Oh absolutely. I certainly wouldnt advocate his signing, him, Downing and Johnson down the left would be over a combined aged of 100. Was just pointing out that even at his age if it was between him and Bell I would still go for Brunt even now.

All very true. To be fair, even if the governing bodies were willing and had the integrity they repeatedly mention, if most of next season is BCD then even they would struggle to maintain of all its clubs. Never mind what we have now!

Do you really believe that will happen? Even if they were willing, where is this big pot of surplus money coming from in this economic climate to kindly donate millions and millions to do all of this testing?! Id love you to find when I said that. Ive always been skeptical and dismissive of your fantasy world notion that the money solely from a TV deal that itself has presumably been affect will suffice in trickling down and keeping every club financially stable. I am a big football fan like yourself and months into lockdown I am yes watching some Bundesliga football. As you would if had the channel to do so. What you seem to be unable to realise (or just solely are using to try and get a reaction) is that it doesnt mean that I am not brimming full of excitement, or aware enough to realise how serious a situation we are in, obviously overall but in this instance in terms of the going concern of many football clubs. I am aware of why BCD is the only alternative to nothing at all but I can understand that and indeed watch BCD football without trying to make out as if the world is rosy, rubbing my hands together embracing the new "TV sport" claiming that I often dont notice fans anyway and without realising how precarious things are the longer it goes on.

Definitely not a signing id go for and well past his best by all accounts. Just adding 2 and 2 with the Mowbray connection. Its not a compliment to say that hes better than Bell. Its a given.

So has Ben Brereton. Jason Lowe was England under 21 captain! Bell is shite. For me giving him a contact is throwing money down the drain. One player who I can see spending his last season playing behind closed doors football for his mate Mowbray is another ancient player with a sweet left foot, Chris Brunt who has been released by West Brom. Not who I would go for but would take over Bell.

There has to be better players even out of contract or on loan than Bell who has been aggravating us all for 2 and a half years with his ineptness and constant mistakes.

Theres no way that League 1 and 2 clubs already in a constant financial battle to survive can host either part or very realistically a full season of football, paying a squad a wage every month, having to sign extra players, without any ticket money and with the additional headache of testing costs which are huge. The idea of money trickling down is a nice one but a flawed and fanciful one to be honest. Should there be a duty of care to save the smaller clubs? Absolutely. Will there be? Almost certainly not in both deplorable and understandable ways. They couldnt save one club between them in Bury before all of this. How would it all work? Plus with themselves having cuts in TV money, no ticket income, cost of testing etc, many teams might say they cant. Take Burnley, they made a profit of only 4m, they will presumably make a big loss and their usual way out would be to sell a player. But there wont be a market for that The loan idea is hardly revolutionary either. Clubs at that level are already often reliant on loan players anyway, Bolton have had 9 players on loan already this season. Considering that you can only include 5 in a matchday squad, they would still need to sign up some new players and pay them a wage. Ultimately you can naively and ignorantly dismiss the ongoing doubt as moaning @chaddyrovers but ultimately you yourself havent offered any proper solutions either. The reason being that whilst BCD is the only option time may run out on clubs and there is no way of stopping that really. We just have to hope fans can attend as soon as possible. You are so desperate to see some football that you arent looking at the bigger picture.

Sensible considering his performances this season and with money at a premium. The one player out of contract who desperately needs to stay. Graham is an interesting one, I think ordinarily he would need to go, but with the cost of the pandemic hitting and the alternatives being Gallagher and Brereton we may have little choice but to sign him up. Bell, Smallwood, Samuel and Leutwiler should be let go for sure.

I do love this idealistic, fanciful notion that the reduced TV money received from the Premier League is going to trickle down to the lower leagues and save the day and support all 91 league clubs. On what basis are the Premier League clubs going to be obliged to help out not just one solitary club but a couple of leagues full of them? They arent going to. Plus to be fair, their own income, whether it be reduced TV deals and of course a lack of ticket income, plus the sky high cost of all this testing factored in, they might not be able to afford to as easily. The cost of potentially a whole season of testing would be sky high, even the top clubs might struggle with that. Plus the clubs especially in League 2 will have a high player turnover with many players on one year deals. So they will need to actively sign players as per normal to play the season. Next season could be the killer really. This season the one saving grace has been that its only a quarter of a season which they are rushing through as quickly as possible. I suspect that if BCD is here for a while then the TV deals may also suffer as the demand wont be the same.

No.

No I would be pleased but also thinking "how typical has this brilliant season happened and weve missed out on seeing it." I also wouldnt necessarily say that I disagree with the concept of BCD. I appreciate that its a necessity and my post wasnt necessarily critical at anyone.

I will be watching yeah, and I understand why it has to be this way. At the moment, the very poor alternative of BCD is better than nothing at all. I just am struggling to get excited about it and am wondering if others have similar conflicting feelings.

Fair enough. Out of interest, how much of your excitement, anticipation, desperation, tension etc do you think would fade/wane if the following was to happen, a season to cherish amidst the majority of uneventful/desperate seasons, and you was unable to go, to participate, to be a part of it, to see the whole fanbase cherish it, all in front of absolutely no one: a) The game in which a play off place was clinched b) The journey via the semi final c) The final, victory at Wembley, a ground we have not been to for 28 years d) The reward of Premier League football, quite possibly for a solitary season, going to Old Trafford, the Emirates, the new Tottenham Stadium, Anfield and course Turf Moor (all potentially behind closed doors) Of course you have said that you are excited to see football back very soon, that is fair enough and dont get me wrong, I will be watching plenty. I personally cannot see past the elephant in the room, I feel like I will miss out either way, either Rovers will fall short, very likely, or Rovers will pull it off and I and every other fan will miss out. Maybe thats slightly selfish in a way on my behalf, but to me, there wouldnt be much difference in watching BCD v Man City, Man United and especially Burnley or Barnsley, Millwall and Luton.

It is an interesting topic regarding missing football. I watch plenty of football culminating in going to Rovers games so I expected it to leave a huge and immediate hole in my life and I dont think ive missed it nearly as much as I expected. Maybe its the timing. I never felt having never been in the top 6 all season that we had a realistic chance of finishing the season there, overcoming the 4 teams currently ahead of us in the race for 6th. Did anyone? There are not many games left, indeed now the season would have been finished almost a month ago. As a neutral, the top 2 divisions in England were the ones I watch the most, and the title in the Premier League and the top 2 in the Championship were done and dusted really. So was there much more football to be genuinely excited about between the start lockdown and now? Not really. Behind closed doors football is nothing to look forward to, I dont get how anyone can claim otherwise. I just see it as going through the motions until football returns properly. I am sure I will tune in but is anyone excited about June 20th? Really?

There is more chance of Brereton scoring the winner in the play off final statistically I would suggest.

Plenty of stories perhaps casting doubt over a successful resumption of the football season in this country. As @Mattyblue pointed out QPR are kicking off, Lee Bowyer was also complaining saying that 3 of his players including his best player Lyle Taylor arent willing to play. Also, many teams want relegation to be removed: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11661/11998347/premier-league-restart-up-to-10-clubs-want-relegation-scrapped-if-season-is-curtailed If you remove relegation then it is even more going through the motions and you may aswell just null and void it.

Youve not answered my question. If that was the case why isnt it free all the time? If people want to watch they will buy Sky and/or BT if they dont have it already. If they cant afford it then they cant afford it. A bit like anything in life.

It makes little sense to me. Just because the government has done it isnt a reason as to why. Is it to peddle this "boost the nations morale" farfetched nonsense mentioned previously? As if the nations habits regarding lockdown will majorly change because some behind closed doors football is on free to air TV. Surely resuming is a financial decision to ensure that clubs still bet TV money from companies such as Sky and BT.

https://mol.im/a/8374755 Genuinely considering putting in FIFA 20 sound effects. That is a bonkers idea.

Surely the primary reason to finish the season is financial which would make the choice to have all games free to air as conflicting? The mathematical formula should not be an option full stop and if that does happen to promote a team to a completed league then that will be an outrage.

The standard has been higher than I expected but still not quite at 100% and on behalf of all key stakeholders the edge has not been there. Player professionalism will ensure the games are of good standard I admit but it does very much feel like going through the motions overall. When a goal goes in everything is very subdued. Obviously there is probably a dual instinct of not having supporters to celebrate in front of, and also the fact that at the end of the season and all of the time in between, it is all in an atmosphere no different to training, even if and when they are lifting a trophy. Surely based on your overall stance you would agree that behind closed doors is no more than a temporary best alternative and not a full substitute though which is my point really.

No football is a TV sport in the way that behind closed doors football will be, no. Now it will ONLY be a TV sport. I struggle to empathise with fans who support big teams and just watch on tv as they cannot get the same degree of enjoyment from their team as we do but you are missing the point. Its not the fact as to whether a game is on TV. Even if every game was on tv, thats not the change to focus on, its having fans present or not in the ground. Say a Liverpool fan only watches on TV, and couldnt find Anfield if his life depended on it, it would still massively dampen his feeling even watching on TV as per usual if Henderson lifts that Premier League trophy in front of fans, and even the open top bus parade etc, over going through the motions to fulfill the fixtures and win in an echoey and empty stadium. It wont feel the same and neither will the run of games leading to it, and thats my point. You are somewhat accepting that it will be a worse experience because you cant attend but not fully. Go back to the run in during League 1, some of the games and tenseness, say it got to the last few games and we was right in the hunt, it is IMPOSSIBLE to replicate that feeling behind closed doors. Your comment about often not noticing fans is inaccurate on many levels. The bit that I dont think you appreciate is that its not just the fact that you are there or not there. Theres no burst of celebration when a goal goes in anymore, its very sanitised. Theres no late pressure in a hunt for an equaliser with the crowd sucking the ball into the net. Theres far less pressure. Theres no edge. Its not the same. Your point that youd prefer to watch behind closed doors on TV over nothing is a fair and valid one if you appreciate that behind closed doors football is nothing like what it was before. You can accept that even though you know and understand that its the only possible way at the moment.

I hate the phrase "new normal" because it implies a permanent change. I see behind closed doors now as an unfortunate and massively inferior temporary substitute that hopefully will be for a short a time span as possible. Firstly it is a mistruth to suggest that football is already a TV sport is a mistruth. Whilst the amount of football moved for TV is more than ever, showing matches in front of fans very much part of the experience. Now, unfortunately it is a case of teams fulfilling fixtures as a matter of course, going through the motions. Before all of this, I would occasionally watch foreign football but it felt like it meant something before, even as a neutral with a passive interest it is chalk and cheese. The difference between big and small is even bigger, players no longer treat goals with euphoria and it all feels routine. Not only is the player and fan connection removed from individual games, which has led to less late goals I believe, but its obvious that everyone knows that as much as they are being as professional as possible, it isnt the same. Throw in the personal interest of watching my own team and I suspect I will be even more conflicted and the difference will be even more stark. In your head you will be watching snug in your armchair but everything else will be exactly the same. If Rovers made the play offs and you didnt feel a hint of annoyance that you was missing out then surely you wouldnt be human. I have been watching behind closed doors football because theres very little to do in lockdown and even if it is only half as good as normal it is still football to watch. Ill be watching English football once it resumed but that doesnt mean I am considering it anywhere near what is on offer with supporters present.

You have admitted that it wont be the same in that so fair play, finally maybe the penny is dropping! That was my main point.

I know it is short term going to become a sport only accessible via TV. The thing is, you dont have to pretend that a match played in front of an empty stadium is no different. You dont have to make out as if the end result ie teams winning trophies etc is the same in front of an empty stadium. You dont have to staunchly big up behind closed doors football. You can accept it as a necessity whilst admitting that it is nowhere near as compelling as with supporters in the stadium. It is also not the same as a one off game behind closed doors, it is the rest of a season behind closed doors and almost certainly another season. If you think you are going to be engrossed in our run in in exactly the same way as you would was you to attend all of the games, potentially go to Wembley etc, then IMO you are either deluded and trying to fool yourself, or totally naive and the reality will set in once the football returns. Drop the superfan, behind closed doors officianado, accept and admit that it ISNT going to be the same, that whilst its a necessity it isnt going to be as enjoyable or feel as important, and youll get more respect. I suppose like with all industries, the financial importance of returning even if it is not initially the same is the driving force. They have obviously weighed it up, and once they perhaps prematurely dropped the issues regarding health and morals, it was a decision between refusing to start up again out of principle or making do with the diluted alternative of behind closed doors football, knowing that SOME income streams can be maintained by doing that, and taking the latter as the favourable option, rightly or wrongly. The post pandemic consequences are certainly an interesting topic. I hope that the phrase "new normal" isnt a thing forever and indeed it does revert back to normality at some stage. You make an interesting point about legalities such as the 3pm blackout and whether it will even be possible to reverse that back to being a rule once this is allover. Another point, some of the steps English football are apparently considering are a bit cringeworthy and should not be implemented, half time interviews, behind the scenes changing room footage, crowd noise, crap like this I am opposed to, we can accept that behind closed doors football is not a patch on normal football, have it pretty much how the Bundesliga is running things as very much a poorer substitute, but these TV driven fads wont make a difference in terms of making up an insurmountable deficit that is caused by not having supporters involved in the games.