We desperately needed one last January for pretty much the same reasons. Let's hope Gregg does better next time and it's at the top of his shopping list.

And it took 4 1/2 years.

Mowbray said he didn't want a striker so you can chalk that one down to him.

Football clubs do die. Halifax, Wimbledon, etc. New clubs are formed but would you really want to lose Rovers history?

Mowbray was the master of losing points in the last 5 mins. Let’s not sugar coat it.

Sounds like the team couldn’t be arsed but got a lucky goal. Later Travis comes on and gifts them the ball to score the winner. Manager puts on Hirst to further underline the lack of ambition.

I’m glad I’ve not been able to watch this. Sounds frustrating all round.

Merry Christmas everyone, hoping for success to return to Blackburn Rovers to make it a very happy new year for Rovers fans everywhere.

We were apparently after Dembele in the Summer. Van Hecke had a successful spell here on loan and can't get a game at Brighton. I'd put that someone's comments down to pure guesswork. If we got Van Hecke for £350k that would be freakishly good business.

I've said often that Broughton needs to step up in January. He already made the statement that we weren't doing much business in January but that was early on when he thought he'd signed superstars, so hopefully that has changed. Clearly defence was the priority but aside from Hyam and Brittain I don't think Tomasson was backed in the Summer. Szmodics wasn't his first choice and I can't see Mola and Hirst being despite what GB said. Any idiot could have seen we've been crying out for a good striker for a while but it wasn't properly addressed. We only have Gallagher and a cursory glance at his scoring record will tell you everything.

Four of that team are kids and Hirst and Mola need to go. Travis, Wharton and Szmodics need to take a look at themselves. When I saw the teamsheet I immediately wrote the game off. Starting with Hirst and Mola is a loss before a ball is kicked, playing with 9.

p A team which includes Pears, Philips, Mola, Garrett, Markanday and Hirst along with the disappointing Travis and Szmodics should send fear into any supporter. It's the very definition of no hopers combined with kids. Add to that the Wharton brothers seem to have been replaced by pod people and Ryan Hedges can't do it on his own. A poor performance against struggling Sunderland won't be acceptable. Especially when Tony will be letting his lot eat their weight in mince pies and revels before kick off.

Broughton's building up of Hirst hasn't helped. He was only a kid when he was last in this league and scored a few in L1 last season. I warily thought there may be something about him, and at 23 could perhaps make the step up. But nah, he's a really poor player. Reminds me of Kevin Davies looking lost and none commital.

Broughton said that but JDT didn't.

Bit unfair that. There have been times this season that we've shown resilience unseen in over in a decade, hence why we've won the same amount of games as the top two. If it's luck then wouldn't we have seen a bit of it under previous managers? Some massive over reactions to this game when it was clear to anyone from seeing the team selection that we'd lose, and we were never going to win the cup anyway. What does he do? Play a stronger team then a weaker one against Sunderland? The big positive I'll take from it is that it's now more likely that Hirst and Mola will be sent packing in January.

To be fair, an upgrade to plastic seats is a trophy in itself for the Burnley faithful.

Gifting the opposition the ball near your own goal definitely gets the blood pumping, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Fair enough if either of those happens but I don't know why he'd have doubts about coming here if those options weren't on the table.

Coventry need the money, Rovers are high up the league and play attacking football. Why would he have doubts about coming here?

Maybe he can see into the future when Alan Pace gets them back up, pockets all the money and turns Turf Moor into a big khazi, then realises it was a pointless endeavor because that's exactly what it was in the first place.

He usually scores a cracker every 4-5 games, so hoping for one against Sunderland.

So Ayala's legs go at 33/34 and we rely on a 18/19 year old who may or may not be the oft-predicted future superstar? We need experience.

He looked a decent option yesterday and he's got bags of passion and enthusiasm. Say what you will about Norwich's fortunes but they didn't make it easy for our front players yesterday, yet he scored one and if he'd just passed to Brereton he'd have made one. Hopefully JDT has learned a lot about him from yesterday. Having Dack playing helps the likes of Dolan and Gallagher out too.

Oh, there's no doubt. You won auto promotion in November. We've been shit pretty much, so with two points off second place, if we get better it should end nicely.

We'll see.