booth

"However, he is yet to register a goal in the league" sounds perfect.

Not good enough Gav.

Who scores the goals from this midfield maestro?

We're still bearing the brunt of years of a lack of investment in goalscorers I'm afraid. It's all so predictable too and not just an issue with Mowbray, Broughton and Tomasson. I'm all for clubs supporting their managers but Waggott should have been demanding we have a number 9 when Mowbray was trying to buy up every cheap 5ft 6 winger he could.

I just don't see how you can adapt with those players. Stop faffing about on the back fine, would be happy to see that but do we go more direct? If we do who scores the goals (sorry for repeating myself)? Which of our fullbacks consistently protect the box from crosses coming in? I strongly believe we've got a squad were we have a core of 7 or 8 players we can rely on, there's a smaller group of inconsistent players like Buckley, Hedges and Dolan, and the rest are there to rotate or step in for an injury. Kaminski Hyam Ayala Brittain Wharton Brereton Dack Who else would you keep for your promotion winning eleven? It's quite damning that I wouldn't rely on any of the others.

For a team with any aspirations of being promoted, Gallagher shouldn't be anywhere near the first team. He did have a decent chance today and fluffed it so I don't know how playing him as a number 9 would help things. He'd still miss more than he hits. He'd just miss more often. Sounds ludicrous but with better forwards we win that in the first half today. Same as Boro.

It was more a point on our ludicrous transfer strategy than you really. You can get away with having an off day if you have players that don't fluff their chances. That's the difference between the winners and losers.

I've been watching Gallagher for long enough, and enough glimpses of Vale to know we'd struggle to score today. Seeing two kids in midfield also gave it away for me. I feel sorry for you if you walked into that one without realising what you were getting into.

I agree with all that but I reckon even with everyone fit our first 11 is imbalanced due to the lack of firepower and weak in centre midfield. Relying too much on kids, too many passengers and not enough goals. It was never going to sustain itself. And we all knew that, you only have to look back on what people were saying at the end of last season and in pre-season. Sorry if anyone thinks I'm being too objective. Inside I'm crushed.

Yeah but no one can tell me that when they saw Morton and Garrett as the heartbeat of the team it filled them with delight. That was my point. Morton would be fine if we weren't relying on his efforts so much. Same as Garrett would be fine to bring in for the last 15 to get experience. We shouldn't be starting him. I've never known a Rovers team to rely on teenagers so much.

Who scored?

He's not the one signing them so no worries there.

I didn't think we'd get battered but I thought there was a good chance we'd get beat. Look at the state of that teamsheet. Look at the state of the subs bench. I don't expect us to win any games with Vale and Gallagher upfront. Garrett and Morton in the middle and JRC and Pickering as fullbacks. How the team has fallen.

For the record I predicted we'll finish 12th, due to the quality of the league, we have a transfer window, and the belief we will pick up some wins rather than a complete spiral. Depends on who we sign but I don't hold much belief in the appointment team.

No, I don't think you can have a plan B with these players. So we play with different players, it's a little easier on the eye, which I doubt, but who scores the goals? And with the two fullbacks we have we'll still concede plenty. Okay so we replace the fullbacks with Carter and Mola. Awful. We replace the two midfielders today with Edun and Travis. Awful. We replace a couple of forward players with Dolan and Markanday. A slight upgrade, but both are wingers not goalscorers. Relying on too many kids, too many passengers. Midfield options have been awful since we kicked off the season. We don't have one decent number 9 at the club. Shit squad with a handful of good players, and a few players who step up now and again. If we wanted to muddle along with that squad, why bring in a manager who wants to play football? Sounds like a stupid Venkys instruction like they did with Kean. A more direct manager wouldn't be able to work with this squad with nothing upfront.

We may have conceded less goals but the goals we did concede were pretty damning. Brereton scored more last season, that's not JDT's fault. Our pitiful attempts at goalscoring in the Boro and todays game aren't either. We gain six extra points if we score those chances. Pickering being a prick in the first minute wasn't. Gregg's answer to Pickering was Mola. Pickering would be better as a wide player as his crossing is decent, he just can't defend apart from the odd decent game. Lots to criticise about JDT and I'm not completely convinced he's the man, but the club have a lot to answer for. Waggot, Broughton... What board allows a club to go without a proper striker for 18 months? What board allows a manager to sign loads of wingers with virtually no scoring record? But then again, what board allows a club to lose £££'s on Rothwell, then more on Brereton? Imagine if they'd sold Brereton and invested it in a number 9 and a Danny Graham type. Clueless from top to bottom. I doubt any manager could flourish here. Any talk of promotion is a joke. It'll never happen under Venkys.

Burnley have played shit today by all accounts, but they have goalscorers in the team and have nicked a goal to get the three points. Can someone relay that to Gregg? Speak slowly, he's not too quick on the uptake.

"healthy transfer budget."

You have to look at the bigger picture though. Earlier in the season the defence was better organised than it was under Mowbray, which led to 3 points. We were holding out better, more resilient. Now we're having to resort to using squad players and youth more the wheels are falling off. Would you have taken 10th before the season started? I thought we'd be mid/lower table going off the squad and as predicted, we'd struggle for goals.

And now Watford have scored against Blackpool, so we've gone back down.

West Brom beating Luton now, what a comeback. So we've gone up a place.

Desperate for a striker and moving with all the pace of a snail with M.E.

Is tenth not a good return all things considered? And if we continue to have average transfer windows (I'd argue the Summer window was below average as it's left us with Hyam), we lose Brereton for nothing and we're bottom by next Christmas whose fault is that? Can any manager work under such circumstances? If things continue the way they are JDT won't be here next season.

And QPR, Birmingham, West Brom. I'm not quite sure why so many people think we'll do well without a single decent striker at the club. Who said big investment? We just need a decent amount of shrewd investment. I'd say Luton have done that. Luton signed a striker which is more than we've done in about 3 years.

He's not going to say "same old shit squad" "more of the same" is he? Of course they'll get worse, why would you think they'd get better after what we've witnessed before? We did the same last season, and the season before that but we keep spending less money season after season. If they don't invest in this window we'll plummet. If he manages to keep the team in the top half without decent investment then JDT's a genius.