StHelensRover

John Buckley, local, academy product, I'm sure he's a lovely lad. Putting him on a plinth with the likes of Garner, Shearer, Dalglish. Clayton, Douglas and the rest, is brain-dead from this football club and makes a mockery of the whole thing. How would he make the cut of 'legends' at England's tenth most successful football club? Could this anniversary season have been any more tinpot?

Almost certainly a B*rnley fan

Fair enough, just goes to show how where we are in the ground means we sometimes see things very differently. For example, from where I was last night, I couldn't see that the foul on Ohashi was in the box, so wasn't that upset during the game as I wasn't aware until Valerian ranted about it at FT.

On the 'last man, red card' incident, I saw it from the back corner of the Blackburn End. It wasn't the best view in the ground, but no one around me seemed particularly angry and upset when a yellow card was brandished rather than a red one. From where I was stood, it wasn't clear he was definitely the last man or that it was a clear goalscoring opportunity, there wasn't the chants of "off off off" etc. Having seen it again, I can see why it wasn't given.

The issue with these figures for most of us fans is that on paper they look 'good'. The Venky-clapping "no one else would ever want to own us" fans can laud their financial prudence for keeping the lights on and the players being paid. The figs look good to the footballing authorities - everything legal and above board, so nothing to see here. The figs look good to any journalists and fans of other clubs. "Why do Blackburn Rovers fans always complain about their owners, they still think it's 1995". I feel like we're being subjected to a fifteen year long psychological experiment. We can see the dismantling, downgrading and deterioration of the football club down to the husk it is now, but the rest of the world will just see Kieran Maguire's tweet about how our revenue is up and our losses are down and move on.

You beat me to it, he has the nous, touch, turning circle and understanding of the offside rule, of an ox.

If we don't win this match comfortably the manager needs to go.

There's no scapegoats, everything is ultimately the fault of our owners. Gueye is a very poor footballer but we've had quite a specific concentration of those in the last 15 years as opposed to the previous 135 years. Danny Murphy, Myles Anderson and so on. I don't think many fans see Gueye as the main issue at the club, he's just a symptom of how we are run.

We're just a soft target aren't we? Away fans love coming to Ewood Park, it's always rated as one of the best away days in the football league. Nothing to do with Blackburn being a lively place to visit, it's because most clubs know they can have as many tickets as they want, up to 7000, and that the home crowd is so deflated, sparse and spread out around the big empty stadium that it's effectively like a home game for the away team. I get to about half of our away games and supporting us away from home has been so much more enjoyable in the last few years, even though we probably pick up fewer points on average (this season excluded).

Appointed at the beginning of March, we're now into December. This guy has managed 14 competitive matches at Ewood Park. We have won 3 of them. It's an aberration. During that time he's nodded along without complaint while his bosses have gutted the team of any experience and replaced players as cheaply as possible. One or two of the replacements look like they will make the grade (Alebiosu and Gudjohnsen), they'll probably be sold on as soon as possible at a profit. The majority are horrific and shouldn't be playing at this level Now people are loving this manager because he's waved a sheet of paper on TV and screeched about referees. 3 home wins in 9 months is all because of referees is it? I do and don't want him sacked, can't make my mind up. He's useless and taking us nowhere, but the clowns who appointed him would only appoint another mediocre yes-man.

That image is yet another embarrassment heaped on this football club. It's also extremely 'memeable' and will no doubt come back to haunt him and us. You can now edit anything on to that sheet of paper for a laugh, maybe it will eventually be 'P45' come May, or maybe not.

We don't have a choice, we have to accept them. We can't go back and 'correct' any bad decisions, so complaining is pointless. One angry manager's tirade won't change the level of reffing, regardless of how poor it is. Every team gets a handful of stinkers against them over the season, ours just seem to have come all in a short space of time. It's bad luck, but crying about it on TV and using it as an excuse for being 18th in the league is pathetic imo. When we eventually get one of those controversial decisions going in our favour, there is not a cat in hell's chance he will be on TV saying we didn't deserve to win, that were just very lucky and that refs are awful. The suggestion that the referee was biased towards Ipswich because they were recently in the Premier League is extremely pathetic, so I won't accept those comments from a Blackburn Rovers manager, it's embarrassing. He will probably get a fine for this and he deserves it. I still remember in the early 2000s when West Brom fans turned up at Ewood on the last day of the season and staged some bizarre protest against referees because they argued that they had been relegated because of bad decisions against them - Not because they had been shite. That's what this reminds me of. Laughable.

I think we're at the point with Gueye that it would be better to get some youngster we haven't heard of out of the academy and stick them on for the last 20. At least they would run about and look busy. They can't be worse.

His post match presser is bonkers. He goes on a 4-5 minute rant about referees and produces a list he has been keeping of decisions that went against us. Hopefully he gets banned for Saturday's game, so we can start the same XI and he can't change it if we score. I don't really know what he expects to happen as a result of his list and rant. Is he hoping to be invited to St George's Park to devise a new reffing course? I thought it was embarrassing. You never see successful managers on bitter rants like that, was Kevin Keegan stuff.

Another masterclass from Val again. It'll be the refs fault today though I reckon. Let's see. Referee was poor but he didn't stick the ball in the back of our net. How many matches has Val been in charge of at Ewood Park and how many have we won? Not including friendlies or Old Etonians

That's not bad luck that's negligence on the part of the manager, recruitment, board and owners.

We concede so many late goals. We are weak mentally, poorly organised and cannot concentrate for 90 mins. That's what our level of investment and our dud of a manager gets you. Magical substitutions again from Val, is he drawing lots in the dugout to decide who, where and when? Why have we taken off the only player capable of scoring, again? Gueye is getting worse every week. Complete passenger, embarrassment to the shirt. Did absolutely f-all and then was trying to "gee up" the Blackburn end when it was still 1-0, he wouldn't get in a league one side. Referee wasn't great so that will be Val's ready made excuse. The starting eleven is just about good enough for this level (just!), but the rest of the squad is dogger. Sick of watching away fans celebrating at Ewood every home game. The atmosphere is miserable at Ewood because the club is miserable at every level. Thanks Val, Rudy, Pasha and Venkys 👍

I just remembered something else he said on radio lancs today which I didn't really understand. It may have been a bit lost in translation, not sure. He said something along the lines of "I wish we had conceded the equaliser earlier rather than right at the death". I don't know why that makes a difference, maybe he thought that would give us chance to still go on and score again. Usually when a team pulls level against us, they go on and get another. So f*** knows what he was getting at.

From his social media account just now

Captain Donkey and his donkey subs have cost us yet again. Made a triple substitution on Weds against QPR with a third of the game left. We immediately conceded a goal and barely threatened the opposition afterwards. Was a while back but I seem to remember the exact same happening against Sheff Utd. Made his subs today with a third of the game left, we suddenly stopped offering any attacking threat whatsoever and camped in our own half until Wrexham scored. Yes the squad is paper thin and the bench stinks the place out, but that's all partly his fault, alongside his pals Gestede and Pasha. He's clueless. I can only remember his subs having a positive impact once, 9 times out of 10 they make us much worse. He's a dud.

Walking out the ground and that feels like a loss. Wrexham are not very good and we blew it in such typical fashion. Cannot believe we haven't scored a second goal in that game to kill it. I got flak on here last week for suggesting that Gueye is one of worst players we have ever signed, apparently Kevin Davies was worse. I'm doubling down on it. He is horrendous by any measure.

I agree. Many people who live in the 'Bolton area' probably live as close to Old Trafford as they do to the Breezeblock, which is closer to Wigan than Bolton. There's load of people in Blackburn who glory hunted toward the likes of Manchester and Liverpool, so it's surely worse in Bolton, given how much closer it is to Manchester. Bolton has also lost much of its identity in recent years as a town in its own right, instead being part of 'Greater Manchester'. I think that probably makes it difficult to attract younger fans. As you say, our two clubs have had similar sized attendances over the decades until quite recently. They have good owners and a good pricing strategy. We have terrible owners and a poorer pricing strategy, which isn't the worst in the league, but it's not as good as theirs.

From behind the sofa. (It's not on UK TV so there's no official way of watching. Can't comment on unofficial ways)

The Bolton one is the example I think is most galling for us as it shows how to get it right with the fanbase. Despite them being in a lower division, I strongly reckon their fans are generally much happier overall, enjoy match days more and are more optimistic about the long term future of their club than Rovers fans. Their stadium is almost full every week and it's pretty much all down to the cheap season tickets that they've had for several years now. Bolton is a slightly bigger town than Blackburn but it's also closer to the big Manchester clubs, so they are doing very well on their attendances. They wil eventually get out of that division and back into ours. With all the positive momentum that they will build, they'll probably fancy getting back into the top flight eventually. Something which no one has even got close to at Ewood Park for 13 years.