joey_big_nose

Only caught the second half. Was really surprised we didnt change up much earlier. Could have made those changes at 60 mins rather than 80. When we did we looked dangerous until Garretts completely unfair red. Confused by the decision to leave Pickering out. And Hirst was absolutely atrocious.... Missed Gallagher hugely.

I'd say to some extent they have been victims of us not finding the right system when they were playing. I'd like them all to get a go now we have settled down and found our rhythm to see whether they can slot in well. Hirst should get a shot up front as frankly once either Gallagher or Brereton are unavailable he is the only direct replacement. Edun, Dack and Buckley have a bigger issue in that even with the three we are playing in the middle we have five players ahead of them (Morton, Travis, Adam Wharton, Szmodics, Garrett) so chances are going to be very few and far between. Edun is at the back of that queue so I am sure he is starting to wonder if he needs to move on to get games. Even if he fancied a crack at left wing back JDT has shown he is happy to play Brittain and Mola in there if Pickering is out.

Must be an absolute nightmare for Coventry to prep for this game. Would have been prepping to play us in 352, probably focussing on getting tight to Morton and let Travis have the ball, but now must be wondering if we are going to stick with 4231 and leave Travis out which changes everything tactically. So much about the Championship is having a clear understanding of how the opposition will play and nullifying the threats and exploiting the weaknesses. If you cant do that its very disconcerting. I dont think theres a team in this league who are so good they can just "play their own way" and expect to consistently get good results.

Not sure it's a double bluff, maybe just taking a view that it's the best approach to get the best price if he does go as we are clearly indicating we won't drop the valuation. Happy to sell at £15M or keep him. With how crazy the transfer market is I wouldn't be surprised if we did get big offers in January. He's more proven now - scored regularly for over a year at Championship level, and also doing okay at international level. Plenty of clubs will be desperate and flush with cash in Jan and I can see someone coming in for £15M. What's really nice is we've managed to win games without him playing well or playing at all, and have the goals shared quite well across the team. If we lost him I wouldn't be as worried as this time last year, though obviously much better if we kept him or found a really good replacement.

Had a look through Coventry's last five games. They've played 352 consistently and taken apart a few teams in a 4231 or 433 so I think we need to match up. Kaminski Carter Hyam S Wharton Travis Smodics Morton A Wharton Pickering Gallagher Brereton Glad it sounds likely they can make it work and the game will go ahead. If Brittain or Hedges come back then I woudl see Travis being dropped for them at RWB.

Watched the game back on iFollow as away at family events this weekend.. I love being proven wrong by the manager. Thought going into this changing away from the 352 was a major gamble, seeing as we had just won three on the spin and looked very defensively solid and dangerous on the break. Why change into a formation we had struggled in since the middle of August? But.... it worked an absolute treat. In fact was a better performance all round than the last three games. We really restricted Hull and created a lot of solid chances. Why was that after really struggling in 4231 earlier this season? I'd say a few reasons Hull themselves play 4411 so the issues where we have played 4231 against a 343 or 352 weren't there. They didn't outnumber us in midfield which is what really hurt us against the likes of Reading or Cardiff. Also, linked to the above, when we played 4231 before we would push the front four very high up leaving only two in the middle and a big gap to our forwards. Yesterday we dropped Szmodics a bit deeper, and he did a fantastic job covering in midfield and linking up attack. Another mea culpa - I was wondering earlier in the season what Sammie brought to the table that Dolan didn't have. I can now see he can combine Dolan's workrate with a much better tactical awareness and positioning that allows him to link up play in a much more effective way. Travis moving out of midfield so we had both Wharton and Morton as the deeper midfield pivots worked really well. It made passing it out from the back an absolute joy as either of them could pick up the ball on the half turn in a very Tugay sort of way. No one could get tight to them at all. If one was close the other could break free. Morton particularly is absolutely phenomenal in terms of finding space. When Britain or Hedges are back it's going to be a big call to put Travis back in there as he just hasn't got the same technical level (despite being a fantastic player in many regards). Also I thought Morton and Wharton both put their foot in really well, I don't think we missed Travis' physicality at all to be honest. When we did start to struggle and get overrun in the midfield as the players tired we shifted back to back three and nullified the Hull threat. I think we will probably settle into a bit of a groove where we use the 4231 against teams that play 4231 or 433, and use the 352 against teams that play 343 or 352. It's really nice to see that we continue to use a vast array of very young players in multiple systems and we keep the performance levels as high as they are. It has been a relatively soft run of games, and the upcoming fixtures at Burnley just before the WC break and at Norwich just after will tell us a lot more about where we are - however, any neutral commentator would be looking at us now and taking us as serious contenders for an automatic promotion. Squad depth, share of goals round the team, defensively solidarity and clean sheets, grinding out results, tactically proficient in different systems to counter different threats. All the ingredients seem to be there to be right at the top come the end of the season. One key outstanding bit - as others have said - is we are yet to come back from falling behind. That will be a great hoodoo to solve.

Pretty closely linked with Scott Wharton coming back from injury for me. He provides the cover Pickering needs. Also - Adam Wharton with his left foot and a decent tackle provides more robustness there too.

Surely playing behind closed doors, refund tickets and travel and watch on iFollow is the sensible solution? Trying to get people into a ground in a different borough at 24 hrs notice does not seem at all smart. Agree that postponing doesn't help anyone.

Could be this. Also could be something really weird like 343 with Pickering at LCB. Have to say I don't understand at all why we are changing away from a formation that has won three games on the spin to one which has decidedly not (whether 343, 433 or 4231)

Hedges is such a big loss for us in an attacking sense, I can't see that Tomasson will be happy to play Carter there all game. For me I reckon Szmodics will get right wing back and Wharton gets the third midfield slot. We shall see!

I'd be surprised if we retain Ayala end of season tbh. Prem level box defender but lower half championship in terms of distribution and mobility. On top of that loads of injuries and expensive. They'd rather use the budget for another Hyam I'm sure. Also Carter and Phillips are coming on. We haven't missed Ayala being out I would say.

Gregg and JDT have performed pretty well in the transfer market, and done very well bringing through young players. I suspect Hirst is probably significantly better than he currently appears. He's got quite a few more games before I'll make up my mind one way or another.

I missed the game on Saturday and just watched it back last night on RoversTV. I had from reading on here expected that we would be camped out on the edge of our box most of the game like the second half against Boro, but actually thought we kept our backline higher much better, so take back my earlier uninformed comments. Birminham are a good side, but we defended well, superb keeping from Kaminski, and we always looked dangerous on the break. Brereton and Gallagher put in a tremendous shift. They look a really good pair as a two - nightmare for defenders due to their physicality and pace. It frees them up so much to decide when they want to go wide and when through the middle. Why why why have we stuck them out on the wings for years??? All that said we have - as we have all season - rode our luck a bit the last three games. Sunderland, Boro, Birmingham City all created a lot of chances quite a few of which they should have scored really. It seems JDT is a bit of a lucky manager tbh - some just are - but I would like us to get back to creating more chances than the opposition. However - we are in top 3 and look full of confidence. Long may it continue!

It's a total joke really. The entire world cup is being played in an area about as big as and with the rough population of Yorkshire, and the indentured labour practices are horrific. The international football community needs to figure out how travesties like this world cup or awarding Russia last time can be avoided. I've got no problem with new territories getting world cups providing they hit some base level of size - 30M people? And have respectable human rights records. This needs to be part of the selection criteria. If not democracies need to be willing to walk away from FIFA. I fear we are not far away from a world cup in China - obviously will qualify on the size aspect, but human rights are totally unacceptable. How does the west handle that? Ill do my best to get enthused by Qatar but its going to be tough going. I hope the players use the platform to protest.

What I don't get is now we've shifted to 352 he can be accommodated in midfield... We arent doing the 4231 or 343 high press stuff anymore. I think probably the issue is more A Wharton is getting the role now... But Adam gets tired, so why not being Dack on for the last 30 regularly? He's perfect..?

Yeah.... I really like the 352, but the big losers are players like Dolan, Vale, Markanday, Szmodics in terms of their wide striker roles being dropped. Szmodics has adapted really well to dropping into midfield, but I don't think the other three can do that. So it's hard to see where Dolan, Vale, Markanday feature... Could go for a "little and large" combo up front maybe in a two? Start BBD and Dolan, and then change them over for Gallagher and Vale/Markanday? But then.... why not just start the two players who score regularly and seem to play well in a two together (BDD and Gally). The issue is when BBD and Gally are knackered, and we end up bringing on Val and Dolan there is very little chance the ball sticks and it's all one way traffic. Hirst is supposed to b the target man backup for Gally and BBD, but he has really struggled so far. Tis a challenge. We probably need to shift one of Dolan, Vale, Markanday in Jan and get a proper central striker if Hirst doesnt come good.

If Brittain and Hedges out wouldn't the obvious choice be Szmodics? Played in midfield with tenacity, good pace, great workrate. A bit of an odd choice at Wing Back in terms of his experience , but then again no stranger than picking Hedges there. Think it could be him? So something like : Kaminski Carter Hyam. S Wharton Szmodics. Travis Morton. A Wharton Pickering Galllagher Brereton-Diaz

I tend to agree, but it has meant that the other side have created a lot of chances, and really the only way we are surviving is heroic last ditch defending and Kaminski turning into Brad... We can't do that week after week. We have to find a way to push up.

I think we are doing superbly. That said we still have one big issue to figure out - how do we push the back line up? We are way way way too deep. I know part of this is tactical, to allow us a lot of space to break into, but also I think having the backline across the 18 yard box for 75% of the game is not intentional... it suggests we are not confident enough in our ability to use pace to recover if the opposition break through a higher defensive line. System is good, personnel good, but we need to figure out how to get our starting point 20 yards further up the pitch. This is an area where the loss of the pace of Lenihan and Nyambe is an issue. Ayala is known to be very slow, but I think Hyam and Carter look okay pace wise, we shouldn't really need to be that deep? Looking forward to improving in this area over the next few games.

Just to play devil's advocate I think he has actually made a goal line clearance for us this season once, can't think which game though?

Good to see you're on the 352 train now too Chadders! As always with the Championship any team gets a couple of good performances in a new system before other managers start to watch the videos back and adapt.... I'm wondering what the oppo will do. Hard for me to figure out though. Can't out number us in midfield as we have three in there, hard to outnumber us down the flanks as the wide CBs and CMs can provide additional cover to the wing backs, hard to play it long as Scott Wharton, Hyam etc will head out with ease, hard to play a high line due to Breretons and Gallaghers pace, hard to play deep as Adam Wharton will pick the passes. I'm sure there will be something we haven't thought of but it's great to go into a game feeling confident we are competitive and will cause problems in every area of the pitch.

The background is Mark Hughes took over Rovers in 2003, and he had previously the Wales job. In that job he had formed a very positive opinion of Robbie Savage and thought he was exactly what Rovers needed when he joined us. At the time Savage was playing for Birminghan City and was one of their better players, loved Mark Hughes from working with him for Wales and wanted the move. He also was very money motivated, and I think the contract he was promised was about double what he was on at City. Rovers made multiple approaches to Birmingham to sign Savage, but we were turned down. In the end Savage refused to play until he was sold, making the rather bizarre excuse that moving to Blackburn would get him "closer to home" - I think there was little in it. To be honest Savage behaved like a complete bastard, and if I'd been a Birmingham fan I would have hated him as they all do... Anyway in the end Birmingham relented and sold him to us. I think their manager or chairman or someone made the comment that why would Savage want to move from such a big club like BC to a small club like Rovers. A bit odd as a) Birmingham City pull small crowds for a club in the second biggest English city, b) they've won absolutely f-all and spent most of their existence in the lower reaches of the football league. That's where the "big club" Birmingham City nickname came from! Still going strong nearly 20 years later...

Why would you want to go back to 343? With that lineup I can see us ending up being out muscled in midfield and the forwards isolated. Two wins on the spin with 352, surely we will stick with it. That said I guess you could have the same lineup but drop Hedges into the middle three... I guess he could do a bit of a Rothwell tribute act thinking about it, playing on the side of the CM three and carrying the ball? Quite like the sound of that.... Kaminski Hyam Ayala Wharton Brittain Hedges Morton Wharton Pickering Gallagher Brereton

Yeah, he's a bit physical unit too. Very powerful. I can see him making a good wing back if he sorts his positioning out a bit. And we play him on the left side...

Having Adam Wharton in will give us a bit more passing from midfield as he drifts into the number 10 role. I am a bit fearful however that we will maybe play Smodics and Travis which wil lead to us finding it hard to get the right passes into the front two. Also think he may stick with the inverted wing backs.