I watch semi professional football here in Northern Ireland a lot more regularly than I'm able to watch Rovers, and I can genuinely say there are more reliable and competent goalkeepers than him working full time jobs around their football. I don't understand what anyone has ever seen in him.

I'd chuck Brentford, Bournemouth, Wolves, Burnley and Fulham into that bracket too - as well as all three relegated clubs from last season currently in the championship (at least two of which seem. Decent punt for promotion, possibly in place of the more 'robust' football of Sheffield United and Luton Town).

You fundamentally misunderstand JDT's brief. He has been given the job to manufacture saleable assets and avoid relegation, not necessarily to win football matches. It is clear he has little say in transfers, responsibility there appears to lie with the director of football who appears to be in a similar position in that the club has directed him to reduce the wage budget as far as possible and maintain a playing staff that can be sold for profit. The "style" is a direct result of this as Premier League clubs want to be paying for technically proficient prospects rather than seasoned championship battlers. Perhaps this is a reaction to the money hemorrhaged on Rothwell, Brereton-Díaz, Lenihan - even Dack. Perhaps it's necessitated by Venkys financial position. Perhaps it's both. But it's clear that the thinking at the club currently is that promotion is too unlikely to bet the farm, and so this is the model for long term sustainability. I'm not convinced it is going to work (and certainly doesn't seem to be working currently) but it seems pretty clear JDT is working with a player development focus rather than a "win at all costs" mentality.

Is there a message board hall of fame? This should be in it.

Silly kit concept season eh? It's been a while since a light blue offering (2014 and 2018 previously), so I suspect we might see that again.

The number of people citing JDT as somehow being at fault for a handball goal and Ryan Hedges not having the nous to simply walk to the corner is insane. He inherited a duff squad, has improved a lot of the young players and even a few of those who were also rans before, and has struggled on making the best of what he has after the club bungled getting the reinforcements we needed in January. Yes, he has made some errors, but that comes with the territory of managers willing to work for this batshit club with minimal budget. I despair that anyone thinking he is part of the problem, reality is this squad would be one of the weakest ever to be promoted from this division.

Impressively useless

Morton's pretty pathetic rolling around aside, can't fault anyone for that today. And to be fair even that's a screamer you can't really legislate for. Hedges so unlucky off the post, Foderingham made a tremendous double save to deny Brereton Díaz, Gallagher an stretch of the leg away. Great game, unfortunately someone has to be on the losing side. This team could find themselves at Wembley this season still.

He has indeed scored goals at this level. 2 goals in 32 championship appearances. Granted he also had a semi productive premier league spell at Fulham but there's no way he could be classed as a definitive like for like replacement for Díaz.

If we kept that £1.5m, would we be able to adequately replace him for that outlay alone ?

Would be hilarious if it was anyone else

Sorry but this is myopic, Anglo-centric foolishness. Just because a league system isn't full of clubs owned by nation states and venture capitalists doesn't immediately make it a pub league. The better teams in the Swedish would likely be competitive in the Championship. You can't have it both ways, either Malmo are minnows or they have an easy path to qualification. As it was, they had to through four rounds, seeing off Rangers and Ludogorets. The current Chelsea manager built his reputation in the Swedish league, which suggests not many of the dugouts are manned by waterfowl.

Deservedly thumped

Admfreeittedly haven't seen todays game but some of the criticism of the manager seems harsh. I'm sure he knows there are things he knows can be improved yet if a few loses turn to draws we are showing automatic promotion form. No one was expecting much at the start of the season with this rather ragged squad.

Frantic but not in an entertaining way this game. Both teams showing absolutely no composure and have the whiff of headless chickens about them. Whoever settles down a bit and tries to dictate tempo wins.