We need the sort of start that Pakistan got yesterday. Not beyond Buttler, Hales and Salt, to be fair.

Yes a very decent performance so far by England. Need to maintain it for the last 5 overs here now.

India batting first - I have a feeling England will be chasing about 220 to win!

Because he’s a West Ham fan? Would make him want to score even more I should think.

I thought that too Joe

You have to take the credit for the goal mate. Well done. 😉😂💙🤍❤️

Vale 1-0 get in!

Best headline ever that one. Even the Sellick fans can laugh about it now!

I think it was Carlton Palmer who scored right at the end of injury time to make it 2-0 to Southampton. As the ball was hitting the back of the net I said to my lad “Roy will be sacked before he leaves the ground tonight”. Sure enough he was, Jack sacked him on the spot. It therefore made me laugh years later when he revealed he’d been sacked in the tunnel at Ewood Park not once but twice (the second time was as Liverpool manager after we had beaten them).

He doesn’t seem to have factored in us playing a weakened team tonight. Not much of a journalist is he? If Diaz is playing tonight I will be raging.

Well it had been 40 years since we last got beaten in Banjoland and it would certainly have been the same bogs, so probably about time they got replaced.

Pakistan played almost the perfect T20 game. It will be tough for England tomorrow but hopefully we can dismiss the two really dangerous Indian batsmen before they cause too much carnage.

The Jam - The Butterfly Collector One of the greatest B sides of all time.

Well, to be fair if he does that would make him a fickle player because he has shown absolutely no sign of doing that so far. Most people are simply commenting on what they have seen, which hasn't been good at all. As Keegan once said, "I would love it"...

I'm normally an advocate of playing a strong side in this kind of game, its a rare chance for Rovers to go deep into a cup competition, one in which we have had fairly recent success. However, given our opposition on Sunday I'll make an exception on this one occasion. As others have said, none of the intended first eleven for Sunday should be anywhere near London tonight and in fact that might also include a couple who are pencilled-in to be on the subs bench at t'Turd. Play the kids and leave the following at home: Kaminsky, Brittain, Hyam, S Wharton, Ayala, Pickering, Travis, A Wharton, Morton, Brereton, Gallagher, Hedges, Szmodics. I realise that it doesn't leave us with much, but we can still put a decent young team out plus Dack. Perm any eleven from Pears, Carter, Phillips, Mola, Batty, Buckley, Garrett, Dack, Dolan, Vale, Markanday, Hirst.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Purple Haze

The Jam - Wasteland

We are going round in circles here so I’ll make this my last word on the Dack situation. Nobody is arguing that he got his new deal solely ‘due to loyalty’ but it is undeniable that the club was loyal to him in the unfortunate circumstances he found himself in. It’s arguable that he was ‘on the cusp of first team football’ in any meaningful way when the deal was struck as he had literally only had half an hour in a kids’ game under his belt at that point, but the second injury makes that a moot point now. The only reason I got involved in this discussion at all is because a poster suggested that "other players would look at the way he has been treated and think twice before signing/re-signing for the Rovers", which I fundamentally disagree with. The only gripe he has is that the manager isn’t picking him often enough. Plenty of other players the world over will have the same complaint.

Tugay, Kendall, Cowans and Berkovic were absolute masters of that sort of pass. Lars Bohinen to a lesser extent too.

You’re arguing for the sake of it it would appear? At that point he had played just 45 minutes of an under 23 game after a career threatening injury and the club doubled his salary on a 2.5 year deal. And as it turned out it didn’t protect the Rovers at all, quite the opposite.

This is partly what I mean about the revisionism Matty. Regardless of where he may or may not have ended up if it wasn't for what happened at the Wigan game (and I agree with you he almost certainly would have ended up in the prem), he did get the injury. Rovers took a huge chance on the fact that he would get back to his best. Even Shearer wasn't the same player after he did his ACL.

This is slightly revisionist. Of course they were unaware of the second injury but at the time of offering him that new contract, a much-improved one I hasten to add, he had not yet recovered from the first injury (and he never really did, before he sadly suffered the second one). I seem to recall quite a few eyebrows being raised, including on this very message board, when he got such a long contract at that time. So yes, the club was 'incredibly loyal' to him, just as they were with several of the other senior pros who got us out of the third division, and mainly in the players' best interests, rather than the club's.

The club has been incredibly loyal to Dack. He got a lucrative new contract despite having not at that point proved his fitness (after the first injury). He just happens to be not featuring much in the manager's plans at the moment. There are literally thousands of players in the same boat in the professional game. If that latter reason puts other players off from signing for/staying with Rovers, they won't last very long as professional footballers.

Indeed. I was marvelling at the weight of pass that both Mecky and Tony Parkes consistently played up to the likes of Hutchins, Endean and Field. Especially taking into account the state of the pitches back then too. Superb players.

A couple of extremely dubious penalties there against us...