Phileas Fogg

Ugh, I really really want LJ to succeed. Would hate it to go wrong for him. Really hope we turn it round this half.

On my way to intervene

Have a feeling Wilbraham will start tonight. LJ emphasised the need for leaders in the team during his press conference and with O'Neil out we will require a bit of experience and composure tonight.

Definitely - no coincidence that Otib is far busier after a defeat. There are some issues that need sorting quickly with this side and I hope we're prepared for January. Whilst I agree about issues with the team, tactics etc which are all valid - I think it's a bit sad that obviously some fans have gleefully waited for poor form to show their true colours re Johnson. There's some that hated the idea of his appointment - I really think for some this is down to his playing time here. They then hated the fact he did quite well and was winning the fans over. They hated it when we appointed that 'suit' Ashton with his corporate vocab.. then he appeared to do his job quite well. Now we're seeing some people's true colours emerge. I can totally understand legitimate concerns, there are issues that need addressing urgently. What I don't like is over-egged criticism of Johnson because up until the last few weeks he was proving some people very very wrong and they've had no opportunity to vent.

Agree, think if he carries on being marketed well he'll do very well in that crossover to non boxing fans. His face fits I think and if/when he wins World Heavyweight Champion eventually I think he'll probably win Sports Personality (unlike Fury). Getting Stormzy to do his ring walk performance was very clever and I think we'll see more of that going forward. Wonder if we will on Saturday? I predict some big entrance show. I disagreed with Super mainly that the country are that much behind AJ in comparison to Hatton. I don't think it's anywhere near yet. Give it a year or two though. I can't see him ever taking legions of fans to vegas. Perhaps that's partly the football lad market thing though. Same principle as following your football team. This is still an awesome video

Well of course, but as I said - I don't think a theoretical Wlad vs AJ fight would better Hatton vs Mayweather for public interest. People loved Hatton, he was hugely popular. These links below are testament to that - Hearn predicts an optimistic 400,000 for this weekend whereas Hatton vs Matweather was around 3x that in the UK alone. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/boxing/2329041/Ricky-Hatton-shatters-viewing-record.html http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/eddie-hearn-on-the-anthony-joshua-vs-eric-molina-pay-per-view/

Not so sure really, of course lots of his support came from Manchester but I think there was far more public interest in his fights vs Mayweather and Pacquiao than AJ fights. I think that is partly down to choice of opponents. Theoretically though, I think Hatton vs Mayweather would still have been a bigger event nationwide than if Joshua was fighting Klitschko. AJ is marketed pretty well. He looks like what people think a heavyweight boxer should look like physically. Bit of a rags to riches story who's turned his life around.. gold medal winner.. says the right things. Compare that to Fury, who I believe is a better boxer.. despite all his antics, he will never be completely accepted nationally due to his gypsy heritage.

Don't agree there - I find him very boring to listen to. He's a bit like a footballer, lots of safe answers and not much personality. I much prefer more interesting characters for boxing, not ones that say the right things and talk about 'staying humble' all the time. I don't think the country are that enthused either, he's got nowhere near the following someone like Ricky Hatton had for example. People loved Hatton, there's no chance AJ would inspire thousands of fans to go to Vegas.

Of course the wifi stopped working at the 11th round. Up until then it based on what I saw it was a good fight, thought Kov was going to win going on the first two rounds but then Ward seemed to work out how to beat him. Very good quality fight overall.

Cricfree working pretty well.. should be a good fight. I like Kovalev but can't call it.

Managed to find an Internet cafe with good wifi to watch this.. now if I can get a stream to work that would be good

I don't actually think he's at the game

Where's the live broadcast?

If the opposition don't have the ball, they can't score. Good result today, shame we couldn't nick a result at the end

Liverpool only slightly, I think club size influences the decision too.

I think it would have been. We've had terrible cup draws for years. Look at West Brom last year, not particularly exciting but we still sold out the away tie (although tickets were dirt cheap). I would love us to draw one of Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool/United later, especially away. Lots of people are bored of our systematically terrible draws and want a big team, failing that lets get one of the smaller teams left in and make a good go of the cup.

Of course we would've done, and more if we were offered more tickets. Tickets were well priced, we travel very well to London, we have lots of expats there and haven't had a game against one of the bigger sides for years, especially away.

I think he's got a point.. Kind of.. Overall I like the redevelopment and it was needed. AG doesn't have the same feel though, imo the atmosphere is worse and the south stand is a poor replacement for the EE. Hoping it'll all come together eventually but there are aspects of the old AG that I miss.

They don't help themselves do they..

Totally different example, Pitman had never played there and had no pace or any attributes to play winger. Kodjia had played there, is fast and has attributes to play as a winger.

Glad to see Pack and O'Neill, like the look of that team - shown as a 4231 on the Twitter picture they post. Slightly concerned about Little and Kodjia down the right vs Brady, but at least Tomlin is in his best No.10 role.

Suspiciously.. according to likescheck.com (which appears to be a pretty legit site for analytics of Facebook likes).. Their "likes" are as follows.. From the diagram, 36.7% (32k) of their "likers" are from the UK and a suspicious 3.5k from Indonesia! To make it fair, I tested against us. Whilst around 50% (45.5k) of our "likers" are UK based, we also have a suspiciously high Indonesian following. Whilst it's possible we'd have likes globally, I am sceptical of it being half, or in Rovers' case almost two thirds, of our "likers". Could both clubs be up to a bit of trickery? I would think the 32k/45.5k split for British based support is probably accurate.

Their owner has retweeted something about them having more Facebook 'likes'. Imagine Lansdown doing that, it simply wouldn't happen. Different league of professionalism and class. As @Tomarse alluded to, it's not inconceivable they purchased likes. I wonder if they have..

"Leave It Yeah" - another Lethal Bizzle catchphrase - was actually written across the vest JET revealed after THAT goal against Rovers. Who'd have thought Lethal Bizzle would have such a convoluted place in the history of the Bristol derby.

It's nothing like Oxford or Plymouth.. Swindon in recent times or even Cardiff.. Ashton Gate is a completely different place when we play them. Like it or not, they are our intercity rivals and always will be as long as we both exist. Even if we were top of the premier league and they were back in the conference this thread will still be lurking about.