Eddie

For starters, last season we became only the third side in Championship history to be in the promotion places at the turn of the year (all three have been managed by Mowbray). So, with that in mind, the second half of the season collapse was far greater. As for the same squad, we lost several key players and have had to rely on youth far more this season. Throw in that last season benefitted from what will undoubtedly prove to be BBDs career-defining purple patch and you can consider that another place to fill. Most importantly, JDT talks about the future of the club with optimism. He's been realistic in his assessment of our promotion credentials this season, but he doesn't talk about us just being a small club that is realistically unable to compete with other teams in the division. Mowbray spent his last two seasons here desperately trying to reduce expectations as much as possible. We were to be grateful for every point, thankful for every player that decided to turn up, and hopeful only for the prospect that we might maintain midtable mediocrity. JDT might not get us up, but he's been a breath of fresh air and I think that's reflected in a lot of areas of the club (including players choosing to resign). Spot on.

Think a few on here are going a bit overboard with just how good he looked and has looked this season. He looks a very good prospect, but he's got a long way to go and if other players put in a similar performance they'd be criticised for aspects. Take that through ball that he missed to Hedges last night, had Morton misplayed that pass we'd have 100 posters on here talking about it. Hopefully he can cement his position in the team and he's a player to look forward to, but reading this you'd think he was putting in a 10/10 every match.

Yeah, the assessment on how 'exciting a prospect' he truly is will be based on how many steps forward he can take. Junior Hoilett was an incredibly exciting talent, but never went on to fulfill that potential.

Of course it's being viewed differently. It's his first season in charge and he's not talking about our fate with total indifference.

Thought it was an excellent performance. If we play like that in the final two matches we will make it to the playoffs. If we play like that in the playoffs we will have a chance at promotion. Not quite getting the rub of the green at the moment and missing that extra bit of quality in the final third and with the final ball, but more positives than negatives from that performance and it's a huge improvement over what we saw against Burnley the first time around.

I wouldn't call this a must-win, I think it's closer to a must not lose as that would put things totally in our own hands. With that said, we'll still be in with every chance even we we lose by a cricket score.

Except it isn't, because we weren't in the playoffs with a handful of matches to go last season. It's not a great run, but there have also been good performances within that. This is the Championship. No easy matches. No gimme 3 points. Plenty of surprises. I'd rather be in our position than Preston's, or Sunderland's, or Norwich's. Beat Coventry and a playoff place is well and truly our's to lose. Plenty of time left to go, points to be won, points to be dropped. Some of the reactions on here are, quite frankly, embarrassing.

We are ultimately having to deal with the difficult reality that Brereton Diaz is now more Brereton than he is Diaz. The team is significantly better without him and he really doesn't deserve his place in the side at the moment, but it is difficult to drop a player who most would regard as our 'best' player. I don't think things are nearly as bad as many make out and we are still in the playoff spots. Imagine how Norwich fans feel this weekend.

There are certainly a lot of podcasts out there, but not sure how that makes them hipster (and we've been around for a fair while). Plus I used to be on the BRFCS podcasts back in the day when podcasts were far less common.

He's a hipster? Or podcasts in general are?

Little bit of shameless self-promotion, but we recently had The Atlantic's Raphael Honigstein on to talk all things German football. Topics included Tuchel's appointment at Bayern Munich and their relatively short leash with managers, parity in the Bundesliga and the 50+1 rule, Klopp's future at Liverpool, and the state of the German national team. I know a lot of members on here have an interest in football that stretches beyond Blackburn Rovers, so do give it a listen as we always appreciate the support and any suggestions on future guests or topics. The interview starts at about 30 minutes in: And if I'm plugging something, you can also follow us on instagram or twitter: https://twitter.com/TheBigChillPod https://www.instagram.com/big_chill_podcast/ Hope that a few of you enjoy it.

I was just expressing my opinion, same as you are. There's plenty of conjecture in your comments.

You're on a messageboard, it's virtually all conjecture. Do you feel like you're speaking exclusively in facts?

We would have stayed there for a bit, but like all clubs of our size we would have eventually had a bad run and gone down. That's the way it works. Name a club of our size that has maintained an uninterrupted position in the Premier League for 20+ years. A couple of bad transfers, a couple of bad injuries, a run of bad luck and bad form and you're gone. It would have taken longer, but it would have happened. Now, what is undoubtedly the case is that we would have been in a better position to bounce back and it is less likely that we would have found ourselves stuck down in here - and relegation League One would have been inconceivable. It was a mess. It was a nightmare. But we're actually a fairly stable ship at this point and we've got to move on.

People very easily forget the slow rot that was setting in and the lack of investment that was coming from the Trust. They wanted rid as soon as possible, it's why we landed with Venkys.

Jack Walker's legacy was ultimately most let down by his own Trust. A family that lost interest in the club that he loved and stopped putting anything more than the bare minimum into the club. They had every right to do that, it's their own money and it was a business that was always going to be unprofitable, but the legacy stopped there.

Funny thing about successful people, they tend to trust themselves and the people they place trust in. Like it or not, this is a highly successful family which will have assumed that they could make smart decisions in this world as they had in their other businesses. This confidence and their decision-making will have been influenced by the advisors that they chose - or who chose them. I can't understand anyone who puts the initial period down to anything other than incompetence. Had it been something more calculated then there would have been a sale or administration by now. Had it been something more malicious than there would have certainly been administration by now.

Cost? I really don't think that we can complain about the money that they put into the club and there is nothing better out there (as far as we are aware) at the moment. Unless some extremely wealthy (and by that I mean in the ultrawealthy multi-billions category) is going to appear then we would be really dumb to hope for anyone else to step in. People can say that they'll never forgive or be angry at them forever, but like @philipl points out, their ownership of the club for the past 6/7 seasons has actually been quite good. There comes a moment in time when we all have to start with a clean slate and judge the environment based on its current makeup. Let's also stop pretending that relegation was an impossibility before they stepped in. They undoubtedly hastened our demise and made some incredibly dumb decisions along the way, but we may have well found ourselves in the Championship with a Trust that had lost all interest in us.

Apart from in the league, where they are 12 points behind and have lost their must-win match with Barcelona. Chelsea are decidedly average, it's why they're 11th in the Premier League. City won't have seen anything from Real Madrid this season that will scare them and they're a fairly weak opponent by Champions League semifinal standards. City have one foot in the semis, a few toes in the final, and a few fingers on the trophy already.

It's difficult to maintain the mindset that something hasn't gone wrong...

Depends on how good he is. If he's just at their level then one of them will be out on loan - or we don't have to bring someone young in on loan next season. If he's better? Then it changes the outlook significantly.

This is the type of signing that we'd potentially be jealous of if another club pulled it off. A teenager that has garnered interest from premier league clubs and promotion rivals is just the type of signing we should be going for. There's definitely disappointment that we haven't managed to sign a striker, but this I hope to see signings like this on a consistent basis. I'd much rather this than a 19-22 year old on loan from a premier league club. This is our only chance of signing a truly 'special' player.

Part of the 'project', but pretty highly rated: https://www.footballinsider247.com/sources-sheffield-united-plot-move-for-rochdale-star-ethan-brierley/

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He's being annoying and disingenuous, but not hypocritical. You can't compare some tweets about a football club/fanbase to racist abuse. Pretty simplistic to say that 'generalising is a trait of racists' and that means that any generalisation is racist. As a fanbase, I do think it would be wise to not appear to be more worked up over some random idiot on twitter than we are over the actual racist abuse in the first place. Interacting with him, editing his wikipedia, and even this thread could be taken the wrong way when there is little reaction and condemnation of the actual act that has started it all.