Bag of nerves. Fortunately we have players and management who know what it takes to win. We have to start fast and hard. We didn't against Charlton and Luton then couldn't step it up. Fully expect the game and result to be tight.

Which means provided we don't mess it up big time v Wigan there will be a decent walk on against Brum on Boxing Day regardless of the £3 mark up. I hope the club have sufficient staff in the ticket offices to cope because it would be a tragedy to have hundreds still outside at 3pm. Down the years regardless of what the average gate has been season to date, getting a 10,000 leap on Boxing Day is the norm if we are doing well. My forecast for this game is therefore 24,500. There is still an underlying 25,000 average gate available for Rovers in the Prem if we get there as the turn out v Oxford showed 20 months ago.

There were live national radio commentaries in those days for the second half of one chosen game. I remember my first experience of Rovers live was the second half of that infamous Cup tie at Oxford in the early '60s.

No. Much more than half the forward players in Prem club squads don't get to 10 in a season but their all round performance would merit a transfer valuation above whatever the number was for Ben. Still means this is serious kick on time for Ben now which if the thought is to protect his transfer value, the strategy should be to loan him to a Championship struggler with a requirement of a minimum number of starts. Sadly.Butterworth's injury screws that as well as Butterworth's own progress unless another striker is coming in.

Given a choice between £15m a year and an apology, I would vote for Brexit..

RIP

So the weekend games mean in reality we are simply playing catch up to keep on the tails of the play-off places on tomorrow evening.

Wednesday win; neither side anywhere near promotion quality on that showing...

One positive of the fans not having a clue what the side will be tomorrow night. Nigh on impossible for Cook to plan the Latics response..

Sheff Weds just tried a repeat of Johnson's goal last week. Bristol City again failed to defend it but Reach hit Row Z.

Hopefully playing entertaining football and giving Wigan a spanking...

You are not looking at Charlton dropping like a stone... Derby one point above them also share joint worst current form.

Agreed about 1977. In the 1974/5 promotion season, Gordon Lee's championship winners thrashed PNE 3-0 and Palace 3-1 at Ewood over the Christmas period which gave the whole town belief that this was our season.

Barnsley winning at Millwall tells us all we need to know about this one. Results today mean there are no giddy heights available if we prevail on Monday so hope remains undimmed...

Three games all on at the same time scheduled for TV I want to watch! 17.20 Solihull Moors v Barrow 17.30 Liverpool v Flamengo Man City v Leicester City

This is going to bring the ire of the board down on me. But from the moment Venkys wrote the terms of reference for the two sets of consultants who came to Ewood just after relegation in 2017, they started thinking big. The execution of their plans have hit problems in what their money has been spent on has not always worked but this is football. As owners you don't run a hell hole of a club for six years and be widely and rightly derided as joint worst owners in football then suddenly get the right to appoint football geniuses because you have accepted the findings of two sets of management consultants. Their plans are more gradual than fans would want but if we reach the Premier League and stay up their long term view of building and stability and fans' patience will have been rewarded. What we have been frustrated by is how Venky's subsidy has been spent. Rovers should have got more bang for their buck from £12m than we have seen so far. Equally Mowbray (and not the players) has dropped enough points already this season to be the difference between challenging the top two and being outside the play-offs. But if as owners you have spent 2011-2016 appointing utter dross in and out of the board room and manager's office, Tony Mowbray is going to be about the best you are going to have available to hire in the Spring of 2017.

If you didn't have a pre-formed opinion, then you would have bemoaned three instances of awful first touches but otherwise a pretty decent performance. The entire Bristol City team were bullied by the entire Rovers team, including Ben. As I wrote at the time, I was amazed to see it but I saw the start of a £12m strike partnership. It might become good enough to be a menace in the Championship but no way would it thrive in the Premier League.

I would take Raya back without a second thought.

We have got two sides - one which P5 W4 D1 L0 and a very different one which pulled off the best win of this season and probably several seasons back. Hope Mowbray doesn't split the difference and resurrect something approximating the confused bunch who played awfully and lost 8 times.

Just looked at the global football fixtures. We are almost the only game of any consequence anywhere on Monday evening. We had better put on a decent show...

Just south of Blackburn

Only 4th worst Manager in the PL this decade

What this chat does do is remind us that if Tony serves up another Charlton or Luton on Monday night, all the grievances are coming straight out of the locker. Forewarned should be fore-armed.

The players he rested were clearly suffering from knocks and exhaustion by the end of the previous game. It still doesn't obviate the fact the team at Charlton had by far the best of the game. We got thrashed at Plymouth, not at Charlton.

We did try to win the League One title. I can think of five games towards the end of that season when we had promotion winners good fortune. Quite simply our luck ran out at Charlton. We were comfortably the better side but lost unlike at Plymouth where we deservedly lost to the better side on the day who were enjoying a purple patch.