I think the well run club thing worked on a lot of people for a while. A new stadium, good commercial revenues, championship football, playoffs, cup runs, kept many happy, but since Dann & Fox it’s just got worse and folk have had enough.
Not sure many support Bonser now, think there is apathy but not support.
Is Swifty due a holiday or is Billy Bescot making a return?
Paul Downing missing from the Blackburn Rovers line-up tonight - not even on the bench… 
Portsmouth are in for Downing so that’s his likely destination…
Let’s hope he misses the West Midlands! Do they sell pork scratchings in Portsmouth?
Agreed. Fans put up with the relentless pragmatism while things were going okay but when we realised there was no ambition, signalled by selling off Dann and Fox, then things started to change. What made selling them even worse was that they were panic sales at prices well below their true worth, and to compound that, we didn’t even try to replace them and so lost out on a play-off place. What chairman sells 2 of his best players when his team is 4th in the league and with a realistic chance of promotion? Step forward our Number 1 fan! It’s time to change the business model, Jeef, this one ain’t working.
Unless we can find a few sailor’s to hang around on street corners,we can’t hope to compete with Portsmouth.
Remember also that the Damn / Fox debacle was compounded by an interview Bonser have to the local press with the infamous “Why shouldn’t I?” quote.
Where he admitted that he was going to take some of the money received from those sales to pay off part of his loans.
Not a good look when the guy who makes a decision to sell 2 of our best players is also personally getting something out of the deals. Makes a mockery of the clubs rationale at the time that they had no choice to sell. 
They had no choice, as long he wanted to trouser the proceeds.
January 2019 is July 2018 is January 2018, etc etc etc etc etc
No money
No players
No chips
No vision
No communication
The only difference is you can get ■■■■ on your Adidas Samba’s these days
I see Downing has gone to Doncaster Rovers today. What a signing that could have been. I’ve never really understood his detractors and he absolutely strolls into this side.
Would he stroll into the side like Sam Winnall strolled past him in the play offs?
No thanks. We need a no nonsense defender.
He was alright until he played against someone with a bit of height and power. Bradford away comes to mind 
True enough but he wasn’t the only one struggling that game. I still think he’s a massive upgrade on Guthrie and Johnson to be honest.
Yeah, he would. Because he was good enough to help get us there in the first place. Seem to remember Adam Hammill strolling past Rico Henry in that fixture as well. Id take him back as well 
It was pretty common though. Big strikers would bully him. Andy Cook would have a field day against Downing. I’d take him over what we have but that doesn’t mean he’s that good.
I feel he’s a bit underrated to be honest. He can’t have been that susceptible, he was part of a team that really should have gone up automatically. There were plenty of physical strikers knocking around then as well.
Sure Butler did a lot of the ugly stuff in their partnership, but then Downing could do things Butler couldn’t. He was much better footballer. I just find it amazing that, for me, our best CB pairing of the last 10 years is at Doncaster and we’ve got John Guthrie and two kids.
Butler wasn’t part of that team though? With the Downin/Butler partnership we finished 13th and 14th in the league I think.
It was Downing and O’Connor in THAT season. James O’conner was absolutely outstanding at CB, bailing Downing out many times. To be honest I don’t care if Downing’s a good footballer, He’s first and foremost a defender and he was alright. Nothing more nothing less for me.
Yeah I was trying to make two separate points. I started to edit then couldn’t be arsed lol
Point one being he can’t be that bad if he was in the team that finished 3rd. James O’Connor is a bit of a darling. He could do no wrong and Downing could do no right. Both played their part though.
Point two was that in my opinion he was part of the best centre back pairing we’ve had (with Butler) in the last 10 years but they both complemented each other well. And even forgetting that he was a good footballer, I think he was a better out and out defender than what we have now honestly. But they are at Doncaster and we have what we have.
Downing was a very good Footballer , head and shoulders above our current bunch of defenders.