I'd say earlier, we were just getting away with it.

It is very weird, especially when it's happened in so many games recently. For example the Hedges "chip" wouldn't have happened at any of the other clubs above us, the forwards they have would have put it away.

You need goals Jim, and on the pitch (money aside) it's the main thing that separates us from Burnley, Luton, Coventry, Boro, Millwall and Sheffield Utd. And besides the goals, having a goal threat doesn't allow the opposition to come at you as much. I don't think I've seen one game this season where the opposition hasn't over committed. Without wanting to sound like Gary Bowyer, pretty much everyone has had a "right good go" at us. I've watched Sheffield, Burnley, Luton, Boro when they've been on TV and seen them face far cagier opposition afraid to commit players. Lesser teams know they can do it with us because our expected goals is so low. Not replacing the likes of Travis and Gallagher in Jan has really hurt us.

If it was that simple then teams wouldn't spend stupid amounts of money on better players. There's good players and bad players and there's not much coaches can do if a player is particularly poor, or won't listen, that's why they get sold on and end up as a journeyman in the lower leagues. Sure good coaching may yield improvements but I've seen the likes of Gallagher & Dolan under two different managers and their play is exactly the same, they make the same mistakes. I can only assume that it's a player issue. Hedges was well known as inconsistent well before he arrived here. Brereton can't be arsed. Leonard is only 19. Before Gallagher was injured he was strolling into the box as players were on the wing, and he's been doing it since he's been here - that's on the player. I think we're expecting too much from the squad.

I just don't think starting Thomas, Dack and Leonard wouldn't have made much of a difference because we've struggled to score all season with different personnel. Though I agree on dropping Brereton as he's the real world equivalent of playing Fifa with lag at the moment.

You can be more organised when you've got two behemoths up front to rely upon. Jesus Christ would struggle to organise a team with the likes of Gallagher, Dolan and Brereton. One who runs around like he's had a head injury, one who's forgotten that we're still paying his wages and another who thinks he can run through defenders and forgets he's allowed to pass. Then there's Hedges who is the most frustratingly inconsistent player, yet capable of occasional brilliance, we've had for a while - this was also what Hibs fans thought of him btw. And finally there's Travis who in the last few games has been awful, a liability on occasion with terrible passes back to the defence/keeper without looking, causing mayhem. Just what you need from your captain. A great way to put your fellow players under pressure and on edge, and give the opposition a boost. So good luck to the next guy taking over, he's going to have to be really special to get a tune out of the likes of that lot next season. I trust we'll appoint an out of work gem. Besides all that, no matter what any of you say we haven't been playing terrible lately and given a goalscorer or two we'd have made the play offs or better. I watched the match last night and didn't think Luton were that great tbh, just organised at the back, but overall they conceded possession more than we did. It was the same with Coventry, Preston and dare I say it Burnley. We'd have beaten all of them if recruitment had put a shift in even with the tippy tappy stuff.

Luton have been steadily progressing for years and crucially they kept hold of their top goalscorer, then added Morris who has been excellent for them, and was a decent striker for Barnsley. I think they signed him for something like £1.8m. Rowett has been with Millwall for a few years. They've also got two good goalscorers, and one of them was signed last Summer. Both clubs invested in goals last Summer and we didn't so it's no surprise both are above us. I'd hazard a guess that both clubs have a competent CEO and recruitment teams. Edit: looking up how much Millwall paid for Flemming. £1.7m. So Millwall spent that and Luton paid not much more. I wonder how much we wasted on the pointless loans of Mola, Hirst and the legal fees for O'Brien. And besides that, if we'd sold Brereton we could have easily signed players like this the above, that would have made a difference.

My point is that some would because we still wouldn't score goals, as we've already seen.

And if you were the manager people would now be giving you dogs abuse lamenting how Dack is a shadow of his former self, Leonard isn't ready and Thomas is shit (not my words by the way) and we've dropped our top scorer. I remember a time when it was easy to pick out who the first team was on a match day. Now it's such a low bar that there's no correct set of forwards or midfielders, it's always a mish mash. Dolan wouldn't be anywhere near a centre forward role if the club was run properly.

I just mean that people have short memories and I strongly believe post-Tomasson it will be a disaster. At the moment there's something to build on, but if we start afresh we're back to square one, and I have no faith that we can bring in better than Tomasson. There's every reason to believe it will be a far worse appointment than either Tomasson or Mowbray. Anyone reminiscing about Mowbray deserves it as he's still very much part of the current problem of us having a poor goal threat (though Waggott and Gregg have had ample opportunity to fix that). Sunderland will feel the pain when he establishes his own team with some bizarre ideology based on which world football matches he consumed that Summer.

The people on match day who are vocal about Tomasson. The ones you mentioned.

What do you change them to though? There's no correct pick for first team with that squad, there's no correct sub. Our forward options have been poor for more than this season, they did exactly the same last season. And I'll be glad to see the back of Brereton. Even if we did manage to get into the play offs we'll be relying on him to perform. He didn't even look match fit yesterday. I've seen opposition teams have players on the bench who can change a game. We have none of that.

They'll get flak when those same fans come to their senses. It'll be a disaster bringing in a bottom of the barrel manager with this squad and no f*cks given from the top to make it any better, just as it was in 2016.

I think like Brereton, Tomasson's already gone. A section of the fans don't like him, he wasn't backed when in a good league position, he now knows that the important staff behind the scenes aren't fit for purpose, and it's not as if he's inherited the greatest squad in the first place. He'll know he's gone as far as he can with them, and without backing what's the point? Staying here is only going to reflect badly on himself, as it is now. We needed to keep Tomasson and build on this season by replacing the weak links with a view to automatic promotion. However I fear that he'll be replaced by someone who will agree to every ludicrous decision that's made, with little money spent and any rough diamonds going to pastures new to balance the books.

Two excellent strikers too. One of them limited due to injury this season and the other is third top goalscorer in this league. Only cost about £2m between them.

Travis shouldn't be captain as he shouldn't be first choice on the pitch. I'd keep him as back up to a better midfielder and you never know it may prompt him to work on his game and improve. He makes so many mistakes every game and struggles to keep up.

Can you coach someone to score? I think we're expecting a bit much here considering our forwards (inc wingers and attacking mids) haven't been prolific under multiple managers if you look at their scoring records, aside from Dack for a couple of seasons pre injury.

When Thomas was wide and Dolan was wide we seemed to play more coherently. Not perfect but everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing at least.

I agree with your first bit wholeheartedly. His only plus point is when defending a corner he's a big bloke in the box. Mowbray dropped a bollock by spending so much on him, to the point he had to save face and play him even if that meant as a wide player. He's obviously JDT's reluctant first choice as a senior centre forward. His other choices are to play the likes of Dolan or Szmodics out of position, or a kid with little experience. None of them good choices. I doubt either love him.

A similar argument is that we could play direct and have many more chances per game, have ten men in the box, but we still wouldn't score as our players struggle to finish their dinner. Our centre forwards are Sam Gallagher, a poor player currently injured, and Harry Leonard a teenager thrown in with little experience of first team football. The rest are wingers with no real record of scoring goals, and a bloke who can't wait to get to Spain. And as for the argument that we don't create enough chances, I disagree. There have been games where there have been crosses flying across the box and Gallagher has been trotting along with zero urgency. I've seen Brereton, Gallagher, JRC, Dolan and Hedges miss chance after chance and I've seen the likes of Travis in goal scoring positions bottle it and opt to pass it to a player, in a worst position to get it in the net. Just as they did with Mowbray last season. The only one of our forwards I can give any credit to is Szmodics as he'll consistently have a go.

Replace Gallagher with a better all round striker and we'd be in the play offs, simple as. I'll never understand why people who want to the club to kick on, also want to perservere with the same old faces that have let us down for years. I saw someone defending Travis the other day and he's been really poor when it's mattered the most. If we have any ambitions of promotion you can't keep expecting these players to suddenly be much better than what they are in their mid 20's.

If we had Morris upfront we'd be third in the table. Add to that Adebayo. Both of them are far better than any of our options.

Is it an obsession, or just that he doesn't have bugger all else apart from a teenager? He's dropped him several times, requested another striker, and criticised his striking options post match.

Aye. The project is bullshit.

If I remember correctly Madame Desai said we were to rely on the academy more, and it's pretty obvious that's what we're doing. So I'm just going off what's out there on that one. With the other stuff I was told something during the game by an insider, regarding next years plans and it confirmed what JDT said about loans and freebies and that we were allowing certain players to speak to clubs. If true then the project is another sham and most supporters will be absolutely appalled. If it is true then I'm sure the usual journo's will already know about it and it'll be reported soon. Btw, the last time I was "in the know" was back in the early days of Venkys ownership, and I realised then I wanted to be plugged back into the matrix. So no, I'm definitely not "in the know" these days. I'd rather be blissfully unaware at the behind the scenes antics at Rovers. The shambles in January pales in comparison to the Kean and Shaw days.