How great is it, by the way, to have four teams in the semis who all want to play football? Not a Mourinho-esque anti-football team in sight.

Wow... game on!

Spurs were second best in the first leg and are second best again this time around. Hard to see them coming back into it, Ajax are playing some superb stuff.

"Knee jerk reactions to poor runs of form" is a bit harsh imo. Under Mowbray we went on the worst run of form since the days of Steve Kean, and it only changed when TM threw his hands up, played an experimental team at Derby and found that it worked. From then on he had little choice but to keep going in that direction. He persisted for far, far too long with a system that wasn't working, possibly partially because of our strange run of good form in January which broke up an otherwise dire period between November-March. That's not just a poor run of form, it's a significant chunk of the season where we really struggled to gain points. It would be foolish to ignore this on the back of a set of wins in mostly meaningless matches, imo. I think the division will be a lot more competitive next season and I'm not sure we can afford to go on the types of bad runs we went on this season. It's up to Mowbray to work out what was going wrong during those periods and ensure we're prepared to counter that next season. He's earned the right to take that challenge on, so let's see what he comes up with. He's talking a big game right now and promoting high expectations, so hopefully he has a solid plan to fulfil that. As fans we have every right to feel expectant when the manager is talking about spending money and mounting a serious promotion challenge next season.

We had a pretty bad November and December. We got smashed by Preston and Wigan remember. It briefly picked up in January with an excellent win against WBA, a really good 3-0 win against Hull and expected wins against Ipswich & Millwall, but 4 of the 5 months between November - March were very poor. Not sure why we suddenly picked up form in January but thank goodness we did, because it meant we were never really in any danger of getting sucked into the relegation fight.

If there's one crumb of comfort for Bolton fans... it's that Jason Lowe is still under contract and probably not going anywhere.

They're also a much weaker team without Harry Kane. That said I'd rather see a Liverpool v Ajax final than Liverpool v Spurs, so am hoping Ajax hold their nerve tonight.

Basically just giving Bolton time to appoint administrators in the proper manner. Assuming they do then that should be that. It was the Eddie Davies Trust that put the club into admin, not Anderson, which is no surprise. He'd let the club go to the wall if it earned him an extra pound.

That will be the scale of it. They'll do well not to be in League Two for the 20/21 season.

The court still has to accept Bolton's administration decision, so we'll see. I imagine they will though, the courts aren't in the business of liquidating football clubs. At that point it's a -12 deduction for next season and a two year transfer embargo. Then we'll see which vulture gets to the carcass first.

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2019/may/a-note-from-from-the-chairman/ Great timing for another one of his blogs. Basically saying that the club is being put into administration.

Didn't realise there was that kind of history there. I suppose they're just as likely to promote another coach as the figurehead and let Messi continue to control the team.

From reading the live coverage on the Bolton news website it seems the main issue with administration is the ability to actually pay the administrators. It requires at least one month's worth of club funding. Also by the sounds of it Anderson stands to gain more financially from liquidation than administration...

It was a very poor performance. Barca looked utterly terrified after that first goal went in. Even at the end when they desperately needed to push to get a goal they were hilariously bad at trying to attack. Last season's capitulation to Roma could be seen as a fluke but, much like with PSG, when it happens two years in a row in such spectacular fashion there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with the mentality of the players in those squads. Granted both have won their domestic leagues at a canter but that is a very different scenario to knock-out ties. Much less pressure, especially when in Ligue 1 there is such a gap in quality between PSG and everyone else, and in La Liga the only competition for Barca this season has been a fairly average A. Madrid team, with Real tripping over their own shoelaces for most of the season and set to finish 3rd for the second year in a row. I believe this will also be the first time since the 13/14 season that Barca finish on less than 90 points, and only the second time in the last decade that has happened. Have to assume the manager will be off in the summer. Poch incoming perhaps?

Firstly you have to give credit to Liverpool tonight. A stunning performance at tail end of a very long season for them. They pressed Barcelona from the off and simply overpowered them with desire and workrate. No Salah or Firminho, lining up with the likes of Matip and Origi... just ridiculous. With that said, you'll rarely see a top team mentally collapse in the way Barcelona did tonight. As soon as the first goal went in their resolve began to crumble. Every player seemed to recede into a shell and it seemed inevitable that Liverpool would at the very least pull it level. It was one of the worst performances you'll ever see from a supposedly elite team, where not a single player comes out of the game with any credit. Messi and Suarez, totally useless. The defence a joke. The final goal summed it all up. It just shows that all the talent in the world means nothing if the mentality isn't there. That miss in the final seconds of the Nou Camp game will haunt Barcelona for years to come. Liverpool meanwhile may never perform better than they did tonight.

Absolute amateurism from Barcelona to just turn your back on a corner like that though. You wouldn't see it in the Sunday league.

Absolutely ridiculous. Barcelona totally humiliated. Where is Messi now? Needs to step up or his first leg performance means nothing.

You could see when the second goal went in that the Barcelona players were shellshocked. They were still competitive in the first half but Liverpool have been all over them this half. Amazing performance level from Liverpool considering the amount of games they've played, injuries, etc. I have no love for their fanbase but you can't help but respect this team and manager.

Liverpool have been incredible here. Barcelona were rocked when that first goal went in and haven't recovered at all.

I hope not. Williams has had a decent end to the season, but I'm fairly sure a Lenihan/Williams pairing over the course of a season will not be good enough to get us into playoff contention. Lenihan needs a good, experienced CB beside him to be most effective. It's an area we desperately need to strengthen in with Downing likely leaving and Mulgrew nowhere near good enough to play there anymore. Rodwell has also proven to be ineffective an a CB and may not be here next season either.

I think, again, if we're serious about promotion we need to be looking at better players than Vela. I think he'd be a good signing for a team looking to try and stay in the division, or a club like Ipswich looking to bounce straight back from L1, but if we're genuinely looking at a playoff push next season we have to be aiming higher.

Reed won't be coming back here, I'm sure of that. Even if he does go back out on loan I think it'll be with a club that can better utilise his talents. Wouldn't offer Rodwell a new contract. Plays fine when things are going well, totally ineffective when the going gets tough. Exactly the type of player we need to avoid.

Unlikely, but we have so many other positions that need addressing that I'm not sure how many we can realistically expect to bring in at CM. Especially if we can't shift Evans or Smallwood. We might get one more in, a loan perhaps, but that would likely mean Davenport going back out on loan. I am not optimistic.

The long ball stat doesn't surprise me but it maybe does shed some light on why Dack's form has been so inconsistent. Some games he's just been rubbish, but no attacking midfielder wants to play in a team where the ball is constantly flying over their head. Graham has done an excellent job holding up play and winning knock downs, but I hope we begin to change our style next season to have the ball on the deck more often.

From recollection there was barely any interest in him even when we were relegated, can't imagine that will have changed based on this season and with his new contract in play. Unfortunately I think we'll be seeing Evans at the club for some time to come.