It was exciting to watch. We had the perfect mix of experience and youth and we had good finishers in Jansen and Bent. Most importantly, we had a winner as manager. So many good memories from that time. Thrashing Premier League Derby 5-2 in the FA Cup was a personal favourite. The 4-1 drubbing we handed out at the Reebok, the 5-0 win against that lot, the 1-0 promotion sealing win at Deepdale. Couldn't hope for a better season than that. The current squad is miles away from that. I'd love to talk about the current squad and the football as it is. However, the entire setup, the manager situation, the lack of hope, the lack of direction and ambition...it all leaves me with no good feeling about present day Rovers. It isn't due to us not being in the Premier League. It's the fact that the club is being allowed to flounder by the owners, leaving us with chumps at the helm who talk utter drivel as we head towards League One again. There is no plan, no progress being made, yet we are supposed to be grateful to Venky's and Mowbray is the best we can hope for. I despair.

Ah, I think you have got the seasons mixed up there. That Tugay game was during the following season. We did play Liverpool at Ewood three days before the said Birmingham game. We lost 1-0 with Robbie Fowler scoring a dodgy offside goal at the Blackburn End. I can't believe that was 15 years ago. I'd love to have that feeling back, where Monday would arrive and I was already looking towards Saturday.

Yeah, we won 2-0. Bent got the opener, but the game is mostly remembered for a brilliant solo goal from Duffer. Duff's goal is at 21:51 on the vid below: I remember being gutted about the result that night. That was our game in hand which we needed to win to close the gap on 4th place. We had a genuine chance of nabbing a top 4 spot ahead of Arsenal towards the end of that season! It feels surreal even typing that out right now. I miss the days when I was excited about our matches. I feel nothing in relation to Saturday's game. There have been many moments like that not just this season, but over the last 10 years. Bloody awful feeling it is. The pillocks in Pune have no idea how much damage they have caused. To those that say "we could be Bolton or Wigan" we could also be Leicester if this lot employed the right people at the club and let them get on with it. They have the funds to do it, but sadly there isn't a football brain amongst any of them.

We're getting so much time and space in the middle of the park but we don't have the quality to do anything about it. Frustrating to see our players take a heavy touch or simply overrun the ball. That was a poor effort from Rothwell at the end.

I want Armstrong to rack up the goals in these last two games. There's still a slight chance of him beating Toney to the top scorer award.

Tony Mowbray, football genius! Quick, Balaji, get that new contract infront of him 😁.

It's normally true with Venky's. However, for some reason these signings from Boro or with Boro connections seem to get done quicker than normal. I wonder why that is... I think this one could happen. We're desperate for a forward. Armstrong is likely to be off. We're clearing a few off the wage bill in the summer, Downing probably being one of them. I can see some of those wages being put towards Assombalonga. How he fits into this Bayern Munich style of football we play, I don't know, but I'd take him on a free as long as the wages aren't crazy.

Going off that interview, he looks and sounds like he has had enough. He needs putting out of his misery. This isn't doing him or any of us any good. As other posters have said, he probably can't believe he is still in a job. It's crazy that we have owners who refuse to do anything. Go on numerous losing runs? No problem. Fall away drastically from the top 6? No problem. Waste £12m on two duds? No problem. Win 2 games out of 17? No problem. Is there any other club in England where this would happen? There are a few bad owners out there, sure, but I don't think any of them would act (or refuse to act) like this lot are doing. Nobody is getting any enjoyment out of this. Mowbray's had enough, a lot of the fans have had enough. Bloody do something, Venky's!

Absolute crap. We have a manager who has a face on when we win by going direct. Yet it doesn't matter if we lose as long as we tippy tap it about pointlessly and win the possession stat. That was utter garbage. He's already got his excuses in for next season. "It's going to be difficult to get promoted even if we have money to spend". For you, Tony, it will be impossible, but not for a proper manager. The pillocks in Pune have to act this summer, surely!

I agree, they've just handed the Carabao Cup to City. I can't help but feel the timing of it is a diversion tactic to take some of the focus away from them signing up to the ESL. Not so long ago the talk was that it was too expensive for Spurs to sack Mourinho. It wouldn't surprise me if they have already received some sort of payment for signing up to the ESL. When you consider what they stand to make for taking part in it the £30m or whatever it takes to sack Mourinho suddenly doesn't bother them.

Spurs? Haha. The equivalent of a snooker player down the club who gets 20+ breaks now and then thinking he can mix it with Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson and the like. As for the proposed idea, let the greedy gets clear off. Watch them squirm when the novelty wears off and they are desperate for a return to domestic football. There should be no way back for any of them who sign up for this league.

Relieved to see us get that over the line. It's a good job there's no VAR in the Championship. I thought we had blown it at the end, it looked like a stonewall penalty for Derby. Armstrong could have had a hatful today. He was a danger throughout. Harwood-Bellis was solid, Elliott looked much better today than he has recently and Kaminski pulled off a few vital saves to keep us ahead. Nobody else stood out for me. It's worrying how poor our defence looks overall. Derby were able to get at us with ease and just look at how much space Lawrence had for their goal. There's no chance Mowbray will address this in the summer, he's had years to fix it. If he stays next season, we are in big trouble. This club needs a major boost in the summer to spark everybody's interest again. Balaji likes grand gestures, doesn't he? Put £12m down and get on the phone to Max Allegri (Yeah I know, I can dream) Of course, it doesn't even have to be that big of a move, just somebody who has a bit about them and who will do everything they can to win games and move the club forward. Get rid of the boring one first and let's move from there.

It always come back to the money excuse in the end with Mowbray. How it takes such and such an amount to get promoted etc. If that's the case, why did he tell the owners to put their money away when they wanted to fund an immediate push for the Premier League after our promotion from L1? His own words were that he "had to calm them down". No manager in their right mind would say no to owners who are willing to splash the cash. Now money is the reason we can't be near the top end. It doesn't add up. Unless the initial story about "calming them down" was bullshit.

Brilliant pass from Holtby for the goal. Davenport has made some good forward passes too. Actual meaningful passes from them two that got us in behind. Shows how useless the rest of the sideways tippy tappy stuff has been all season.

It will be a surprise if the stitch pitch gets installed in the summer. Waggott has said it will cost £2m and that he "needs to find this from somewhere". That obviously means the owners won't be paying for it. Do I believe he will 'find' £2m for it? No, I don't.

They have been impressive, haven't they? They have some handy players too. Would happily have their manager and Sima here. Of course, that's just wishful thinking and never going to happen. I wish our so called European scouting network was actually up to scratch. There are some good 'uns out there who could improve us but the clubs lacks imagination at the moment. I really don't want to see anybody with any connection to Middlesbrough join us in the summer.

This is why comparisons are being made with Kean. He might not be as bad as Kean was, but some of the crap he comes out with is certainly on his level. Kean said something similar about Nelsen, yet Nelsen was fine and was swiftly moved on to Spurs. I suspect Travis may have stood up to him or spoken out about something hence this latest stint of him not featuring. For me, Mowbray has ruined Travis in terms of development. A couple of years ago it looked like we had a player on our hands. He was making driving forward runs, I remember him looking really good at Newcastle in the FA Cup, for example. That player has disappeared since then and been made to play crab football like Evans and Smallwood. The dynamism has been coached out of him. So many players are regressing under this manager, yet he talks as of developing players is one of his strong points. The delusion is something else.

How he didn't allow Dortmund's equaliser to stand I'll never know. A shocking decision.

Toni Kroos with his best Tugay impression tonight. Liverpool have a mountain to climb already. Madrid look like they could score three or four here.

I've only just caught up with the thread. Really hope the talk of TM being removed turns out to be true. Hoping it's a clean sweep with Waggott and Venus leaving too. It would be a relief and a breath of fresh air just to see a new guy with new ideas in the manager's seat.

I would be if Rotherham were capable of winning their games in hand, but I don't think they can catch us.

This is pathetic stuff. I don't even think it was this bad under Coyle and that's saying something. Comical at the back and don't even look like scoring. An awful recipe. I'm worried about next season.

Yes, I miss those days. There was a genuine buzz and excitement about games before this lot rocked up in 2010. I've mentioned previously how I never used to think about John Williams, Tom Finn etc back in the 2000s as they did a great job in running the club. No manager was unsackable, results mattered and we knew that the board would act if things were going wrong. There was a calm about the club back then, so it was all about the football. I was so into the games that I would listen to the entire Radio Rovers broadcast for midweek games when I couldn't get to Ewood. It was from 4 till 11pm! but I loved it. I didn't bother doing that even once post November 2010. Not surprised that they canned it a few years ago. They've ruined everything else about the club, so why not add another thing to the list. These tossers have bought nothing but chaos and distress to the club ever since they set foot in the place. Seeing what they have reduced the club to and the chancers they have allowed in infuriates me. It angers us older fans more as we know how far the club has fallen and that it's all down to the stupidity and neglect of the owners. I feel for the younger fans who have only ever known this horror show. The L1 promotion is the best thing they have seen Rovers do, so maybe that's why they won't hear anything against Mowbray and constantly refer to Bolton and Wigan when the owners are brought up. Something I always tell them (and myself) is that this isn't the real Rovers you are watching. The real Rovers will be back when these owners do one. The wait goes on, but we gotta keep the hope alive.

I think Gallagher has bulked up too much and it has hindered his game. When we had him under Coyle he was leaner and quicker. He was a lot sharper too. It also helped that we had wingers getting crosses into the box for him. Now, he looks cumbersome and heavy when running. It's ludicrous that he is being asked to play as a right winger, so it's no surprise he looks poor out there. However, he hasn't impressed even when he has played centrally recently as the tippy tappy stuff doesn't suit him. His first touch has been shockingly bad in recent games. We would probably get more out of him if we had actual wingers who put crosses in, but that ain't happening under Mowbray. Football was so much more exciting when wingers used to beat a defender and whip in a dangerous cross. Remember the excitement when Duff or Gillespie were on the ball? The obsession with 'Pep football' has made the game a worse spectacle for me.

Imagine how good a midfield pairing of McGinn and Harrison Reed could have been for us. Then imagine a manager turning down or passing up such an opportunity just so that he could show some loyalty to Evans and Smallwood. Telling Harrison Reed he needs to learn how to play as a centre mid by watching those two and then sticking him on the right wing. Madness! A stupid decision as proven by how good Reed has looked at Fulham as a centre mid. Dwight McNeil was also on his way to sign for us a few years back, until a coach/scout told him what a mess the club was in and directed him towards Burnley instead. Zidane, Dugarry, Lewandowski, erm, Bauer, McGinn, McNeil, Kipre. It's too much 😁.