Must win game this one for me. Some might say that's dramatic or hysterical or an over-reaction to last night or that a draw would be a good point away from home but really given the performance last night, 2 points dropped v Forest on Saturday and with the fixtures coming up later this month we need a win here to fall back on. Leeds home and Swansea/WBA away will be tough, though not mission impossible, but Bolton provides by far our best opportunity of a win. We cannot allow a rot to set in and the wins to dry up as unbeaten spells full of draws won't get you very far. That's why Rotherham aren't far behind even though they've lost 3x the games we have.

I also enter via Turnstile L. I assume that the near 8000 strong Leeds contingent will be all getting searched on the turnstiles before our game against them?

I was also searched on the turnstiles of the Jack Walker lower tier on Saturday v Forest. Not impressed in the slightest. A season ticket for 22 years and for the first time for unknown reasons I am being searched on arrival.

Is that our aim? Who has declared that as our target? I don't know. What is mid-table? Bruce and McCarthy have between them 6 promotions from this league in the last 10 years or so. Not to mention play-off campaigns. McCarthy's football supposedly outdated yet look what is happening to Ipswich now he's gone - they're sinking just as expected. How would you describe our tactics tonight? That was as boring and long ball as I've seen from anyone. Mowbray has done well, but we need to focus on the here and now and results/performances this season. I'm less concerned by our defeat tonight as I am by consistently conceding goals and letting points slip from good positions v Ipswich, Villa, Forest and very nearly Stoke which is a big problem that needs sorting out. Mowbray was praised after last season because he delivered his target. He has been praised this season after some good results. He will be criticised after a poor result and performance. That's his and the players' job. If there wasn't criticism then we would never learn or improve.

Think it would take an unbelievable offer to even begin to make Allardyce think about managing in the Championship. IF he wants to manage again he will have 2-3 Premier League clubs queuing up for him by the end of the year with a massive bonus for survival on offer. Villa may tempt him as he's from that area but from what I gather he's ready to hit the sunbed and stay there. It took a LOT of money from Everton to get him to come back out of retirement.

No complaints about the result. Sheffield better than anyone else I've seen this season. Interesting part being that they were in League One just over a year ago and haven't spent big to get where they are. Mowbray has talked repeatedly about how much money Villa, Derby, Stoke and Forest have. He can't play that excuse tonight so the talk is about how they're a year ahead of us. I think our side cost more than Sheffield's. Wonder what the excuse will be ahead of Bolton. Frustrating that the seemingly inevitable breakthrough for them came out of minimal pressure and at a time we seemed to be getting a grip on the game but that's us all over - conceding when we're least expecting it. They expertly saw the game through which is something else we need to learn quickly rather than keep throwing points away from winning positions. 3 points needed Saturday or it's looking over the shoulder time.

Be interesting to see who Villa go for next. No real obvious quality candidates out there. Very few with successful Championship track records e.g. McCarthy. If they didn't like Bruce they won't like Mick. No way they'll go for a lower division manager. Looks like they'll be going foreign with a marquee appointment but their last couple of foreign appointments were disastrous in Garde and Di Matteo. Would be nice if their billionaire owner made Dyche an offer he couldn't refuse.

Mowbray's modus operandi appears to be to big up the opposition whenever possible. Only today he was telling everyone what big, ambitious fantastic clubs Villa, Derby, Stoke and Forest are. That sort of language has never sat well with me. I'll cut him some slack as it's results I'm interested in but I don't want to hear the manager of Blackburn Rovers talking about what a big and ambitious club Stoke City are. Not only is it wrong but it is quite insulting.

Sounds like Bruce has gone. Good news as far as I'm concerned as I can't see Villa getting anyone better in the Championship. Think they were nailed on for the top 6, now anything could happen.

2,000 sold as of lunchtime. By my reckoning that's the full 4 blocks behind the goal in the lower tier now full. Perhaps another couple of hundred or so left before segregation in the lower tier. Assuming those sell out in the next couple of days will they bother opening the upper tier or will they just take tickets off sale? We usually park at the Barnstormers pub or in that area, coming from the M61 pass the ground on your left and do a right onto an industrial estate.

Four times, twice with Birmingham, twice with Hull, play off final in his only full season at Villa where they lost narrowly to a strong Fulham side. Villa fans weren't bothered about his Birmingham history when he was appointed as they felt he was the best man for the job, even last week when they came to Ewood they were singing his name in the first half. They're a fickle bunch who like West Ham and Newcastle for some reason always think they are entitled to better than they get and always target someone to blame for their position rather than just accepting that is where they deserve to be. They hated O'Leary even though he took them to 6th, turned on O'Neill after he didn't get them into the top 4, hated McLeish before he even started, hated Lambert even though he kept them up for 3 seasons, hated Sherwood even though he kept them up and took them to the FA Cup final and now they're turning on Bruce. Unpleasant with delusions of grandeur. If you set aside their European cup, which when they lifted it was very different to doing it today, and they've won one more trophy in England than we have since WW1 ended. A League Cup. Massive.

It's probably going to hit the smaller League Two clubs before the Championship ones. The likes of Stanley rely heavily on gates and away followings. We're approaching a stage where it is going to be easier and cheaper for away fans to stay at home and watch the match on IFollow for £10 than it is to travel to Accrington midweek, pay £15-20 for a ticket to stand on the open terrace and get home in the middle of the night. They'll get away with it, at least for the time being, in the Championship because the amount of TV cash sloshing around offsets whatever harm is done to attendance and atmosphere, but lower down I doubt it is so easy. Last night a Doncaster fan could sit at home on his computer and pay £10 to watch the match, or take time off work and spend £50+ on tickets, travel and food travelling to Accrington to watch the game in person. Same goes for Swansea v Rovers however I doubt Swansea are going to be too bothered if a couple of hundred Rovers fans don't bother going, whereas that sort of thing will hurt clubs like Accy and Morecambe.

Your calculations the other day were interesting. If we're only giving Leeds 6,800 then we're leaving 1000+ seats empty in the DE. If we set the limit at 5,500 (still more than any other Championship club offers) we'd have a large away following to cash in on whilst also not giving them the full DE (avoiding the 12 noon kick off nonsense) and would also in theory be able to keep home fans in the DE. It seems for the sake of 1,200 or so extra away fans Rovers think it is worth shutting the DE to home fans and moving kick off to noon thus reducing the number of home fans in the ground. Meanwhile if they were really so obsessed with having as many away fans as possible there are 1,000 empty seats in the DE that they could sell for £30 each - why are they being left empty?

Bruce getting some real unfair stick but not really surprising given the club he's at and the people in the media who love to stir it up. I don't really like the bloke but he's right, it is disrespectful and a symptom of the modern day trigger happy twitter/FIFA/Championship manager world we live in. Incredible stat mentioned last night - in Bruce's last 6 Championship seasons he's been promoted 4 times and reached the play-off final last year where they lost narrowly to Fulham. Should Villa be getting promoted? Arguably, given the squad they have and money they've spent, but there are another 5 or 6 who have invested heavily too. Being a 'big club' is utterly irrelevant and its amazing how many people still cannot understand that having 30,000 a week turning up means nothing in terms of winning games. They had a similar start last season and then ended up in promotion contention throughout and reached the play-off final.

Not sure on Smith. Never won promotion, never managed at a big(ish) club, had plenty of time to do it his way at Brentford which he wouldn't get at Villa. Mark Warburton did just as well if not better at Brentford, yet he doesn't seem to get a mention these days. Villa fans are delusional. Remember them moaning about Martin O'Neill when he delivered three consecutive top 6 finishes because he hadn't got them into the top 4. Never happy.

Think I'd sooner stick with Bruce to be honest. For their supposed dreadful start they're only a few points off the top 6. I'm sure he'll have them in the play-offs, at least. The next few days might see a couple of heads roll with the international break providing an opportunity to appoint a replacement. I reckon Ipswich will stick with Hurst for now but Rowett at Stoke and Neil at Preston must be on very thin ice. Those nutters at Hull might make a change soon too.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/october/ticket-news-swansea-city-a/ On sale from today, just £30 each for adults. 5 hour+ each way trip on a Tuesday night, on the red button. Do they want any travelling fans to bother or would they just prefer home season ticket holders and the tv cash?

Got to laugh at Ken Anderson's notes on Bolton's website tonight moaning about falling crowds at their place and saying he's hoping for a bumper attendance v Rovers on Saturday. Meanwhile their fans are being charged as much if not more than we are for a ticket for a match that is live on TV. Another one that must be completely out of touch with reality if he thinks folk in this corner of the world are going to queue up to pay £30-£35 for televised Championship football. Also heard we'll be selling Swansea away tickets shortly at £30 each. Tuesday night on the red button. Almost as though they're trying to persuade people not to bother going. Clubs will just count the coin and carry on. Disgusting.

It seems so, yes. For some reason we persist with being one of the last to release details.

We'd sold about 1800 this afternoon which seems to have been a surge over the last week having only sold 600 before open sale. If we could get to 2500 or more we've done alright considering pricing and tv.

Part of the appeal and allure of football, certainly in years gone by, was that you could make a late decision on the day to wander down to the ground and get on just before kick off without any hassle. The game managed quite well from 1880s through to 2000s without matchday surcharging and without ticket only stadia, when blokes could decide an hour or two before kick off to walk on and pick their stand at the last minute. Modern day gimmicks like matchday surcharges stem from one thing - control - clubs and authorities want to control everything in advance - they want to be able to plan ahead and know what is coming rather than running any risks. Same when providing database details or logging in online when buying - all part of a grand plan for everyone to be on the system and their activities registered. Places like Man Utd you can get away with it but in the 2nd tier when you've 20,000 empty seats its absolutely pointless, as even if we had 7,000 turn up at 2pm we should be able to accommodate them all easily and safely. I don't know many theatres or cinemas where you get charged more on the day for a ticket than the night before. Trains is a futile comparison as people have little to no alternative in terms of getting around the country. Attending a football match is very different.

There's 'young people' everywhere. You could equally argue that Nottingham is a far more competitive place to try and entice them in as it is a city with all sorts of forms of entertainment to occupy 'young people' on a Saturday than getting them down to the football. They are also a club that has had no success of any note for 30 years and hasn't even been in the top division for 20 years. I think Ewood looks appalling on matchdays really. Even under Gary Bowyer, when home gates were barely any bigger than they are at the moment, just having home fans in the Darwen End and BBE Upper made the whole ground feel fuller and a better atmosphere. Looking at the BBE with the upper tier shut and about 3000 in the lower tier is dreadful. Again, what sort of club responds to a promotion by bumping prices up across the board and shutting a home area down? Rather than set our stall out to increase sales massively it seems to me that a conclusion had been reached before we even started that we were aiming low by closing more areas and aiming to milk existing ticket holders whilst deterring new ones. 17% hike is not a small figure. The whole thing needs a radical re-think, because the atmosphere and ground on a matchday is tired and poor. For me it needs fresh ideas all around rather than just repeating the same old formula that we've had for 20 years. The Upper BBE is dead space. That should be promoted as some form of youth zone or something. Not a family stand but somewhere people between 15 and 25 can go for a heavily subsidised rate.

I see some similarities between Sheffield United and ourselves. Both recently promoted from League One, both seem to have spells of playing some exciting football, both suspect defensively, both teams that have been assembled on limited funds in comparison to most. Could do with 4 points from the next 2 to keep momentum going into the international break. Any less than 3 from 6 this week and I'll be disappointed. Think this one will be more difficult than Villa or Forest despite them not having the over the top media frenzy behind them.

Rather than erase him from history it is important to remember him. I'm sure him and his associates would love it if everyone forgot about him and pretended he had never happened whilst he suns himself somewhere using his ill-gotten gains. Some things can't and won't be forgotten. It's a lesson we all need to remember. Isn't it strange though how he hasn't managed to get work in the UK since Rovers. Owen Coyle, despite a succession of disastrous jobs, still manages to find work in management and in the media, yet Kean is nowhere to be seen. He had big fans like Ferguson, Moyes, Rodgers all keen to stick up for their mate who haven't offered him a job since then. Interesting. Brunei though, perfect if you've a lot of cash needs stashing away....

One suggestion would be that 1875 members get a significant reduction in the price of a ticket. Not just exemption from the surcharge or whatever it is they get. I'm not sure what benefits there are at present to membership. I am very unhappy that I've effectively been forced into getting membership and paying an extra £10 on top of my season ticket increase just to enable me to be first in the queue for away tickets. My purchasing history should ensure I get priority, not signing up to some daft 'club' which has very few worthwhile benefits. I'm not interested in going to the training ground or winning a copy of FIFA. Club Cash is no use when stock has run out in the shop by mid-September and tracksuit bottoms are costing £50. That's another way of getting around the away fan issue - offer high ticket prices but with a significant reduction if an 1875 member. That way we can continue to milk the away followings but also provide a way for home fans to get on for a reasonable price.