Hedges is league 1 level. Dolan has no brain. We’re desperately short in those wide forward areas. Leonard missed two good chances, but looks a real player, some great touches and hold up play at times. Also positionally he gets in the areas to find those chances. Travis man of the match for me. Very solid, and better alongside Wharton. Closely followed by Hyam

Only 1 of the first 20 games had both teams score (3 now with Canada and USA matches). Certainly still a decent gulf between levels, and you notice it a lot more on a player by player basis. Great coverage for it long term though, it's only going to get better and better. I'm expecting the knock out stages to be entertaining

Can't believe (bar obvious dodgy fifa) that they've still never hosted a mens tournament down there. Sport mad country, with good infrastructure.

If we sign a first choice striker then my expectations will be a Top 6 finish (progress on last year). Anything less than that will be deemed a disappointing league campaign. JDT will have had 4 windows by the end of season, and pretty much his own team. JRC, Hyam, Carter, Wharton, Tronstad, Sigurdson, Enniss, Szmodics have all either joined or become starters under him and I'd expect at least 7 of those names to be in the starting 11 this season, with potential for more signings in the next fortnight. It's his own team and his own style now, so no excuses to not be progressing up the table (if we get a striker / goal scorer this month)

Waggots salary alone is over 10% of our total season ticket income. Not a chance he gives this gig up for retirement.

Great stuff as always Gooz. Looking forward to your work next season when we're in the big boys league!

Sponsor aside, I quite like it, collar included. "Forever Blue and White" from Wharton at the end........lets hope that doesn't bite us in the arse if we get a big bid in a few weeks! I noticed from the video we still haven't sorted that RoVeRS abomination in the upper tier! Can we please centralise it and have lettering the same size! A good idea, awfully executed.

You'll probably pull something better Upside Down, but in the interest of procrastination below is a view vs Lancashire clubs and vs division averages. (Div 1 to Div 4 like old money, left Div 4 off though as it was so low and Rovers have never fallen that far) Division averages tells the story of the post Euro 96 Boom when English Football felt like it was no longer a hostile place. All divisions trending upwards from then on. Rovers dropped below the English average (average across all 4 tiers) in 2016 for the first time since 1992 (we were pretty much average for England between 1974 and 1992 for what it's worth). So like for like we're probably seeing worse results now compared to national average than in the 80s when we were averaging sub 10k. Anyway, nice lunch break! Waggott OUT! EDIT: the Lancashire trend follows pretty exact for all clubs, bar spikes when success is produced on the pitch (PNE yet to experience this), the only outlier is the final Bolton spike (and PNE to a certain extent) which is from Div 3, so hardly success related. (cough pricing cough). If we had an equivalent % jump that Bolton and PNE have had from pre-covid (2020) to now (2023) we would have averaged around 19.5k last season (compared to 14.8k - essentially worth an 5k extra home sales) There are obviously a lot of economic factors at play too but won't go into that and it's probably for the non-football side of the board.

Chalk and cheese like you say. We were specifically told they’d announce details well in advance so any travelling fans can plan and book in advance. A month later and still nothing. They would be better keeping their mouth shut. Run by morons. Waggott out.

With Leeds and Wednesday back in the league and Leicester now too, we won’t be the media darlings for Sky thankfully. Should be back to between 5-10 televised and not the 20+ or whatever it was last season.

Yeah losing Burnley, Blackpool and Wigan and getting Southampton and Plymouth in return is going to make those away days a bit tougher (can still see Sky changing times on those) Whats our usual allocation for Hudds? Can’t remember if it’s half that stand or all of it last time I went was a Christmas fixture too a few years back

End of the season looks an absolute horror. Considering our recent history let’s hope we’re too and 20 clear at the end of Feb

We pretty much know when we'll be home or away, so hoping for something like: Opener: Leicester Home Boxing Day: PNE Away Christmas Home Match: Leeds Home (EFL looking after Swag) Good Friday: Sheffield Wednesday Home (EFL looking after Swag) Easter Monday: Huddersfield Away Last Day: Whoever ends up finishing 6th instead of us I imagine. Carabao Cup: Bolton or Morecambe away Edit: Plymouth away in the summer would be preferable!

Couldn't find much online about Championship sponsors, but the average was allegedly about £500k in 2013. I'd be surprised if we're getting more than £300k from TW a season.

Not a clue what our strongest 11 is to be honest - some luxury for Southgate. Walker, Trippier, Trent and James all as RBs, it's just an outrageous squad now. For the front 6, I'd probably go Bellingham - Rice - Foden Rashford - Kane - Saka Find it hard to imagine we've players good enough to stop Foden getting in the team (I know Pep has played Grealish all season). So Rice holding, Bellingham box to box and Foden advanced creating, allowing us to keep pace out wide with Saka and Rashford.

We all know the real reason....because it's bloody easy for Steve to just resign the same chumps for another year.

He's had that explained to him about 5 times in this thread but it still hasn't sunk in.

Is everyone still on holiday or something? Bizarre we still have no confirmation on the trip abroad....they even came out and specifically said we'd get plenty of notice to help plan travel. We hired JDT this day last year, we had excuses that 'it was a late appointment' and 'he didn't have a full summer / preseason' - the league did start a week earlier for the world cup, but it hardly feels much different to the last 5 years.

I’m now convinced you just having nothing between your ears. Maybe you are Steve after all?

No you weren’t - you just threw out a completely vague message that you complain to those around you about the fact people choose not to come, and additionally stated none of you complain about or mention the price. Pricing is the underlying reason we’ve sold 8k and not the 12k+ that our very similar demographical rivals get - if you feel the need to get together and complain about your fellow fan base you should at least point it in the correct direction.

Yes, and there are lots of reasons people CHOOSE not to go, of which I find it pathetic that people like yourself sit there complaining about. What are these CHOICES that you don't like, as affordability can still be a choice whether you put it in inverted commas, capitals or even underline it? Is it the fact we've the 5th most expensive ticket in the division? Mortgage rates at their highest since relegation? Food banks getting record usage? UK gap between rich and poor increasing every year? Maybe some now have a family? Maybe an illness? Maybe they decided they had other priorities over the pandemic? Whatever it is, it's lovely to hear you and your chums can sit their on the opening day and have a little moan about your fellow fans (whilst you openly admitted not discussing the price structure) Nothing like kicking our own fan base whilst nodding along to the muppets in charge.

That’s very sad. Sat huddled together complaining about people who have lots of valid reasons to not attend in todays climate. Pathetic. No idea who this is even in reply too - lots of people commented on PNE’s free tickets since your first weird post (that must have been some gotcha lightbulb moment in your brain a month after starting your stance). Anyway, all the replies said it’s a great idea. It would cost Rovers the equivalent of a weeks wage (fortnight if popular) from Dack and Ayala (or paying someone 10k a week instead of 11k) - seems very astute in my opinion. Besides, how many of PNEs tickets do you think went for free? From latest accounts we had very similar income as clubs.

It does often feel the case - but this year there seems to be a bit more agreement (albeit just from scanning socials). e.g. the first twitter post for ST had almost all negative responses to prices, whereas previously it felt people would be more 'get behind the club ffs'. Also the recent image with ST prices for the league and Rovers being 5th (I think) alongside the likes of Leeds has maybe opened a few extra eyes.

Do it again for League 1 Bolton please...Just saying.. EDIT: Just to add - it's a bloody good policy. How many of our 8k do you think are U12? Lets say 1k which feels very very generous....that's a total income of £60k. It's borderline pointless.....might as well give them away for free. Give me more bums on seats, tickets for future fans, more club kits sold than our current shambolic policy Doogs/Steve.

Ha yeah I saw that 1997 too from this incredibly slick “who we are” page on their brand new website. As sportswashy as it gets