One thing that worried me last night is McFadz who has broadly been very good was absolutely roasted for their goal. He totally lost track of where their player was and got left behind so easily....

We're playing very conservatively at the moment, controlling the ball, but still give away extremely simple chances. If Millwall had a bit more adventure I think they could have won that. Luckily they didn't really try to test us.

I don't think we can change much at the back - especially now with Leo in goal who needs real protection. But we have to try something different up front. Gallagher, Szmodics and Dolan together just isn't working. I am concerned that despite losing away and drawing at home we are just doing the same thing each game. It seems the thinking is don't worry about the midfield, just hope that the opposition makes a mistake and we can pounce with the three forwards. To be fair that did happen yesterday, but it is a sad state of affairs to be relying on unforced errors to create openings.

What's worrying is we played pretty well in controlling the match, Millwall had nothing apart from one sniff. But they look far more like scoring even from that one corner. It was inches from a goal.

Gallaghers advantages are pressing and running, his weaknesses are his touch and link up play...

If the opposition are going to sit deep on their box his advantages are negated and his weaknesses accentuated.

Feels like maybe its a game that will suit Sigurdsson, lots of room and needs something clever to unlock the defence. 

24 minutes ago, arbitro said:

I have been told that Pears is out for the next two games with concussion as yet unconfirmed by the club.

Heaven help us.

This definitely is very very very very very bad news

I dont really understand why we are not playing 352, I think it would be a setup better for all our players.

Really hope Tronstad is back.

Need and expect to start winning. While recent transfer windows have been poor this squad did not become relegation fodder in 1st December after being solidly top half / promotion for the previous 15 months.

If we go down thats a huge underachievement from the manager and the players despite the recruitment issues.

32 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Sounds from Eustace like Gallagher and Tronstad will be fit which is a big boost. I have to say to be honest I am expecting us to start playing well and start winning now. We know how the Championship works - snakes and ladders with the death spirals and winning streaks. I think we should be getting back on the horse and putting a run together. Maybe I am being naive, but I've seen enough from the way we are playing to be optimistic about it. 

I still probably go 352 despite the 343 working so well against Newcastle because we need to be able to rotate our three decent forwards. We will run them into the ground if we play all three every game, and we run out of legs in the last 30 mins where bringing on one of them fresh would really help us.

Team I would pick (think Eustace will probably stick 343) : 

                                 Pears

                   Hyam    McFadz   Wharton

Brittain     Tronstad   Buckley   Moran    Pickering

                     Gallagher    Szmodics

Subs : Bring on Dolan, Chrisene, Ayeri, Markanday for more legs as the game wears on.

Incidentally on this - I would say based on current form and performance I think that first XI is a decent top half Championship standard... only questions for me are Moran (who was excellent at Newcastle so maybe turning it around) and if I had a choice would prefer JRC to Brittain. Brittain is a fantastic receiver of the ball and can't half put a shift in getting up and down. But he struggles to impact games in my view - his final ball rarely works (Stoke game apart...). But still think they are both better than relegation standard.

The bench is worrying though.

Sounds from Eustace like Gallagher and Tronstad will be fit which is a big boost. I have to say to be honest I am expecting us to start playing well and start winning now. We know how the Championship works - snakes and ladders with the death spirals and winning streaks. I think we should be getting back on the horse and putting a run together. Maybe I am being naive, but I've seen enough from the way we are playing to be optimistic about it. 

I still probably go 352 despite the 343 working so well against Newcastle because we need to be able to rotate our three decent forwards. We will run them into the ground if we play all three every game, and we run out of legs in the last 30 mins where bringing on one of them fresh would really help us.

Team I would pick (think Eustace will probably stick 343) : 

                                 Pears

                   Hyam    McFadz   Wharton

Brittain     Tronstad   Buckley   Moran    Pickering

                     Gallagher    Szmodics

Subs : Bring on Dolan, Chrisene, Ayeri, Markanday for more legs as the game wears on.

17 hours ago, philipl said:

Played really well in the Gally role last night.

Ive not got a vendetta against him or anything but I would say he was comfortably our worst performer on the night. He laid the ball off well for Markandays shot that led to our goal but outside of that I struggle to think of too many contributions he made.

Id love him to play the Gally role well, or any effective role, but he doesnt offer enough for me. He gets pushed off the ball too easily when he has it and is so lazy off the ball. 

I hope the coaching team can get him to up his effort levels over the next few weeks to give himself a chance to turn things around.

51 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

 

Mmm, not sure about that

He said some nice things about Rovers at the start but for the rest of the time his comments were from a Newcastle viewpoint. I know he's a Newcastle fan etc etc etc but he's paid very handsomely - about £450,000 a year (yes, really) by the BBC to provide insight and analysis and that requires objectivity - not how "we" aren't playing well or "we" should have scored at least three.

Gary ("shame Blackburn went down" - 1999) Lineker doesn't like us because we had the temerity to try to buy him years ago - which he regarded as an insult. He just about passed muster last night but still made a snide remark about the game at half-time after what I thought was an enthralling first half 

 

Yeah I like Lineker a lot but thought he seemed strangely unenthused by the first half.

It was a really good game start to finish I thought.

35 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Really? One good game in the Cup and we're now looking at the top 8?? The players put in a massive shift last night but the question has to be asked why they didn't do that in the league (my last game at Birmingham was awful) and whether they can repeat it. Last night will have taken its toll. All the games are difficult from now on - starting at Swansea 

I think the mentality around it is important. We've yo-yo'd from a team who expected to make top six but missed on last day of season, to a team expecting to be in the playoff conversation as recently as November, to a team genuinely concerned about relegation at the end of a terrible run in January. We've now corrected the key issues I think that led to the December and January collapse, and while we need to get the results to prove it, it would be crazy for us to hold onto a mindset that we are going to get relegated. We should be looking up the table not down.

I guess what I am saying is to think that avoiding relegation by a point as a good outcome is not right. We should be expecting a lot more from this manager and group of players. They have the quality to do a lot better than that.

I just can't credit relegation at all - Eustace obviously knows what he is doing tactically, we look motivated, we have the leagues top scorer, we have tightened up at the back. 

Any neutral person looking in won't see us as in any serious danger. We should be looking up the table now, trying to get into the top eight of the form table between now and end of the season I would say. That would be about 20 points from the last 36 to get in there, and while it wouldn't get us into the playoffs (probably finish around 8th-10th) it would give us optimism for next season. 

42 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

It’s a trade off - we looking like we had more about us going forward when we re-jigged the team after McFadz went off be we also looked more open. 

Yeah exactly - I would stick with the solid defence approach personally and then open up later if needed. If you start attacking and open and fall behind you have nowhere to go, also the players tire out. 

Got to focus on keeping that goal conceded column down. 

22 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Sweden have Isak, Kulusevski and Gyokeres who has been attracting big interest after scoring loads for Sporting Lisbon.

Thought Isak was supposed to be the next big thing but looked really poor last night.

1 hour ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Eustace has more than one style, that's now established.

Against the Saudis we played similar to the Stoke game with a mixture of a passing game full of pressing and intensity with long ball being used when needed in our defensive third or to launch an attack.

I hope he goes for that mix in the league and not just the attritional style, I believe he will.

It helped that all the players were up for it in the Cup, now show that desire in the league to help the manager and get us safe.

I think the key was playing the two technical players as the centre mids, total game changer as they could find the right forward passes which has been our big problem.

I imagine we'll play the same way on Saturday.  Why change it? Especially when Swansea are exactly the sort of team who will try and get on the front foot.

Really impressed with everything about how Eustace approached the cup game today. Made some innovative decisions like starting Buckley and Moran together in a two which worked very well, made us very organised and compact, and had the team well motivated.

If he carries that into the Championship games I think we might have made a very good choice as manager.

Well absolutely amazing effort - think how well we were setup and motivated is a very very good sign about Eustace.

Want to see exactly the same on Saturday against Swansea.

Think I might be more excited about Eustace than JDT

Are Koumetio and Chrisene both playing left wing back?

Just now, Bethnal said:

Chrisene for Pickering. Have to.

Do we gave more subs?

Koumetio seems to have found his legs, no longer absolutely abject.

Tell you what, Pears has been first rate. Never thought Id say that.

How many more subs do we have?

Markanday might look like hes from the number 9s but he cant half strike a ball.

1 minute ago, martonrover said:

With a nod to Saturday 

Yeah Moran and Buckley have been great - want them fresh for Swansea.