It's pleasing to see Scott Wharton 21/22 model is back.

Hedges is the player for me who can have that sudden transformation in his career like BBD and Armstrong and turn into a top Championship player. Got all the ingredients, just rarely fits them together. Hopefully today is the start of doing it more regularly!

Decent gk, defensive, centre midfield performance, and hedges has done well on the right. Szmodics has been wasteful but looked effective. Leonard and Dolan offered very little. Wonder if Markanday and Gallagher may come on as there is a lot of space on the counter and their pace could be useful.

Bloxham and Gamble on bench. I dont really know much about them. What are their positions? Surprised given previous exposure it wasn't Gilsenan and Batty who are on the bench.

I also think we will go 352. Could be a bit different though with any of Ennis, Tronstad, Garrett, Brittain getting game time

This early in the game better to let them score

I hate an early red card more than anything in football. Makes the rest of the game miserable.

How did the red happen?

JDTs pattern is that he doesn't tend to like dropping players too quickly, and once youre in you get a few games. Markanday dropped today. Reckon if Leonard struggles today and Ennis does well coming on then next week they could swap over.

Its maybe a bit of a patronising cliché but every time I watch womens football (just the major international tournaments) Im blown away by how much it has improved. Goals today have been sublime. Loved the little reverse pass for our third.

Agree with this. Our goal should be to be the most attractive club to join in the country for young promising players. I would say we can't be far off that atm, given the amount of graduates getting into the team, and showing we treat unsuccessful graduates well is a big part of it too.

I mostly agree with this but I think that Travis cant do the central sitting play maker thing. He needs to be box to box. So if he plays JRC cant be in midfield imo as they will both want the same inside right channel. Options would be play Adam Wharton in the central role and Szmodics on the left (bring in Dolan LW) or bring in Buckley to play the play maker role as a straight swap for Travis (my preferred). I guess Tronstad could be used instead of Buckley but Im not sure from seeing him if hes the right guy to dictate the play. Could be but not seen enough yet to know. Wahlstedt Brittain Carter Hyam Pickering Rankin-Costello Buckley A. Wharton Hedges Ennis Smodzics

We're playing well at the moment, controlling possession, creating chances and scoring goals. So on the offensive side we are doing pretty well imo. The worry is we are conceding easily on the break. Hard to really make any sort of confident prediction. Could see any of a 2-0 win or 3-2 loss or a 2-2 all draw imo.

I was thinking more the inverse - Buckley sits deep in the role Wharton has had recently, while JRC and Wharton focus on getting forward and into the "half spaces". Wharton, Pickering and Szmodics combine down the left channel, while JRC, Brittain and Hedges do the same down the right. When weve got those triple combinations right it's incredibly hard for the opposition full back. When we get it right ots absolutely devastating like Leicester away in the cup last year. What makes JDT probably my favourite manager by miles since Hughes (and I am wondering if he could actually compete with Hughes and Souness if he sticks around for a few years) is that he throws so many bodies forward and prioritises overloading the opposition full back over good defensive shape. He likes taking risks which makes us, imo, a pretty good watch.

Based on what I've seen so far this season I would quite like us to line up like this... Think the combinations down the left and right will be great. Pears Brittain. Hyam. Carter. Pickering JRC. Buckley Wharton Hedges. Ennis. Szmodics

Early days to judge on Tronstad. My assumption is that he will be more aggressive and physical in the tackle. What I did like yesterday though is how stuck in Wharton gets. He isnt a creative focussed passenger in the midfield, he wins quite a few tackles. If we took Travis or Tronstad out of the midfield and played Wharton and JRC / Buckley I'm not sure we would actually lose that much in terms of robustness. Something I hope we give a shot to.

Not sure we can play 12 players?

I like our bench too. I cant really say Im looking at the eighteen and wishing BBD and Dack were in it. Maybe naive, but think we have a better balanced team without them.

Could be wrong, its only been two games, but think goal scoring may be less of an issue for us already. Compared to start of last season we get so many players forward now (6 to 8 into the final third every attack), and while Gallagher and BBD wanted to spend all their time fannying around near the touchlines Leonard and Ennis look keen to get in the box. We still need an established goal scoring striker, but I fancy us to score a couple on Saturday nonetheless.

Great game to see how we compare to last year. I imagine same side as against WBA,. with Ennis and Hedges coming on around the hour mark. One advantage we have this season is in Ennis and Leonard it looks like we have some strikers who we can play it up to centrally and they can make it work in a congested penalty box when the opposition is sitting deep. Against the Rotherham and Lutons of the world you really need that.

Great to hear about Gilsenan. Not even factored in my vaguest thinking. If he can really offer a breakthrough this year thats a massive bonus. Also reports on Ennis very encouraging. Sounds like the focal point we need. And Garett's strong performance gives us six strong contenders for three midfield slots (Garrett, Travis, Tronstad, Buckley, Szmodics, A Wharton). Our academy really is something else. Womder if we could break some records this year in terms of number of academy graduates on the pitch? Looking forward to Saturday!

Personally I would still play the same "spine" as we need to settle into a way of playing and everyone is fresh after the summer. Also as we have no world cup we have nothing like as many mid week game (only three mid week Championship games between now and end of November). Pears Brittain. Hyam. Wharton. Pickering Travis Buckley. Wharton Markanday Leonard. Szmodics

Leonard might be missing a couple of them but we went all of the last two seasons without anyone making those runs. He looks really good to me.

I know theres a lot of moaning about us but for me were a really good watch. The numbers we commit forward is ridiculous. Carter was up on the edge of the box with I think 8 of 11 in the final third. Said it a lot back end of last season but we are tactically the most attacking Rovers side ive seen in 30 years.

Weve gone into the last three seasons expecting to do worse but actually done better. Im hoping we keep that up. It boils down to the young lads doing better than expected, and as of half time first game of the season signs look good on that again. Ill say sixth if we keep JDT.