involved in the design of the new kits. What was (mildly) interesting was learning that the current kit designs were commenced back in January 2024 - that's how long the process is. VI pointed to his Barnsley team, where they might have had the smallest budget in the league, but they were hard working, organised and worked as a team. Noted that momentum is (obviously) huge in competitive sport and that the squad had bought into what he'd been asking of them. Made a point of saying 'also set pieces' as a key part of the strategy, which would make a nice difference to recent seasons, I guess. There was more that's slipping my mind right now - and yes, a lot of it was generic manager speak - but I felt that he was being pretty open and honest. I quite like him. And the final several games of last season has bought him enough credit for a fresh start this season, imo.

He did a Q&A at the kit reveal down at Ewood this morning and I thought he was really clear and focussed on what he wants from the team, what his preferred style will be and what our approach will be. I'd asked him directly what the aim/goal is for the season and, whilst I didn't get a straight answer, he did commit to saying that we'll look to emulate how we finished last season and we'll aim as high as we possibly can. Generic words I guess, but he comes across as honest, I think.

I thought it looked alright in the flesh, to be fair. The green is infinitely better and I’m not a massive fan of the dark shades on the sleeves, but otherwise it’s alright. VI was present this morning and came across really well, to be fair. Seems open and honest, which is completely different to the last guy and his generic soundbites.

I’ll let you know if the away kit is the one leaked pretty shortly.

Toth has extended leave, following international duty. Calamity will have at least one foot out of the door. Certainly better to give a young prospect (Michalski) some minutes; he should be the number 2 this season.

To be fair, there are still people who believe that we spent £7m on BBD and £5m on Gallagher. Both were inclusive of add-ons and clauses, was closer to half on both. People use the fees to suit whatever point they want to make.

Go to Google. Type '12ft Ladder'. Click on the 12ft Ladder site and enter the URL of the Telegraph story. Paywall bypassed.