jim mk2

We're on a good run but this is Rovers and over the years we have tended to disappoint when there is too much optimism and expect to win. 1-1 draw.

Brexiteers won't like that Philip.

Can't be worse. We were very poor in a 2-1 defeat. And I saw us get thumped in the previous game at Reading. I'm not going this Saturday - which is a good omen

Sorry, meant Rothwell

So yet another midfield player. Downing and Johnson are Mowbray favourites so assume they will be first picks. But then where do you fit in Holtby, Travis, Nuttall, Buckley and Davenport (when he's available) - and not forgetting Evans and Smallwood ? If all this leads to Travis and Nuttall getting fewer chances and leaving in January, I'll be miffed. But Holtby's arrival does make one thing thing more certain: The manager says Holtby gives him "more options", so expect yet more chopping and changing of the team, yet more different permutations of the formation, and yet more overthinking of a simple game on the part of Pep Mowbray in the dugout. When is he going to decide which is his best team and stick with it every week?

So he's in Yorkshire - does that mean he's signing for Burnley?

Strange that as he's from East Lancs and not southern. How did Plymouth of all clubs get him?

Says in that LT piece Fergie started at Plymouth. Not true, surely? Are they mixing him up with Mike Harrison?

Rovers' forays into Europe were in the old Uefa Cup, which wasn't a competition for "winners" but the best-placed teams behind the champions.

One things is for certain: as always after a break we will start slowly, be on the back foot from the whistle and concede a goal in the first 15 minutes. Can't remember the last time we got at a team from the start.

Other reason to dislike the CL are 1. It increases the wealth and power of clubs that are already the richest in the world; it is in effect a closed shop of the elite to which the rest are effectively barred - rather like the class system in this country. 2. The Champions League is a misnomer. It should be called the Champions and Runners-Up League, because clubs that do not finish first in their respective leagues are by definition not champions. 3. My biggest complaint of all - it has diminished the World Cup, which was eagerly anticipated, comes around every 4 years and used to the showcase for the world's best talent. Now you can watch them every week, and well, familiarity breeds contempt. I switch over now and watch the soaps when the CL comes on.

The Champions League. It dominates world football, to the extent it has diminished the World Cup because world's best players are either injured or knackered from playing in the CL. It led to the demise of the European Cup (which was wonderful), the Uefa Cup, the Cup-Winners Cup, which were excellent tournaments too. And it has concentrated power and wealth to an unacceptable level in a few select clubs. It is boring, boring, boring in the group stages until it becomes knock-out (like the old European Cup in fact).

Jason Roy has an an IQ lower than his batting average in this series.

Far more optimistic than me. I see a sub 200 score followed by 130 and an innings defeat !

Tony Mowbray loves West Brom

Marshall's Misfits. Who are the 2 players on the left?

I'm shocked and saddened. One of my all time favourite Rovers players. Fergie was worshipped on the Ewood terraces as much as Duggie. Wonderful skill, a great player to watch. RIP Fergie, and thank you

Did anyone watch the Sky piece last week on Bury's plight? Sky sent a camera crew to one of the player's homes, which he has had to put on the market because he hadn't been paid. The house is near Saddleworth, and very nice it is too, just like you'd expce but it is on the market for £1.2 million which, assuming it is mortgaged, does beg the question of the sort of salary Bury was playing this player and presumably others like him.

Lovely. Football reflects wider society and the way the country has gone over the past 30-40 years with the gap between the elite and the rest widening to unprecedented levels. Bury and ordinary folk are just collateral damage

The Worthington Cup victory in Cardiff is one of my best memories in 60 years of supporting Rovers. We won't be going up this season so why don't we take these competitions seriously?

Leutweiler was possibly unsighted for that but it's a soft goal nonetheless.

Leutweiler for a big athlete is weak as a kitten. Is he frightened of getting hurt? He's a poor goalkeeper who should be replaced.

Great photo. Some tough looking nuts in that team - and I bet they had boots with nailed-in studs. They were lethal - one lad I played against aged 10 had borrowed his dad's boots and one of the nails sent a lovely gash down my thigh. My school teacher called it an "old-fashioned injury" . Mill Hill St Peters were hard to beat - remember a hard 0-0 draw with them around 1965.

Quite right. It could so easily have been us, and could yet be in the future. It's unthinkable that the mighty Bolton Wanderers, founder members of the Football League, one of the great historic clubs, a powerhouse in the 1950s and which enjoyed considerable success in the Premier League only a short time ago, could go out of existence. The League must not, cannot, let it happen.

....exactly, which is why the Sheff United game is important. The League Cup win at Cardiff in 2002 under Souness was a magical day for thousands of Rovers supporters. I'd love us to get to the final again. Unlike Kean and the debacle at Cardiff a few years ago, I hope Mowbray takes it seriously.