joey_big_nose

Yeah a couple of poor final passes / shots but overall hes been great. Think Hedges as well has done very well, completely nullified them down their right. To be honest everyone has had a good game so far.

Agree with most of this but Baker not really mobile enough for me. Quality on the ball, but struggling to close his man down. The way we are setup to counter attack its not so much of a problem today but not convinced for when we are more open.

Weve looked really good, solid in defence, threatening on the break. Should probably be 2-0 up on balance... Under most of our managers of recent times i would now expect us to lose all our confidence and have a real torrid second half. But with Eustace feel quite secure..

Think this might be one of the best attended games ive gone to in years... Does anyone have any parking tips? My current way of doing it is a bit of a gamble, wondering if anyone knows a way to guarantee somewhere decent to park? Dont mind paying a little and walking up to around 20 mins to the ground.

I feel like this season (and in stark contrast to recent years) through luck or design we have ended up with 2 decent players for every position on the pitch. So we've been able to ride out what seemed a catastrophic loss in Carter, and I am optimistic that we have the quality to replace Travis and Pickering, despite both being really excellent for us this season. Trav has been player of the season so far for me. Baker goes straight in, Beck to left back, and I guess Dolan or Hedges go on the left and that's the team pretty much. Still will have an okay bench assuming one of Ohashi or Geuye is on it with Wieman and Sigurdson if he's back from injury? Leonard as well. It's not galaticos but something there to influence a game in the second half. Where we are really vulnerable imo is if one of the two CBs are taken out. Pickering was our viable cover there really, so we will be forced to used Faz who really does not look mobile enough to me to play football at this level any more. We need a CB in first day of Jan.

City is such a bizarre one... An all conquering team going on this sort of run when they were the champions and clear favourites at the start of the season has never even remotely happened before. I LOVE it! And I hope it is sign of things to come. The Premier League had become way too predictable, but now Utd, City, Spurs, and Chelsea last season have all had really poor runs recently. Just hope some other clubs can really start muscling in on the CL places and put a cat among the pigeons. What the league needs. Godspeed Bournemouth and Forrest, would be hilarious if one of them made CL, and give us all hope.

Yes, theres nothing wrong with having a philosophy and approach when it works but you have to be realistic when it doesnt. Ange hasnt been, he continued to plough a furrow long after the wheels have come off, and that will cost him his job and probably a shot at another similar level job. He'll be pigeon holed quite rightly as way too defensively naive for a top job.

Yeah £100M for a player who couldnt even establish himself in a pretty average England squad at the time seemed absolute madness.

Ange I think has to be the most offensive manager in prem history, puts Keegan in the shade. Cant be long till he gets sacked, shame as Ill miss his kamikaze games. Always entertaining.

He's doing really well, and while we have been very defensively solid we haven't been boring to watch in any way. We pass the ball well, have a lot of energy, counter attack nicely, got a lot of variation to our play. A lot of 1-0 wins but they've been more entertaining than the score lines suggest. Most players from the GK, defence, midfield look to have significantly improved in his system also, I guess through the confidence and support the solid foundations provide. A bit early to judge but he could be the best manager we have had since dropping from the Premier League. He's the first one in thirteen years to implement a truly effective defence.

Travis and Tronstad have been so consistently good I could see championship clubs with big resources going for them in January to knobble us as much as anything else. If their form continues I wouldn't be surprised if either of them got prem interest the summer. Travis particularly has looked really top drawer and I am sure bottom half teams are thinking he could do a decent job in the prem. Never thought I'd say that, but he's had such a good run it's possible. I'd actually be surprised if we don't get offers if he continues in the same vein tlll the end of the summer.

Yeah I absolutely agree... only thing that gives me doubt is maybe Wolves or Southampton decide they are down already and go for a punt on a Championship manager to minimise their costs and build for the future rather than go for a Prem recovery specialist like Big Sam or someone. Southampton are so far adrift already it feels like that could be their strategy. But then I suppose if expect relegation is the brief it's possible that Eustace would not fancy having his reputation trashed by getting thrashed every week. Hmmm. Still reckon we have a good shot to keep him this season as he really hasn't achieved anything concrete yet. If he makes playoffs it becomes a different story.

Just say the top division of the nations league qualify for the world cup and top two divisions for euros, refine the numbers as needed through a playoff system - no need for anything else imo. For andorra etc they still have a route in by climbing up the nations league (although they wont obviously, but genuinely good small team like Iceland 10 years ago will rise up). You get double value - 1) nations league becomes genuinely important and interesting 2) loads of pointless mis matched games get eliminated

They really need to get rid of the qualifying round and just use the nations league instead. It's where everything is heading, just get it done. Huge mismatches like England vs Andorra don't help anyone. Incidentally the groups do look a lot smaller than they used to be - just 5 teams? I guess that's a function of the world cup in 2026 being so massive (48 teams!) so more places up for grabs.

Great he got the goal yesterday, seems such a likeable guy. Still think his performance was well below what we saw up until the Burnley sending off. But hopefully now with his confidence up he can go back to his early form!

I have to say in all my time watching football and chatting to fans of all different stripes your opinions on who are and are not good players are the most unusual. Pretty sure 99% of people who watched that game last night would have said Tronstad was very good.

Yeah I would say Eustace will stick around till a parachute club wants him. Could be as early as summer / early next season if we keep up our form and finish in the playoffs. If we dont make the playoffs no one will really be interested in Eustace, like all interest in JDT evaporated after we finished 7th in his first season.

For me hes very good off the ball, keeps running and running offering loads of defensive protection.. On the ball hes very hit or miss, recently been really poor in his decisions and quality of passing and shooting. Also - Ive never seen a rovers player so uncomfortable on the side favouring his natural foot. Always wants to come inside which makes sense when hes on the right, but why when hes on the left hand side?? He ends up with very few options as he has absolutely no right foot so just ends up losing the ball in traffic... Overall he did okay today but I think the preferred setup when everyone is fit will be Pickering left back with Beck left wing.

Yup, this is the start of the real season

I am pretty sure Dolan and Ohashi would get good gigs at playoff contending sides if they left us. Both are better players than given credit for by most on here. They have both played really significant roles in our recent good results. I do agree Hedges and Gueye are really struggling.

Yeah - the defensive shape under JDT was very very open. Eustace has gone completely to the other end of the spectrum so not surprising it took a while to bed in. Hard to think of two systems more different really while playing broadly the same formation. Must have needed a lot of work. It's remarkable how comfortable the defence looks compared to same time last year.

If we come out in a good position after these six games I will start to believe...... But also it's worth saying at the same point in JDTs first season (i.e. 24 games in) we were 3rd so it's hard to really feel that certain about anything. In the Championship you are always only one death spiral away...

Ange has real JDT vibes for me.... Great when going is good but so brittle, hangs the defence and keeper out to dry. He'll be gone pretty soon. Shame from an entertainment perspective but even spurs need something a bit more pragmatic.

I will be absolutely agog if we win this one on a Tuesday night. Surely end of the run? Sort of game normally an a nailed on loss (mid week, winter, away, won a few on the spin). But.... We've looked so consistently good defensively it makes you think maybe we could get a result?

Yup a sobering reminder that things can fall apart very quickly in the Championship. If we can get to mid Jan in this form i will start to believe.