Looks like a last minute deal may have been reached for them to avoid administration. Deadline extended to noon. You have to think under Anderson it's a matter of time before the house of cards really does come crashing down, even if they get through this latest scare.

A 12 point deduction would completely derail the otherwise impressive start they've had to the season. Hard to see them coming back from that, especially as in January they'll likely have to sell as many players as possible to stay afloat. Parkinson has really done an incredible job there with a lot going against him, but you can only push that boulder up an increasingly steep hill for so long.

The apprehension and negativity regarding Mowbray's appointment was completely justified at the time. It wasn't some masterstroke from the owners, they went for another cheap option and this time they got lucky. Similar to Bowyer every so often the cheap option works out (to a degree). Of course it was also their cheapskate antics that got us into trouble in the first place by bringing in Coyle and we ended up relegated as a result. Why we're suddenly able to spend £7m on a single player after multiple seasons of poverty I don't know, but I'll never trust these snakes.

Perhaps all of this nonsense is part of the reason other clubs avoided signing him before we did? He's obviously pretty immature and the adulation and money coming from football is making things worse. It could easily spiral out of control so somebody needs to have a word with him and ask him what his priorities really are. It's possible Mowbray already has and it hasn't worked. He's our most talented player by far so we really need his head in the game. As good as Dack has been for us nobody is irreplaceable, so if I was Tony I'd at least have one eye on who to bring in as the next Dack should he be sold or be unavailable for non-footballing reasons. We don't want to put the club's future in terms of results on the pitch in the hands of a man who clearly hasn't grown up yet.

Surely it's obvious what Booth meant. It's the Kevin Keegan school of football which works great IF you are able to defend well, but we often can't so more often than not we'll end up drawing or losing if we don't pay more attention to the defensive side of the game. Particularly as we struggle to score from open play without Dack in the team.

Wrestling with Wregret is fantastic. I've pretty much watched everything on Zane's channel! His movie reviews are great as well.

I think they've uploaded a ton more back issues in the last couple of years. There's roughly 52 per year up until 2001, I think they're planning to continue uploading until the full set is there. It'll take a while though. I find Alvarez pretty funny, he's okay as long as you don't take him too seriously. His gimmick is basically being an angry fanboy and on occasion he does pull Dave up on being biased or contradictory about things. That said I found it hilarious that he refused to criticise any of the nonsense at All In, considering he'd crucify WWE for pulling some of those stunts. I subscribed to the Torch years ago (around 2008-2009) but I found a lot of the columnists to be kind of annoying so dropped it in the end. Keller seems like a decent guy though and I'd say his opinions are a bit more balanced than Dave, who has a heavy bias towards Japanese wrestling.

Do you subscribe to the Observer? If you're interested in the history of the business it's a real goldmine. All of the back issues up until about 2001 are available, and there's some really great stuff there, especially from the 90s. If you want to get up to speed on NJPW and ROH Meltzer and Alvarez are a great source of info too. Their radio shows are pretty entertaining too. I'll end my Observer plug there, but definitely recommended if you aren't a subscriber!

NJPW's recent surge in popularity has been built on the back of Okada, Naito and Omega. The three of them have been outstanding over the past couple of years and really put NJPW back on the map after a number of years in the wilderness. Guys like AJ Styles and Cody have come through and made an impact too, as well as the Bullet Club stable which is essentially the modern day nWo/DX. As with any company on the rise it's just a combination of factors all coming together at once to create a real sense of momentum. I don't watch NJPW regularly but I've caught the last few Wrestle Kingdom events and the production is on par with WWE, whilst the wrestling and storylines are way better, even with a lot of it being in Japanese. They've made their stars feel huge, and even the undercard wrestlers are made to feel like the next big thing. ROH haven't done anything special but they are benefiting hugely from their ties to the rapidly rising NJPW wave and association with hot indy acts like Cody, the Young Bucks, Colt Cabana, and even historical connections with the likes of Styles, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, and so on. Most of WWE's biggest names nowadays got their first major exposure in ROH, and with fans being smarter and more interested nowadays it only makes sense that a portion of WWE fans end up checking out promotions like ROH to see what all the hype is about. Meltzer definitely has a soft spot for Omega and the Young Bucks. Hell, the latter have named their finisher after him (the Meltzer driver). It's funny because if you listen to Dave when the Bucks were in TNA as Generation Me he has no real love for them, but obviously over the last few years that's changed a lot. In all honesty the Omega/Okada matches have been incredible. I don't have much of an opinion on his star ratings but the effort and commitment from Omega to make every match a stand out is very commendable. Okada has the look and presence of a superstar which obviously helps. Naito is right up there too, although he's scaled back a bit since losing his feud to Okada. I don't really watch old school wrestling for the same reason - too slow and it looks antiquated compared to the performances now. In their day those matches were something special for sure, but as with most things age takes its toll. Things that were unique and new back then are common place now. Fans expect and receive more than was needed back then. WWE doesn't seem to have grasped that yet, which is why NJPW may have a chance to establish a real foothold in the modern landscape. Or they'll go the way of AAA in the 90's and fade back into relative obscurity, still popular in their own country but with little international presence. The big advantage NJPW has now is the internet and the ease of access to footage across the world. Back in the 90s AAA didn't have that advantage.

I think it probably was AAA. They had some incredibly popular shows in the US in the early 90s, I think there was a large Hispanic audience there. That said CMLL tried the same thing and didn't get the same traction. All In was totally paid as far as I'm aware. It was at the Sears Centre in Chicago. The event sold out in 30 minutes. It's made enough of an impact to break WWE's 30 year stranglehold on MSG. ROH have it booked now on the back of All In's momentum. You could argue All In made more of a mark in one night than TNA ever did, even at their peak in the late 2000s.

As an aside I watched "All In" yesterday and thought it was pretty good. There were some minor production issues but I think I only noticed them because WWE's production is so slick and well done these days. By any other standards it was still very good. I don't watch the "Be the Elite" stuff on YouTube so a lot of the storyline elements went over my head a little. I thought the "Hangman" Adam Page stuff was weird and the inflatable penises and general Joey Ryan stuff all felt a bit cringeworthy. That said the crowd were obviously digging it so I can't really call it a negative, just something I personally felt was unnecessary. In general the matches were really good. The women's four way was solid, Page Vs Janela was a very entertaining brawl, Cody Vs Aldis brought prestige back to an NWA title that had been long dead, Omega Vs Pentagon Jr was superb, Okada Vs Scurll really got going towards the end (although they apparently went 12 minutes over which contributed to the main event being cut seriously short) and the six man tag at the end was incredible despite being cut from 28 minutes to just 12. Rey Mysterio looks better than he has in years. All In was a seriously impressive achievement from Cody and the Young Bucks. The first time since 1993 that a company that isn't WWE or WCW has drawn a crowd of 10,000+. I hope they can keep the momentum going as it can only be positive for the overall scene. If wrestlers feel like there's viable alternatives to WWE then maybe they won't put up with the bullshit they're currently subjected to in Stanford.

NXT is basically the best of independent wrestling. It also takes the really good parts of NJPW and ROH, usually using wrestlers that have come from those organisations. Funnily enough during the Attitude Era WWE took the best of ECW and WCW and made it better, again often using talent taken from those companies. Main roster WWE (Raw & Smackdown) has nothing to draw inspiration from except itself, which is basically Vince's idea of how wrestling should be. It's fair to say the industry has largely passed him by and because he has no serious competition he can afford for the product to be stale. CM Punk's pipe bomb promo from 2011 rings as true today than it did back then. I actually disagree, and it's imo one of the biggest problems with NXT. It doesn't prepare the talent for the main roster because it's absolutely nothing like Raw or Smackdown. It's why so many NXT call ups end up buried. I wouldn't want NXT to be like Raw or Smackdown, for the record, but as a developmental system for talent to be called up to the main roster it's no good. Fortunately it regularly produces some of the best wrestling in the world, particularly during the Takeover events. I just wish the main products were a lot more like NXT. Yeah and imo it was a stupid idea. Granted there was a crash pad under the table, but still, the risk outweighed any positives. We've already established Braun is a monster who's out to torment Owens. We didn't need an unnecessarily risky cage fall to hammer that point home - particularly as Owens has repeatedly been shown to be no match for Strowman. Like everything else in WWE nowadays it was just a "moment" with no real substance. The time to turn Cena heel was years ago. Pre-2010. Absolutely no point doing it now. He's not relevant enough anymore for it to matter. It's ironic though - WWE has been doing everything possible to get Roman Reigns cheered, without realising that turning him heel would probably end up making him a face. It's just further proof that Vince doesn't understand the audience any more. A heel Roman Reigns would initially get nuclear heat but if done right I'm positive he'd soon be cheered. The anti-hero will always be far more over than the white-meat babyface. Roman has improved so much over the past couple of years that it's a genuine shame he's still being handicapped by ridiculously bad booking decisions. He's not on twitter yet but he is on instagram! https://www.instagram.com/undertaker/?hl=en

Tbf it's only the truth. No amount of morale boosting will make Nuttall any better than he currently is. He's just nowhere near good enough to even be on the bench. He can't make an impact when he comes on and he's no good as a starter either. He's not the only one but he really shouldn't be anywhere near the squad at this stage in his development. Being on the pitch and consistently making no real difference is surely going to be no better for morale.

Couldn't agree more. There's no doubt that there are some overly negative posters on here, just as there are overly positive posters. The best debate lies somewhere in the middle and too often it's unfairly jumped on by both sides on the extreme ends of the spectrum. There's nothing wrong with being critical somewhere like this. It's not like the players or management are going to read comments on there and spiral into depression and stop performing. I'm sure TM has been plenty critical to the players behind closed doors regarding the latest defeat. By the same token there's nothing wrong with taking a positive outlook and pointing out the good things happening at the club. In my view the positives are the team spirit, the energy and the overall atmosphere around the club. You have to give kudos to Mowbray and his staff for that. On the other hand there are some serious question marks over the transfer strategy this summer, our tactics at times and blind loyalty to certain players who clearly aren't cutting it at this level. Again, nothing wrong with expressing either side or disagreeing constructively. I just don't know why it has to devolve into cheap digs or silly arguments.

We were a one man team most of last season too in fairness. Without Dack we would have been much closer to Shrewsbury than Wigan imo. There's a lot of effort in this team and a good amount of spirit, but there is a worrying lack of creativity which means we rely on set pieces to nick goals when Dack isn't around. That in of itself isn't the end of the world - under Allardyce we thrived under that type of system. The difference there was that we could defend under Allardyce and had the likes of Samba, Nelsen and Salgado marshaling the back line. Nyambe, Lenihan, Mulgrew and Bell/Williams is far less convincing. This is my concern as well - but for McShane's generosity at Ewood we would have been comfortably beaten by Reading. Today's result had been coming. Defensively we're very shaky, but we looked shaky in League 1 with this defence so it's no surprise we look even more fragile a division higher. We got away with it often last season due to the poor quality of the opposition, but we've already seen this season that we'll be punished at a much higher rate. Again this is why the transfer window disappointed me so much. I felt we needed some significant improvements both at the back and going forward. I don't feel like we've had much if any improvements brought in. Brereton is a kid with potential who we've apparently splurged our entire budget on. Rodwell has been an utter failure for six years now. Armstrong was £1.75m for a reason and we already had him in the team last season so at best that's standing still. Palmer came in with a lot of hype but not a whole lot of substance yet. The division has some very poor teams in it and I don't think we're that bad, so we should be able to survive, but if Dack goes in January it's going to make things very difficult. Even if money is made available I'm no longer sure I trust whoever makes the signings at Ewood to do the right thing with it. Imo they massively screwed up this window and January is much harder to operate in.

We desperately need him on the pitch. Scoring from open play is very difficult for this team without Dack around. Last season even when players like Armstrong were missing chances Dack would pop up to score. He's both a creator and a finisher which is huge for us, as most of our attackers are one or the other. A few appear to be neither.

Couldn't agree more. Lack of competition for places across the majority of our backline is a horrible recipe for complacency. Raya, Nyambe, Mulgrew and Lenihan know they're only off the team sheet if they're injured. Bell at the very least has Williams to push him for a place.

I wouldn't mind if we had a stronger squad but that money should really have been spent on better defenders, at least then we may stop conceding silly goals to the likes of Ipswich and Reading whilst getting embarrassed by teams like Bristol City. To spend £7m on potential when there are still glaring weaknesses in our first team squad is madness to me. All I can say is that Mowbray must be very confident that we'll stay up without too much to worry about.

I agree, I'm pretty confused by the whole thing. We aren't a PL club who can afford to drop £7m on a 'maybe'. For that money he has to be good enough to start now, with the potential to get even better.

I agree that his price tag shouldn't guarantee starts, those are earned. That said, if we're spending £7m on a player then it has to be with the intention of him being a first teamer asap. If Brereton had come in to sit on the bench as Graham's understudy then I despair. For a club like ours that type of transfer fee should be spent for an instant impact, not an impact at some undefined point in the future.

If he's costing £7m he should be coming in to replace Graham, shouldn't he? At our level you don't spend £7m on potential or a backup option. If we have then it's lunacy.

Tbf we conceded two against Ipswich and Reading so it's obvious our defence isn't really up to scratch. Mowbray has chosen to prioritise the attacking side of the team instead and he'd better hope the likes of Armstrong, Palmer, Brereton and Rothwell start to deliver with goals because I don't fancy our chances scraping one goal wins this season.

It feels like our inability to score from open play is going to have big implications this season.

That said he did just score, so... ?

Insipid game between Ipswich and Norwich so far. They both look really poor. For all the wailing about us not signing Edwards I'm not sure he has the intelligence to be effective at this level. He's got talent but always runs with his head down, usually into blind alleys.