Burnley haven’t. One of “these types of players” bullied our entire back line, left half our team frightened to death of going near him, scored two goals, won man of the match, and generally took the piss all afternoon.

At the start of the season you predicted Burnley would finish 24th in the table. You made this extraordinary prediction based on blind hatred for them, you were completely unable and unwilling to give them the remotest bit of credit or apply any logical analysis. All of a sudden our first game against them in 5 years is just another game? You aren’t really bothered we have lost by the biggest margin against them since 1963? Or that they have won their last 5 games against us for the first time in a hundred years? I know you understand the importance of the Derby, which makes your current (predictable) stance seem really disingenuous. We know exactly how you feel about Tomasson. I’d go as far to say that the vast majority of fans are really pleased with his tenure so far overall. The difference is nobody else thinks he’s infallible. You’d have been bigging up a 3-0 win against Burnley as one of the clubs greatest ever results, gloating like mad and revelling in it. You can’t have it both ways.

Why is playing to your style, which encourages players to do things they are naturally bad at, more important than results?

I’ve seen our first half described as “good”, “ok”, “positive”, “working perfectly”. It was none of these things. We barely set foot in their half and didn’t have a single shot. Even if San Marino played Brazil they’d have more of a go than we did. It was blindingly obvious that they would score eventually if we carried on like that. This game is always going to be viewed in isolation, at least by our supporters who really get it, so the whole “we are third” is irrelevant. It’s also the same thing we heard all the way through the back end of last season, but look how that went… ”We are still in the top 2” ”We can go back on top” ”We are one win away from the top 2” ”We are 8 points clear of 7th” ”We are still in the playoffs” ”We can still make the playoffs” ”We finished higher than we did last year” Another one I’m hearing is that it’s ok, because some of the losses will eventually start becoming draws… Maybe so, but so will some of the wins and our fall will be rapid if and when they do.

It might have been a penalty, but it was never a red card.

Very true.

At the time I didn’t think it was a pen, but to be honest that was largely due to the fact none of our players seemed to appeal for it - Couldn't even be arsed doing that. On reflection having seen the replays it certainly could’ve been given. To be clear though, today is not on the ref.

Says a lot that Travis is our captain. Big questions over his maturity. His petulance is often mistaken for passion. Never got why some of our fans celebrate his “shithousery” while crying when other teams do it. Unpopular opinion: Lenihan wouldn’t have let Barnes get away with his antics and 2 goals today.

We helped set the tone with Barnes from about the 5th minute. Kaminski going down holding his face after Barnes touched his chest was the start. He was rolling around pretending to be hurt instead of getting aggressive back. The ref, who won’t believe his luck at how few incidents there were, was never going to be fooled by that. We were completely passive and let Barnes take liberties all game. He flew through one of our midfielders (forget who), which admittedly should’ve been a yellow all day long, but it’d have been really easy to make him regret doing that challenge. Closest we got to dishing anything out was Ayala while defending a corner and Travis’s unintelligent and pointless booking. We were pathetic in all honesty. Bring Souness and Flitcroft in on a consultancy basis for a week before we play them again, see if they can find anyone with a pair of bollocks in our changing room.

It’s completely illogical in the first place. All it does is encourage their player to come inside on his stronger foot.

Fuck taking that spineless bunch off on a little holiday to Spain dressed up as a training camp. Get them all in for extra training at Brockhall and invite some fans down to explain to them how each and everyone of them disgraced the shirt today.

You can’t buy passion and effort though. Shame, we could’ve done with some. It’s a pity the lads brought up in Wilpshire were not involved, might have got a bit.

I’d find it very difficult to believe any Rovers fan isn’t the least bit angry after that to be honest. Good job promotion is worth about a quarter of a billion quid then isn’t it.

Maybe you’ve been in exile too long. Today is an absolute embarrassment.

Does Tomasson/Broughton/Waggott not realise that the best way to add value to a squad is to be in the premier league rather than the Championship

This shouldn’t be underestimated. In little over a decade they have taken us from being 50 years ahead of them to being a good 10 years behind.

We can’t be blaming the ref here. Yeah, Barnes got away with plenty, but we could’ve had @arbitroreffing with Simon Garner and Birdy as his assistants and we’d still have been well beaten. Unforgivable from every player who set foot on the pitch, and even more so the manager. Burnley absolutely deserved that. I can take being out performed by a better side - which they clearly are, but there was so much more passion from those in Claret and blue. In little over a decade look how both teams fortunes have changed. A result and non-performance like that would’ve been unthinkable until Venky’s came along.

33/1 Their keeper is the bookies favourite to get a red at 7/1

Scott Wharton has hit a bit of a bad spell of form lately, but the home grown aspect makes his absence a surprise to us fans. Apparently Mola was fantastic against West Ham so his inclusion makes sense. Certainly a curve ball or two there. Personally I’ll be terrified if it is inverted wingbacks, but however they line up, they all have a chance to become a hero!

Actually it was a lot more to do with his wages being a grand a week and our reluctance to offer him a new deal. Mowbray dropping him and publicly calling him out when our ineffective centre backs were far more of an issue wouldn’t have helped him feel wanted either. Obviously he wanted to leave, just like the three in the summer, but you always act like the reasons why they want to leave are beyond the control of Rovers.

Hardly surprising when he got dropped for Leutwiler. One is going to the World Cup with Spain, one is sat on the bench for Oldham in the conference. I’ll counter your oft-repeated, always capitalised argument with this… Mowbray wanted rid of him. He is on record as saying he wanted to raise money to buy Gallagher, and he bigged up that bag of shit Walton to high heaven. Apparently “commanding his area” was more important than basic hand-eye coordination. However you dress it up, selling Raya for £3 million was dreadful business for Rovers.

Hoilett in the Canada squad too. We had current players in each World Cup squad since 1982… then along came Venky’s.

Agree Chaddy, looks a very odd decision on the surface. They started the season better than they could have expected but they have an absolutely horrendous injury crisis at the moment which can’t have helped with recent results. I think Richardson would have been looking forward to this World Cup break to get some players back fit. Seems a poor financial decision from a club that really can’t afford it. Can’t see who they replace him with who will turn it round either.

Am I remembering right here… didn’t we lose to West Ham on penalties in 1998? Wilcox redeemed his 1993 miss absolutely smashing one into the top corner, but Hendry missed the decisive one. If so I’m even happier with beating them tonight! Edit: I am definitely remembering right. FA Cup replay. Finished 2-2 and Henry missed in sudden death. Hated Eyal Berkovic at the time as he’d had a run in with Kevin Gallacher and I think got him sent off.