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McLoughlin is nowhere near good enough to be in the middle of a back 3. That header for there goal summed him up. You might get away with him on the left side of a 3.

I could see this being a disappointing night. Everything pointed that way We have the basics of a competitive squad but it is too imbalanced. Not enough competition in the right places, combined with injuries, has meant that we lack options from the bench to change our style and the game. I think we did well to get back into it and get a point where in times gone by we may have collapsed. Ribeiro had a poor game but has not played much. Tended to move backwards instead of forwards. We miss Hedges down that left-hand side for sure. I'm guessing that Gardner-Hickman got injured but he was a big miss in the 2nd half. Tavares just hasn't got it has he? I quite like it when a player looks relaxed but as I said last night, it isn't relaxation with him it is being lackadaisical. He gives the ball away too often and there were times he played these short passes with absolutely no purpose other than to move the ball on. I don't think he has it cut out to be a player in the Championship We were unfortunate not to finish the Gardner Hickman chance. He couldn't do much more and the keeper made a fine save. It was a lovely knock down by Gudjohnson. The Yuki chance was another which should have gone in. Except this time it was poor finishing instead of good goalkeeping. I think if Gudjohnson was there, it becomes 1-1. I am not overly enamoured by our defensive options either. McLoughlin is a bit slow off the mark and a couple of occasions him being turned back to his goal nearly brought problems. There's still glimpses of hope. We aren't as bad of a squad as I thought going into the season. We need to defend our box better and we need to be better and more ambitious when in possession. For sure in January we need a centre half but we also need a central midfielder who is prepared to take this game by the scruff of the neck. Take Tronstad out of the team and we don't half look like a pushover in midfield

But they didn't. Because they're not good enough.

As has been said above, put them together and we are sat in 20th. Nowhere near good enough, all could have and should have's. Lose on Saturday and we'll be in huge trouble with the next few fixtures coming up.

Quite a few regular ST holders who sit near me weren't there last night, I suspect that they had the same view as you. I pretty much had the whole row to myself. 8k tops on Ewood last night I reckon, and it'll only get worse.

The protest has happened and is continuing to happen. We had an average crowd of 25,000 when they arrived, how many people were *actually* in the ground last night? 5,000? Any other club this would be leading to end game, the owners would know the jig us up. Here? Does anybody really think alarm bells are ringing? Or will it just be Suhail ordering more cut backs for next season and the next and the next until we are sharing facilities with Accrington Stanley.

"Hasn't been great" 🙄 Worst in 150 years.

Miller's header was similar to his goal header against Preston. McLoughlin's header got to much on it. TGH should score there

He's got a good leap on him as well. I think we saw glimpses last night of why we were prepared to sign him with his injury. Short term pain for long term gain hopefully. It's also why I find it baffling that people write players off after seeing them play for 10 mins.

Our away form has been excellent and 3rd best in the league, the home form hasn't been great and we should be talking about 3 home back to back wins, but failed to see out the Ipswich game, the Sheffield Wednesday abandonment was piss poor and yesterday we should have won

And I never said it was realistic. And I know that it wont happen. Its just roughly how light I think the squad is. I have no doubt that even come February that the squad will be nowhere near how we need it to be.

This was the toughest category to narrow down. Recency bias and not wanting to make it too much about Venky's and that initial 2/3 years of catastrophe. I ultimately want to try and focus more on the positives of the list, but you can't have the yin without the yang. I did think about Jerome Anderson/SEM/Kentaro as a vote candidate, but decided amongst Venkys/Suhail/Kean there was enough scope to gauge the mood. Intrigued to see how the vote plays out.

Absolute rubbish. Ten signings. Baradji has been really good. Give them that one. Gudjohnssen has shown glimpses of promise and obviously has some potential - but his all round game is sadly lacking, may or may not make it overall. The rest have been generally shite. Baradji might or might not turn out to be decent, but a player who still isnt fit enough to start two weeks shy of Christmas can't be classed as a good signing. No other way of dressing it up Im afraid. Tavares, Miller, De Neve and Henrikssen are particularly poor in my book and Forshaw should never have been re-signed. Hickman and Mcglaughlin have just about been average and Moreshita looks to have some natural ability but we need to see far more from him.

Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Its easy to almost exclusively dismiss any errors made by people at the club in favour of pushing the hard luck and woe is me narrative. The main reason for our lack of depth is due to failings in recruitment. We have a number of new signings that if they were even ok, the squad wouldnt look as exposed as it does. If Gueye/Henriksson/Tavares/De Neve were even ok then we would at least have some competition for places. Baradji shouldnt just have made his first useful cameo on December 9th to make us think there might be a player in there, not far off half way through the season. And again, the defensive problems are totally self inflicted. You seem to be justifying and making excuses for the recruitment. I get that no club has a 100% recruitment success rate. But its about 2 things. To have half of our signings not only not really working but being absolutely awful, thats whats not acceptable. And also, its as much about what we didnt do in the summer that is costing us, especially in defence. We have injuries, its the middle of December, all teams have injuries. If you just want to pin it all on injuries and not look internally, then thats fine, Gestede will be happy with that at least. And that all levels out with us in 20th. We can seperate home and away form but ultimately it all comes down to where we are with those combined and its crap.

Because he's clearly not fit.

4 great chances, but converted none of them. Perhaps that's because the players just aren't very good.

Did they have a shot on goal, besides the blatant foul the ref ignored?

Last night summed up for me the sad decline of our club over the last 15 years. With no investment in the Stadium infrastructure, playing squad or fan base Venkys "generated" the lowest league "attendance" at Ewood in many a year. Where does this all end with no creative thinking and fan engagement at an all time low ? I genuinely think the only option left is a match boycott to attract some media attention but would the happy clappers simply tut and attend ? It's hard to even press the Red button these days so kudos to those that attend but some people need to open there eyes to what is going on.

Early days, but he looks promising that's for sure.

You'll have lost several thousand from the gate after Saturday. It was raining again and there are clearly no guarantees a game will be finished at Ewood when it rains. I was absolutely livid walking up the hill back to the car on Saturday - I made the decision not to go last night for the above reason.

Since it was clear we were shipping out all our championship experience and replacing them with cheap punts from abroad, I have always felt that we will spend the season in the bottom 6 with a 50% of going down. Seen nothing to alter my opinion, home form will kill us unless we turn it around very quickly. We will start losing away before we start winning at home unfortunately. Gut feeling say it's going to be very close but Cantwell's quality if he stays, and Gudjohnsen sniffing out goals I think will see us finish where we are now or one place lower.

but to sign 8 in this window is unrealistic and as is selling players after only being here for a few months.

Similar player to Emerton. Incredibly athletic, so a dynamic WB, but if you played him solely at RW he'd be stood up by the better LBs.

Yes please ❤️