Steve McClaren sacked as QPR manager. We get to go and play them in a couple of weeks. They're 23rd in the form table, we're 24th.

Still no news on the Lancashire Senior Cup Final vs the dingles. The mystery of the disappearing game. All over the internet until Rovers draw Burnley and then it all disappears and there's no trace of it online nor details on when/if/where the game will be played. Almost as though they want to pretend it isn't happening and don't want people to know about it.....

I'm in two minds on this. Bolton need sending a message after what they did to our fans at their place earlier this season when it was £34 quid or whatever it was for a TV game, so I'd be very reluctant to allow them to come to Ewood for much less. A shame but Rovers have to fight fire with fire. At the same time I agree, a game like this simply has to be cheaper than nearly £30 an adult. If Waggott believes a local derby is going to get Bolton or Rovers fans turning up in big numbers at those prices he's in for a shock. They could be effectively down by then whilst we're going nowhere fast. To that end I'm sure if we were clever about things we could have the best of both worlds. Allocate Bolton the upper tier at Gold prices e.g. £30+ an adult, only open the lower tier when those 3,000 are sold out. Reduce prices for Rovers fans by offering a proper discount for members or making the Riverside/BBE Lower much cheaper. It can be done with a bit of imagination.

We had 2 shots on target, 1 of them the goal we scored which once again was a direct result of Mulgrew's set pieces. Despite all our possession and pressure in the last 15 minutes their keeper could have been asleep for most of it as we turn back to the CBs as soon as we get anywhere near their area. People moan about Allardyce football but their keeper would have been bombarded and clattered for 20 minutes in pursuit of an equaliser. I'd much prefer that than inanely passing around in circles on the half way line going nowhere.

What do you class as a 'chance'? Shed loads of possession and passes along the half way line, or actually having attempts on goal and giving their keeper something to do? If it's the latter then we didn't have many chances at all.

Reed will probably end up at an alternative Championship club next season and will play every week in CM and earn rave reviews. I'm confident of that. Meanwhile we'll be turning up every week with the tombola selection ensuring no CM can pass the ball forwards.

My theory is that Reed is being systematically phased out of the team by Mowbray, because Mowbray knows Reed won't be here, either because Reed has told him that or because the finances involved in getting him here permanently are out of scope. As a result Mowbray has dropped him to the bench. For me it is one of the biggest frustrations of Mowbray's management that Reed, who in my opinion has been one of our standout performers this season, and is certainly a better player than most of the alternatives we have, is now benched and limited to 20-30 minutes, more often than not out wide, whilst Bennett and Smallwood are still starting games in Reed's preferred position. I doubt Reed would want to come here and waste his career on the right of our midfield. Shame as he'd have been top target for me this summer.

Its a lot easier to 'turn it round' when you've the best and most expensive squad in the entire division at your disposal. Without wanting to diminish the success and achievement of winning promotion last season when you're so well equipped and experienced a rise up that division after Oldham was essential and almost a formality. We've seen it many times where a rich club with a good squad naturally rises to the top of the league below. West Brom are doing it this season - a very strong squad but without much managerial experience yet keep on winning games. It isn't easy to turn it around when a losing habit and mentality creeps in. Mowbray couldn't stop it at WBA in the Premier League and they were relegated - apparently because he refused or was unable to change his approach - and he couldn't stop the rot at Middlesbrough or Coventry either.

I'm not at a stage where I want him to go, yet, but I am deeply concerned by what I am seeing and by what I am hearing. I've also got little faith in Mowbray's transfer dealings being good enough. I suppose the one benefit of the next couple of months and the games we have left is it should be an opportunity to assess and analyse and make a decision at the end of it. If this form continues through the next 7 games and we don't get a few wins in there then we're entering 1-2 wins in 17-18 games territory which ultimately should be a sackable offence irrespective of anything else. Mowbray quit Coventry for much less. So we've a 'luxury' of 7 games to look at what is happening and decide on the way forward.

How can Mowbray have a plan when he probably doesn't have a budget and hasn't met with the owners yet? What happens if their 'plan' is different to Mowbray's? I remember him saying last summer that Venkys wanted to push towards the Premier League and he tried to slow them down. Bizarre.

They were streets ahead of us in the first half and to go in only 1-0 down at HT was nothing short of a miracle. We improved in the 2nd half but always felt every time they applied any pressure a goal was coming and their inevitable second came eventually. We manage to get a goal back through Mulgrew once again (the only way we seem to be able to unlock teams) and from there on the game changes as Villa entered defensive mode and tried to protect what they had and ultimately did so. Our attempt at unlocking the Villa defence in the last 10 minutes I found to be extremely frustrating and futile. We had so much possession and were dominating, Villa were nervous and desperate and we were simply unable to come up with anything which would enable us to get the 2nd. Nobody able to deliver a pass or cross to create an opportunity. Countless times it was pass back and go around the houses again getting nowhere. Boring to watch. I reckon between 80 and 95 minutes the ball was only in play for about 5-6 minutes. Villa effective at running the clock down and seeing the game through when we were on top. I wish we had that nous. It seems we will probably survive now even if we lose all our remaining games, as surely Bolton are too far behind and Rotherham can't win, In that regard it can probably be regarded as 'job done' for the season. But I'm afraid there's a bigger picture here than just being happy with safety after promotion last season. There should be a medium term plan and an idea as to where the club wants to go. It isn't acceptable, IMO, to celebrate survival and ignore the deeply concerning issues that we have. There's no indication the club has any plan beyond the end of the season and probably won't do until Tony turns up in India and asks for his budget from madame. As far as I am concerned that is a pathetic and shambolic way to operate and it is no wonder we are so far behind other clubs who operate professionally and have a strategy in place. I am deeply concerned by our trajectory, recruitment, performances and results and I cannot just ignore all that on the basis we should survive. ANY continuation of that into the summer and beyond and it is a cert that we will be in a relegation battle next season. We weakened in January by letting Palmer and Downing depart and signing nobody for the first team and will probably weaken again in the summer by letting Reed and Dack go and unless we invest heavily or extremely intelligently I've little faith in finding the calibre needed to make a difference. Turning to Villa's crowd, it is interesting that they are getting bigger gates now than they used to get in the Premier League. They're obviously doing something right. Around the ground before the game I was amazed at how many kids there were. Then they were advertising early bird season tickets for £14 per game for adults, £6 per game for U21s and £3 per game for U18s, along with family packages where 2 paying adults get 2 free kids tickets. Note - we don't have the cheapest tickets in the league any more. We're so far behind the pack it is scary. Lots of moaning about them getting nearly 40000 on whilst we trundle along with our 10000 without analysing our woeful marketing and unimaginative ticketing. We're already at a disadvantage to the City clubs and yet they make more effort than we do. Unacceptable.

Sheff Utd, Sheff Wed, Leeds, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Villa, Forest, Derby, QPR, Brentford, Millwall, Bristol City, Swansea and Stoke have all at the very least released pricing details, most of them have had tickets on sale for some considerable time now. So we're one of the minority to not, and I'd bet my money there'll be plenty of the others do it before we get round to it. I suppose Bolton have a valid excuse with other things to worry about but also note that many of those above are still in with a chance of promotion and relegation so the old excuse that it hinges upon what division we are in is also nonsense. For some reason there's a tradition of leaving it until as late as possible at Rovers to prepare for next season - you can apply that to ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship, pre-season games - we're always one of the last to announce anything. Of course it's up to those making the decisions as to when they do it but I don't accept the excuses when they start complaining about poor sales or a lack of income. Do something about it then.

Mahoney now given a penalty away

Watching West Brom defending is like watching us. Reading that article about Bassini at Bolton a few things seem very strange and have a whiff of suspicion about them. First off he claims to have got League approval. I'm sure they'll have some explaining to do if they quickly approve someone with his background. He then claims to have the funds to bankroll Bolton yet won't say how much he has and his companies are property developers and have very little information about them. He then says Dave Richards has agreed to become chairman and that he's going to get John Williams on board. Both big hitters in the football world, although both now in their 70s so i wonder what either would want with getting involved at a club that will be in League One next year? Very strange.

So they'll be better off than us before they've even started

If season tickets were on sale for 1 week only we'd sell less than if they were on sale for 1 month only. It might not sell many more, if any, but it almost certainly wouldn't reduce sales to have them on sale now rather than leaving it. By 'noticeable rise' as far as I'm concerned if 10 people buy one now that can't or won't between May and August then it's worth doing. If anything the pressure here is greater than elsewhere. A club like Norwich, for example,. would have healthy sales irrespective of league or sales periods, and yet nonetheless they get them on sale early rather than sitting back and doing nothing. At Rovers there is so much more competition and a lower base to start from it seems ludicrous that we allow those clubs such a head start. All in all it comes back to the dysfunctional nature of the club and despite some people's claims or optimism it shows we're still lagging way behind most clubs and I'd argue that is as much a reason why our finances are such a shambles. We should be going to great lengths to try and get Ewood filled up for next season by reaching out now and providing a proper early bird period to reward loyalty and early buyers. Waiting until the season has finished and people are saving up for their holidays is idiocy.

A good idea and good to see the club trying something. If nothing else it will make the sparsely populated Blackburn End look a lot better. I heard about it a few weeks ago but thought they were introducing it as a permanent thing. Not sure why it's capped at 2,500 when there's 3,000 seats up there. Also only just over 50% of those with tickets are schoolchildren, so a fair amount of adults in there. My only concern would be the risk of upsetting a few people - in particular those who formerly sat up there for many years who paid good money who were forced out and now those seats are being given away for free. Likewise those in the family stand at the moment who have paid for their seats might not be too impressed. Ultimately though it is the only way we're going to be able to attract good numbers of new fans. i hope it is done regularly and spread around the whole of Lancashire. About time we tapped into our wider region.

Given the uproar on here at Dack being photographed in a bar somewhere the other day, I recommend nobody on here buys OK Magazine as him and his bird have a 'piece' on them. (And no, if anyone was wondering I don't buy OK Magazine, I've seen a photo of it)

We're unusual with our badge and I quite like that. Nobody else has the shape ours has, whereas many have the generic shield or circle. Bristol City another one to this week ditch their coat of arms and adopt a minimalist circle, very similar to Brentford's. We're also unusual because we were late to the party with wearing a badge on our strip and then since we started we've only had 2 different variants in 40 odd years. I prefer that to the constant alterations that some clubs seem to have. As a club we've always been recognisable by our unique kit and that has come before the badge on it. Having said that I do think ours looks dated now and would benefit from a slight modernisation or tidy up to bring it into the 21st century. I think we should keep the general format of what we have at the moment but simplify it, get rid of some of the lines and colours and bring in a darker blue. I think the original version(s) of the one we have now were better - smaller writing, more blue, less lines and detail. I'm not a fan of the yellow/black lines and red on our crest which is quite needless. Dark blue, white writing, bright red rose, dark green stem.

I do the same. It might be sad but the bigger concern for me is that I genuinely think I put more time and effort into worrying about these sort of things than anyone involved at Rovers does. You're probably correct, it won't change, but if I find enough time I'm going to put together some data for Waggott's attention the moment he complains about how many season tickets we sell and how we can't compete.

Jalil Saadi has been on the fringes of the U23s recently. Come off the bench for short spells a few times.

Also need to bear in mind the number of occasions he has switched between positions during games. Other than demonstrating his 'versatility' and Mowbray's 'tactical' adaptability I don't think it has done him or us any favours to constantly be shunted around between 3-4 different positions. Is it too much to ask for everyone to play in their favoured position and moving forward to sign people with a view to them playing somewhere they are used to playing well?

Has he played at RB the MAJORITY of the season? He seems to have played every game, no injuries. I genuinely don't know the stats but my impression was he'd been in midfield the majority of games, and at RB in the minority. Either way, 1 goal and 5 assists in nearly 40 games isn't impressive. As I've said before, I reckon you could drag a 6 foot bloke off the street and put him in the team 46 times a season and by law of averages he'd notch more than a goal just by being in the right place or getting lucky.

Season ticket check. Bristol City have announced they've sold 13,000 for next season. Only another 6 weeks to wait for ours to go on sale. Then come August the men upstairs can moan about below target sales and dwindling revenues!

Absolutely right. Those who try to compare us to Sheff Utd I don't think have spent much time looking at Sheff Utd. The only similarity with us is that they have recently got out of League One. Their recruitment, energy, system, style of play, organisation - absolutely miles ahead of us. They've signed players to actually play in particular positions within a system. We just seem to sign players to play in numerous positions and not really excel in one.