Bristol Oil Services

If you have small home attendances and so no money and there is no-one remotely interested in giving you money, and therefore have an old, shite ground instead of what you long for ie a new, shiny ground, you console yourself by saying you have "soul," and you ease your bitter envy of your hated superiors/one-time-rivals by calling their shiny, new ground a "bowl." A "bowl" incidentally is a ground where the corners are filled in to provide enough seats for all the people that want to watch games at that ground. Rovers don't need a "bowl" or the corners filled in with seats (or tents).

Yes, absolutely. Because it is subjective, and you can say and think and convince yourself of anything that is unmeasurable and purely down to your own preferences. "We are loyal and true, they are fickle and get on their players' backs." Unlike objective stuff, like league tables and past playing record which no amount of gaslogic can twist to portray them as more "special" than us. They have nowhere to go with cold, hard and transparent facts like what division we are in respectively, how long ago it was that we played in the same division, that they were above us, who won the last time we played each other, who has played in the top division in England and who was relegated from the bottom one etc etc (mind you, they have a good go with away support coming up with all sorts of bollocks on that one, ie, shouting loud and long about their trip to QPR but not a word about Rochdale or Bradford in the past week!) So, instead, they concentrate on the grey area of what our respective support are like in backing the team, who sings more and has a "better" atmosphere and who is more "special" where you can say and think and convince yourself of whatever you want to believe. Anytime they win a couple and we lose a couple the "we're coming for you" is wheeled out, another fantasy that keeps them going for another week/month/season. Same nonsense. Same escape from reality into the softer realm of wishful thinking. If the roles were reversed and we were as shite/sad/odd/desperate/L1 as them, we'd have to do the same.

Indeed, inconsistency and hypocrisy in their arguments and standpoint abound. We know that it is all bitter nonsense, cobblers. It doesn't add up. Will they insist they stay at the Mem and boycott the new "bowl" should they ever somehow build a new ground? Will they ..... Every barb thrown our way by them - identity, bowl, franchise, plastic, corporate etc - has to be seen through the prism of their own desperate bitterness, their envy, their sense of worthlessness and general shiteness, in comparison with us. And their inability to do anything about it. If they were making a conscious, deliberate choice between remaining "old skool" and maintaining this imagined "identity," or modernising like us, and moving into the 21st century then we might take them seriously. But they are not choosing to be "old skool," they have no choice in the matter. They are stuck in the 1980s at the Mem, and quite frankly, bloody lucky to be there.

Bizarre, but not unusual or unheard of. This sort of "create your own truth/reality" is a common human frailty. The "truth isn't truth" as Rovers' lawyer, Rudy Guiliani put it recently. There is the truth - 47,029 - according to those that simply report how many people attended that game, and have no need or interest in making things up and believing fairy stories; and then there's the alternative "truth," or the Rovers' "truth," which is what they want it to be: 60k crowd with 47,029 gas. And so it goes on.....

Danny Baker was not wrong or joking when he called them "pathological liars" on the radio years ago; nor was I yesterday when I likened them to Trump and his "if you believe (enough) it, it's true" you make your own reality self-delusion, although I somewhat underplayed it and didn't go far enough. They really are quite odd/weird/sad.

It's the same psychological approach as POTUS Trump and his belief that more people turnt up for his inauguration than did for Obama. You just keep saying it over and over and over ..... 31k...35k.....keep hammering away ..... 31k.....35k......41k......45k....and over and over ....... and again and again ...... 41k.....45k.....massive......it's just what we do.....45k.....and never stop.......41k....45k.....massive......big as Norwich.......and over and over.....gurt franchise......45k.....47k........ until the whole attendance becomes your support that day.....and you completely believe something that has no relation to truth or reality......47k.......massive.....but it doesn't matter.....gurt Teds........because in your head, it is now true....49k gas at the Conference final.....massive......bigger than Norwich......

So what made the difference pre-Lansdown? Need I remind you of our superior record and history to yours before Steve or Jon had been to AG??

Bird on TALKSPORT says: "Bristol win today..." Lee Johnson's Bristol, please luv. .....

On target to finish higher than last season, then. SL will be happy!

Scots woman on bbc Final Score says: "back to back wins for Frank Lampard's Derby...."

What a difference from 8 days ago. Let's get carried away in a positive, the-only-way-is-up manner this weekend!

Reporter on the radio in the week reckoned they had "small" players, ie tippy tippy, and we're possibly a bit vulnerable to being roughed up, or if you like, out-muscled. Perhaps LJ was listening too?

"Frank Lampard's Derby leading Preston one nil" says a bloke on the BBC. He really said that. I wonder who Preston belong to?

Has he signed a new contract yet? A 10 year one, ideally...

Now all we have to do is defend well for about half a game. Against a shit team.

It's QPR, Dave (and their days in the sun are behind them, and fading fast)

Our current malaise/predicament/blip/situation is primarily to do with us, and what we do, and the decisions we make, or do not make. And our strengths and weaknesses. To continually refer to the opposition and their wealth and so on, as has happened now two games out of three on here, is to absolve ourselves of responsibility and agency, and to begin to succumb to helplessness. Millwall, with less resource than us, made rather a better fist of playing MBoro, and saw off Derby today. So, we have the resources to win any one game (doing better over 46 games is considerably more difficult) so other than injuries, where were we lacking as a club/team/coo/coach etc today? What could we do better or different? I hope this is what LJ and Co is thinking, rather than your passive/helpless "bigger budget teams" type thinking there. I believe there will be options open to us to do better than today.

Hmmm, I dunno. 15/16: 71 goals conceded. 16/17: 66 17/18: 58. That looks to me like improvement, and so some learning. If you think that 13 of those 58 goals (nearly a quarter!) last season were conceded in two and a half games (Villa away, Sunderland and Hull home) and that at 2 down at Villa, Flint was put up front as we threw caution to the wind, then in the other 43 games, conceding 45 goals was a massive improvement on 15/16. Flint was central to everything in our rise and we have lost more than we realised, including many things that do not show up on opta. English football, and central defending, is still about heart and guts and steel. I agree with one of your other comments though, that our defensive problems are systemic and not simply due to individual error. LJ wants to score more than the opposition and attack, and that exposed Flint/us at times, too often in fact. As others have suggested, we might do better being more pragmatic and being more "Preston." If we are up against "bigger budget teams" with eleven players that would "walk into our team" then you have to wonder about the wisdom of attempt to play them at their own game and try and pass and move better than these wealthier sides. Especially having just sold two of our finest proponents of this difficult part of the game. It is noble of LJ to try and provide us with a vibrant and attacking side but there are times when "needs must," rather like Pemberton and Co for four games when Cotts was fired. A ball playing centre back is what LJ has wanted for some time. He has in part made his bed here now (although he could do with a break on the injury/suspension front).

Villa New Year's Day? Sunderland, second half in February? Hull in April? Sheffield Utd in May? Bolton last weekend?