I agree with this. I think considering Travis began the season in the u23 setup, broke into the team the hard way, seized his opportunity and has ranged between excellent and competent at worst in the Championship means he gets my vote. A significant step up made successfully. Just a shame it took so long and only happened one Smallwood was banned.

Very pleasing and impressive performance. One of our most consistent over 90 minutes and among the finest of the season. I was afraid that we were never going to score as time wore on or even a slip up would allow them to snatch one. Thankfully we got there and I was very pleased to see Rothwell score. Before then he'd had a few excellent opportunities and missed them and I was worried about the impact it would have on him if he didn't get some reward for his efforts. I was concerned at seeing 5 changes as I worried about more tinkering and large scale changes but tonight it was what we needed. Williams and Lenihan looked solid and reliable, dealing with what came their way. Not just good in spells but good for almost the entire match and certainly full value for the win. Good to see us attacking with intent for a second goal rather than trying merely to protect the 1-0. Reed and Travis excellent in CM and its a real shame we haven't seen more of them together there. If O'Neill and Keane are watching videos of our last two games during their preparations for Saturday they won't have a clue what to expect. Chalk and cheese stuff. The contrast between the approach on Saturday and that tonight unbelievable. A massive win to take us to 50 and almost certain survival now. Mowbray's had some stick since Saturday so he should enjoy praise tonight. I hope he can maintain that sort of approach and level rather than reverting to the other side of our Jekyll and Hyde character.

Isn't that against the law as well as being in breach of contract?

What happened last season isn't really relevant in terms of whether we were any good or how we went about it. End result was promotion. Job done. Pats on the back all round. Corrected the calamity of 2016-17. Mowbray has been praised for that, well paid for that and presumably had some sort of bonus for achieving that. Now we're in April 2019 and in freefall. I don't see why what happened more than a year ago has anything to do with where we are today. Since then we've dished out new contracts, spent £10 million on players and not had to sell anyone, so circumstances have been as good as anyone could really have expected. At the time of writing we are in a right old mess however people want to try and dress it up. Some have faith Mowbray can and will turn it around, others don't have that faith. I'm somewhere in the middle- I'm not particularly confident he can or will do but I'm not clambering for his sacking, though admittedly if I had any confidence in the club to conduct a thorough and coherent search for a better manager then I probably would be, and if this continues much longer then I probably will be. I like Mowbray and appreciate the job he has done overall but no manager anywhere should be immune for criticism or the sack especially as the club is plummeting and performances are dismal. The club comes first and individuals come second. Or at least it should do.

If they had started off this way with away fans upstairs and kept home fans downstairs in the other half then they shouldn't have needed any segregation anyway. I can see merit in it if it enables home fans on 4 sides of the ground or enables us to charge away fans more than home fans but neither of those are happening and they still have to open the downstairs area for disabled. There must have been 40+ in there on Saturday.

Whatever happened to Josh Vela? Was highly rated at one time and still quite young.

Can someone better versed than me in these sort of things help with a few questions: 1) Am I correct in thinking that when Venkys inject cash into the club and this is done via issuing shares of £1 value that the shares issued are in Venkys London Ltd and not Blackburn Rovers Ltd? As such the number of shares in BRFC remains the same and the number of shares in VLL increases massively by millions a year? 2) When they pump cash in do they always do it by issuing shares in VLL? 3) In terms of the £138,941,619 'investment' in BRFC Ltd - this is the number of shares in BRFC owned by VLL or was close to it last time I checked - has this gone up under Venkys or was this the number of shares bought from the Walker estate? 4) Am I correct in thinking that should Venkys want to sell BRFC then they could do so at whatever price they wanted, including effectively giving the club away, by signing over VLL's shares in BRFC to another company and absorbing the shares in VLL (worthless without ownership of Rovers) as a cost to them?

For some reason their fans seem to think the league should ignore the rules to make them more attractive to potential buyers. Conveniently their next court hearing won't be until after the season has finished, so no liquidation until then. Is it really too much to ask for the League to enforce their own rules rather than attempt to wriggle out of their responsibilities? It seems they are determined to do whatever they can to ensure that Bolton fulfil their fixtures this season, including lending them money. If/when they go down it will be interesting. Last time round they were in a similar boat to us with a squad too good for League One and not much by way of competition other than Sheffield United. This time round might not be as smooth a ride, especially with 3-4 of Ipswich, Barnsley, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton probably in there too.

I expect to see a bumper crowd tonight. Frank Lampard is their manager (if you didn't know) so that is bound to see folk queuing down the road for tickets.

Can someone explain to me how the club can 'review' early kick off times and move towards only TV games being moved from 3pm? The club has said, more than once, and is on record as saying, that they are powerless in these circumstances and they have to do as the police instruct them. So they can review things all they like. Unless they can persuade the police to change their policy then things will continue as they have been. Unless Rovers lied previously and they do have a say over what time games are?

'Mowbray had hoped to have been experimenting with formations and personnel as their season drifts towards its conclusion' Forgive me, I was under the impression that was what Mowbray had been doing all season long. The amount of unforced changes to tactics and personnel has been astonishing and in my humble opinion just one of the many reasons we appear to have no defined style or identity and often the players look baffled in games. I find this comment to be something of an insult to my intelligence. Mowbray's obsession with trying his 5 at the back even though it has rarely worked has seen it regularly deployed and then changed during games. He has introduced an alternating LB system with Bell and Williams, he has signed players (Rodwell) with a view to using the season to convert them into different positions. He has spent the last 2 seasons playing players in wide positions who aren't used to playing there or don't really like playing there - Reed, Payne, Armstrong, Antonsson, Brereton. I dread to think what 'experiments' he had planned had we been 5-10 points better off and safe already. He's shown no serious desire to use the younger players - Travis only got an opportunity in the team due to Smallwood's suspension, Magloire only because there was nobody else left and Buckley a brief cameo.

Forgot to add the excellent Black Bull which isn't too much of a walk down the hill or a short cab ride.

Yeah, if you think the range of pubs within walking distance of Ewood is the problem I'll have to disagree. Off the top of my head we have Golden Cup, Uncle Jacks (closed last time I went past), Fernhurst, Fox & Hounds, Brown Cow, White Bull, Moorgate, Wellington, Lord Raglan, Ivy and Navi all within 15 minutes walk of the turnstiles. Quite a healthy selection of proper pubs. Far better than the out of town retail setups at places like Derby, Bolton and Reading. The town centre is pretty poor but I suspect the vast majority of Rovers fans don't pass through the town centre anyway. The atmosphere at Ewood is poor though. OK a large part of that comes down to having a half empty stadium and it is probably similar to PNE, Bolton and Wigan in that regard, but the club could certainly do more to deviate from the tried and tested matchday routine.

Sadly if we aren't there already then we're getting there. 1 win in 11 is dreadful. By Saturday night I'd be pleasantly surprised if it isn't 1 win in 13. Was looking last night at his pre-sacking/resignation runs at Middlesbrough and Coventry. At Middlesbrough in season 2013-14 they started off with 2 wins from their opening 12 league games and he was sacked despite being a club legend. Before then he'd had them pushing for the play-offs and was worshipped by their fans but they accepted time was up. At Coventry in season 2016-17 they started off with 0 wins from their opening 10 league games and he walked. Before then they'd been in promotion contention and was liked. We're now in very similar territory. A shame but this is clearly not the first time he's done this and it has ended in his departure. Turning this around is not going to be easy. I might have more confidence had I something to cling on to - if we were playing enjoyable football, were defensively strong or scoring plenty of goals but there's none of that. Ideally it is see how the next 6 go and then make a decision after that on the basis of what happens but the way things are going we might not be in a position to wait that long.

Our record against local rivals over the last 6-7 years has been dreadful. Beating us may well be the only thing they have left to play for by then.

Rotherham's next 3 games are Villa at home, Stoke and Swansea away. I think they'll struggle to get many points from those, but would anyone be surprised if they did Villa and won? Just the sort of crazy thing that happens at this stage of the season that blows the relegation battle wide open.

We've got one slot to avoid as Bolton and Ipswich are doomed and will not catch us from here. There are 6 clubs from 3rd bottom upwards below us, including Birmingham who have been docked 9 points, QPR who are in as bad a run as we are, and Rotherham who have found wins very hard to come by. If we get sucked any closer to the bottom 3 than we are currently then I am going to start to panic. Reading/Rotherham turned us over recently, Millwall have just beat West Brom. Some people had the deckchairs out enjoying 'consolidation' in February seemingly unaware that safety hadn't been secured and that when you get into this stage of the season teams will fight for their lives and pull wins out of the bag. I suppose now is the time to wonder what might have been had Mowbray gone to Reading and played his best team, or if the team had shown some backbone after equalising v Reading and Rotherham rather than collapsing straight after.

It all comes back to Mowbray over-complicating things. I accept his footballing knowledge is vastly superior to ours but sometimes there's merit to be had in keeping the game simple and straightforward. Consistency in tactics, selection, systems, everyone knows where they are and what they are meant to do and can focus on doing it better. Instead I've no idea what to expect from one week to the next and can't believe the players really do. You need a new CB so sign one. Instead we sign a CM and experiment with converting him into a CB whilst he is on a 1 year deal and free to leave soon. We are short at CB so allow our only proven CB to go out on loan and instead attempt to convert a poor LB into a CB. We try to be clever by moving Elliott Bennett through 5-6 different positions on a match by match basis either out of determination to find somewhere in the team for him or to try and prove a point about how brilliantly versatile he is. We sign an assortment of attacking midfield players and forwards and then deploy them out wide - Armstrong, Antonsson, Brereton.

I would hope that having lost £150 million so far and facing the prospect of losing much more to come that eventually they would be motivated to do something. The fact they don't as they keep it going every year suggests they aren't that bothered about it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I am convinced that our best and probably only route to any success at this level or above whilst we have these clueless absentee owners is to adopt a head coach and director of football style structure. It seems a lot of people are uncomfortable with such a structure and prefer the old school approach of the entire club being in the hands of the manager but I don't think that approach can work here unless Venkys concede power which after 8 years seems unlikely. The sporting director or director of football would be headhunted and tasked by the owners to oversee the entire football operation, working alongside the CEO and Finance Director. That man would be given an overall target e.g. to get to the Premier League and would be given a budget each year and control over the operation, with the ability to hire and fire as he deems necessary in pursuit of that end goal. This person would need to be someone who has worked in such a position preferably in similar circumstances at a high level English or European club before and knows what the job is about. Someone with clear credentials who knows the job and has the contacts to recruit accordingly. In terms of transfers the owners would effectively have no involvement in this other than to sanction budgets and expenditure and perhaps increase funding upon request should it be required. It would put a stop to this nonsense of the manager jumping onto a plane 2-3 times a year to go and meet the owners, the nonsense of him having to go and prove himself and build up trust and 'teach' them as it seems Mowbray has spent time doing. The head coach is based in the UK and spends his time coaching the squad and working with the Director of Football to recruit new players. He doesn't need to meet the owners or speak to them. The D of F can do that with Waggott and has the time during the season to go off to India to sort out budgets and update them. The other benefit of this structure is that if results nosedive as they have here recently there need not be the massive gaping hole created should the manager be sacked. The trust, remit, plan would remain in the hands of the director, the head coach would be changed in pursuit of this should results not be good enough. In many ways similar to what Norwich have done - they had the old school approach and it was in some ways successful for them under Lambert and Neil in getting up, but once Neil was sacked they took a step back, decided they wanted to go down this route and headhunted Webber from Huddersfield who was given a job and went out and employed Farke as head coach. Difference being that Norwich have local owners who take an interest but day to day the operation could be the same here. We appeared to be leaning towards such a structure when Paul Senior was appointed as D of F, although the timing - mid season - and whilst a manager was already in place hardly suggested a grand plan in place and his credentials and experience were dubious at best given he had never operated in that role before despite his ludicrous claims. However this was swiftly abandoned in favour of enhancing Mowbray's powers, the result being that recruitment has been entirely at Mowbray's behest and lets be honest it seems the majority of it he has got wrong. Who has been alongside Mowbray keeping signings in check? A D of F almost certainly wouldn't have allowed the fiasco with Brereton to happen, for example. The situation we're in now is exactly the one i was worried about months ago which I remember raising on here - the structure with Mowbray meeting the owners and having all power in his hands is fine - as long as results continue to be positive - but when things start to go wrong as they are - we are left in a precarious position. We're now terrified of making a managerial change as there's fear of who on earth Venkys will go for next and fear that the whole thing will then need rebuilding after Mowbray has gone. He was always going to go at some point sooner or later - whether that be tomorrow or in 4 years time - so the club should have a contingency plan in place at all times and be able to cope with such a departure - yet I doubt it does. All this nonsense with building up trust with the owners - presumably the new man whenever and whoever that might be - will have to go through the same process again of going off to India, meeting them, getting to know them etc. It is outrageous and unworkable. These days the manager/head coach cannot be the centre of the club. Especially not with foreign ownership and a lack of expertise at director/ownership level. So rather than just picking names of new managers out of a hat, when the time comes to bring a new man in I believe that we need to be putting in place this structure. This starts with someone going and finding a director of football who is going to take on this responsibility and letting that man deal with the owners and put his structure in place. Flowing from that would be a head coach and his staff - ideally along the lines of Wagner, Carvalhal or Jokanovic - or how about Stendel from Barnsley if they don't go up - or trust the D of F to be able to go and unearth someone from abroad who could do it. I won't hold my breath. It will be the same old boring rubbish when Mowbray does go. It will be Pasha and Waggott going and finding someone cheap and available who is prepared to go and kneel at Madame's feet and be a nice man and the circle will start all over again. The structure is inherently flawed and doomed to fail IMO and a quick look around rival clubs shows how far out of our depth we our with our cheap and cheerful setup.

Sadly I don't think there's anyone at the club who knows these things or has any interest in them. The only way anything like this would happen is if the Community Trust ran it (as they do with virtually everything these days) or if the Football League instructed them to do it e.g. Kick it Out day. Expecting someone at the Club to take the initiative in commemorating our former players is too much to ask, evidently.

I suspect because for the sake of this season we had to defend him and ensure he didn't go to jail. Also if he had been given a custodial sentence then his value would have plummeted. As the summer window comes into view eyes will be on a big sale if necessary and work building towards that begins.

Not quite. I accept they don't care what the fans think but they do go to significant lengths to build up an image of themselves. Time after time the manager or board members will credit the owners for their generosity, their support, tell us that they're desperate for the club to succeed. If supporters are led to believe that the problem isn't Venkys or Rovers but the source of all our ills is a player who has become a liability or a disruption and that player is subsequently sold then it is an easier sell, and avoids blame being laid at their door. If the player is as good as gold and worshipped by the supporters one or two would be peeved when he gets sold to a rival. We've seen it 4-5 times with Rovers players who attract interest from elsewhere. Marshall was the most obvious one - they managed to make him out to be a problem player, invented contract 'talks' that never came to anything so when he was sold to Wolves it was on the basis he was being hard work and our only choice was to let him go, when actually before that we'd been actively selling anyone who could raise a few quid. Even Rhodes ended up going to the press to express his unhappiness at their conduct and they managed to turn that around as Rhodes not wanting to be here and as a result we had to sell. Not saying that's what is happening here but I wouldn't rule it out either. If money is going to be tight and selling Dack is the key to raising funds or impressing the owners and persuading them to invest again then I'd expect to see more examples of his 'disruptive' behaviour going on between now and the summer, and also talk of him 'rejecting' a 'contract offer' which ultimately will convince people there's only one solution - a sale.

I agree with your figure of eight. However I don't think Venkys will, or certainly not at the calibre required. Downing, Rodwell, Reed, Gladwin and Conway are out of contract so there are five slots coming open, though I wouldn't be surprised to see Conway given an extension by default in the absence of us being able to find anyone else. A couple of those will be loans so my guess is a CB, CM and CF on permanent and then another midfielder and defender on loan. Doubt Venkys or Mowbray will have the appetite to make radical changes in fact Mowbray is probably afraid of doing this.

The only thing that might disrupt that comfortable arrangement is the presence of Pasha. If he's the one sending messages back to India then he might be able to bring a change. I think it was him who got rid of Bowyer and appointed Lambert despite us all being told Bowyer was safe through his relationship with Madame.