Let's hope Everton are one of them!

I enjoyed watching his celebration for both his and Markanday's goals yesterday. He has that aggressive cockiness that usually serves strikers well.

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't genuinely think Andy was so very, very, very elderly!!! 1995 would be the 50th anniversary by the way 👊

V.E day?? Blimey, you must be nearly 90

Really hoping Buckley can recapture his best form this season. I feel it could be make or break for him. We need him to come good for us.

I welcome every single one of these changes! Thank you for the update Arbitro.

The most irritating form of cheating as far as I'm concerned is opposition players subtlety kicking the ball away upon award of a free kick. They all have it off to a fine art. It's totally ingrained and they just can't help themselves. Hopefully this is clamped down on with yellow cards.

Quote from the Daily Mail this morning: "All eyes are on Blackburn amid fears of a looming crisis at Ewood Park forcing them to sell players and casting doubt on the future of manager Jon Dahl Tomasson. They are not alone. West Bromwich, who travel to Blackburn for their opener, is a club with fans locked in dispute with absentee owners". 0-0 it is then...

I've watched JRC for years. He was never played defensively, and defending was never really part of his game. He would be best deployed, in my opinion, in a roving forward role. He is best ghosting around and arriving late. Always reminds me of David Platt. Him and Brittain on the right would be really interesting to see.

Agreed about Batty who I've seen a lot of. I actually prefer Brittain on the left than the right as I think he cuts in nicely. Maybe because I see so many flaws with Pickering, that I'll take any alternative at this point.

If we are keeping JRC at right back I would drop Pickering for Brittain. Pickering is far too slow and laboured. I'm tired of seeing him targeted week in, week out.

I think Dolan is useful to have around. He is still young and will get better. At the present time I see him as an impact sub to close down defenders and be a nuisance factor late on. Along with Pickering, Travis and Hedges, he is more suited to lower end Championship rather than a starter in a side looking for promotion.

This is absolutely correct. My boss at the time was a PNE supporter and went to Wembley for the match. I spoke to him a couple of days later and he was so impressed by Garner's performance that day. Said he was way too good for that level. He had that Shearer like ability to spin off down the wing and cross one in. Interestingly, he saw himself as a Dalglish type of creative player rather than a Lineker type pure finisher.

I wonder if Speedie played for Chelsea that day? I remember Kerry Dixon playing. They destroyed us over both legs.

I'm quite heartened by this display... But we desperately need a competitive left back!

JRC looks a little rusty with his distribution but he is all over the pitch. I'd love him to be freed from his right back position as I think defending is the worst part of his game. He could be sensational as a free running midfielder

Archibald was warming the bench at Barcelona after an injury. He was 31 years old. If memory serves, we paid him 6 grand a week. To put that in context, Garner who would have been our top earner at that time, never earned more than 600 quid a week. It would seem that Jack Walker had some involvement in paying Archibald's wages although a doubling in crowd attendance because of his arrival would have helped as well. Archibald arrived a couple of months into the season if I recall correctly, with Ardiles coming much later. Ardiles was aged 35 and slightly frozen out at Spurs. He was an old mate of Archibald from their time together at Spurs, and Archibald was used by Don as a bit of a go between in negotiations. Ardiles spent a night or two on Simon Garner's settee on first arriving in Blackburn. I was a paperboy in those days and delivered the Sunday papers to Simon's house on the Kentmere Drive estate. Ardiles only played about five games for us. He oozed class as you would expect, and was brilliant to watch. Archibald was too good for the 2nd Division. He only managed six goals for us in total due to being marked very tightly by opposition defences. What this tight marking did however was release Garner from being the main man for the opposition to worry about. Garner benefited from having a bit more space than normal and scored lots of goals that season. I think Garner probably learnt a lot from Archibald because the following season was his best ever for us, in which he scored 25 goals in all competitions, and was quite simply too hot to handle for most defences that year. Most of his goals from that year( 88/ 89) are on YouTube, including good examples of his all round link up play of which you can watch extended highlights on YouTube. Although my favourite ever Rovers team comes from the 88/ 89 season, look at our best starting 11 from the season before that. Gennoe Price Mail Hendry Sulley Barker Ardiles Gayle Archibald Garner Sellars At least nine of those played (or easily could have done) in the top flight.

He would have been at Forest when they played at Ewood in the big cup tie which was 1980 I think. I don't actually remember him playing in that game though. Brilliant night that. Felt like a huge match.

My group of five all renewed yesterday. Very quiet in the club shop.

Ooh you are awful....

I watched this boy many times over several seasons in the youth teams. He always seemed one of the more important lads in that set up and something of a leader in the group. More so than Buckley actually. I was amused, but not in the least bit surprised, at his furious turf thrashing reaction to being booked yesterday. The lad has fire in his eyes and a touch of devilment about him. A very bad loser! With a good, injury free run and an inevitable growing in confidence, I could see him regain his aura and become a main man for us as he was in the 23s. I would like to see him further forward, with Brittain behind. His marauding style fits in well with our front three and I think he would give the team something that someone like Hedges isn't quite capable of.

Totally agree. He reminds me a lot of Simon Barker when he first broke through. If he can score goals like Barker did we might just have something extremely special.

In the final analysis, too many of our squad are average Championship or top end League 1 players in terms of their ability. I'm thinking Pears, JRC, Pickering, Travis, Hedges, Szmodics , Gallagher, Dolan. In fact hardly any of the players currently available could be considered top end Championship standard. It's a puzzle how we have remained so high in the division all season. The team yesterday played like total strangers, unable to complete simple passes to one another. Gallagher has regressed alarmingly. I would go back to basics from now on, with KaminskI JRC Carter Hyam Brittain Travis Wharton Thomas Szmodics Dolan Brereton

Plus bad instead of badly

The linesman on the 'stand' side took disgraceful personal abuse from the Liverpool defence today. A couple of vile characters in their back line. It's obviously much easier to hear what goes on at pitch level when you are standing literally four feet behind the Linesman on a small quiet ground but it got me wondering at what age these lads in their late teens were suddenly allowed to go unchecked when abusing officials . They certainly would have been severely rebuked in boys football and I would be surprised if a linesman in the men's game would tolerate being called an effing useless cheating ginger c--t and similar epithets. The Liverpool centre half; a particular lowlife even shouted at and taunted a group of primary school lads who heard his exchange with the Linesman and tried to call him out on it. No wonder these players often grow into the kind of morons we see time and time again in the men's game (Kyle Walker anyone?), when their thuggish swaggering contempt is tolerated and unpunished.