I think Zlatan would have something to say about that....

Lets hope he likes playing false 9 with Gallagher whipping the crosses in from the wing! (Seriously Gallagher on the right wing for literally two years has to be the strangest long term strategy I have ever seen in football, Rovers or elsewhere. In all that time it has only looked effective in maybe four or five games. To be fair to Mowbray he has shown that it works with Brereton on the other side so fair play, but surely it's time to give up on Gallagher? Perhaps that is why we are signing wingers? But given we've played Gallagher wide right every game so far, and played Dolan and now Clarkson centrally I think this bizarre state of affairs will continue).

Only listening on the radio but sounds to me like we should go 352. Current formation is mental.

Agree we should switch around and start 352 for this one. Can go to 433 or 4231 if we need to change up later. Only issue for me is RWB. Nyambe lacks the delivery and may be injured, Pike is totally untested. Shame JRC is injured. We could play Travis or Buckley there and give Clarkson a start in midfield? Buckley has shown an ability to carry the ball forward and a tenacity in the tackle which suggests to me he could fill in at RWB quite well.

Dolan is very young with a lot of raw ingredients. He's got a lot of qualities which you just can't teach like the ability to beat a man, a robust mentality and raw pace. Things he's weak at like final ball, finding space and generating power in his strikes are coachable. I'd say he is someone who will keep improving as he gets more game time. He's fun to watch too as he's unpredictable, and you can't fault him for effort. Only 19 as well. Could be much improved by the end of the season.

Gallagher looked better when we went 352 towards the end. Could suit him more to play as part of a two more centrally rather than on his own either up top or wide right. Means he has more to aim at with flick ons etc. When we switch to him and Brereton as a pair in a 352 it suddenly make us quite a physical direct side which is a good change to have up our sleeve.

I thought Bell was okay, better than Douglas who was horrendous. Pickering looks better to me though, so we have upgraded. Our sudden proficiency at set plays is down to Pickering imo. He's got a good delivery, links up well, is defensively competent, has a good engine and seems to be one of those players who will rarely get injured. No world beater but a very solid signing.

Yeah, but it feels to me like he will start scoring regularly soon. On the cusp. If you get in the right places they come through eventually.

I think Chapman came on at wing back in a 352, so a reasonably mental move, but it worked. We've got to be fair to Mowbray, his tactics are still odd but they are doing the business atm. So credit where its due. For what it's worth I really like the switch to 352 mid game. Both Millwall and Forest have really struggled with it when we changed. I feel it gives us a totally new option.

Love how football is so weird. I don't think a single fan would have predicted a strong start to the season given the players we lost and the lack of players brought in. But here we are.... 7 points from 9.... Anyway - I really feel Buckley is under rated. He's our best passer, got good bite in the tackle (made a couple of really good ones today), can carry the ball forward and beat players, picks up good positions. Should have scored one today but he gets in the right spaces. Him, Trav and Rothwell is such an enjoyable midfield. Carter looks good. And while Armstrong is an exceptional striker and a big loss, it's obvious how much better the forward line is at pressing without him. Some really outstanding pressing today from all the front three which Forest couldn't cope with. Really looking forward to West Brom.

Kaminski Nyambe. Lenihan. Ayala. Pickering Buckley Travis. Rothwell Butterworth. Gallagher. Brereton Subs :. Pears, Carter, Clarkson, Davenport, Garrett, Dolan, McBride If it's not working Carter can come on and we switch to a 343. It's not a bad first XI, but we are so thin at full back, centreback, the whole forward line. We're doing okay at the moment, but a few injuries or a loss of form and we are in real trouble. 9 games from now till October. If we lose to injury any of Kaminski, Lenihan, Ayala, Nyambe, Pickering, Travis, Rothwell, Buckley, Brereton, Gallagher it will be very tough to manage.

Clarkson makes sense. That he supports Rovers gives more chance of a an extended stay too. Maybe two seasons loan.q Even a transfer if it's not working out at Liverpool. With Rothwell, Travis, Buckley, Johnson, Garett, Davenport, Johnson that's midfield sorted. Key is another CB for me, and goals up top.

How did you watch the game back? I would like to do so!

I couldn't watch the match (French 4G on the TGV train down to Marseille couldn't deliver), so take what I say with a pinch of salt. But I watched pretty much every game last season and one thing we very rarely did was go to a back three. Even though we had real problems against teams with a back three themselves we just huffed and puffed and usually ended up getting well beat by them. That we do now have the option of changing our back line to matchup can only be a good thing. As an aside - it looks like the capability to watch the full game back does not feature on whatever it is that has replaced ifollow which is a real shame. I'm moving up to Manchester from London in October so will be able to make quite a few games. But basically with Ifollow you could watch every game you missed in its entirety which was great, but now it seems if you miss the game you get 3 mins of highlights. Very crap.

I'm in France for holidays and thought I would be able to watch the game on a over sees match ticket. Cant see that option though, only get the audio options listed. Any overseas rovers had any luck?

New website and media partnership seems really terrible.

Just watched the Swansea TV extended highlights. My god - our commentators are consummate professionals compared to theirs who sound like they're chatting in the pub after having a heavy day on the sauce and are feeling a bit sleepy.... Actually quite a funny.....

On IPlayer they did both an extended highlights (circa 10 mins) and a full match replay. I am sad enough to watch the entire match back if I miss a game! On the new service it seems there is only the 2min highlights only which is a massive shame. Could just be teething issues as they sort themselves out, or it could be a deliberate decision to minmise what you can see online with the idea it will encourage fans to buy more match tickets (local) or pay for the live feed (abroad). Can't see there be too many people though who don't buy a ticket / live feed because they watch the full game back 2 days later on the website? Got to be pretty niche...

To be fair to Tony he's done okay with young players when they've joined - Armstrong himself being an example, Brereton has started looking decent, Rothwell obviously has done well. Not too many young players have turned out to be turkeys. So I will watch with interest how Obafemi does. I won't be writing him off. Does anyone know if we can invest further? Assuming we get Obafemi my priority list would be 1) centre back (Ayala is going to get injured very soon I am sure), 2) right back (Im assuming JRC is going to struggle to be fit), 3) centre mid, 4) left back. The squads so thin we could arguably use another CB and CM on top of that. But say we have £5m to spend we will be lucky to get three players. (I know there's a strong argument that we need to replace Armstrong's goals, but if we bring in Obafemi that means we've spent £15m+ on three strikers - so we have to look to them to get the goals. Also McBride looks to me like he will score). In terms of types of players to bring in I would focus on young players with potential unless there is genuine quality with experience out there who can stay fit. I'd be very cautious - so many of the "experienced" buys do not bring enough consistency and struggle with injury.... eg. Dougas, Ayala, Johnson. All those players were probs on wages at least 3x young players like Travis or Rothwell who play more games and add more to the team over a season.

Yes agee with this. Basically I think a team with a new system gets around a dozen games until the opposition figure it out and setup to nullify the team. As a team you've really got two options 1) be so good that even when they've figured you out they can't stop you, 2) have a plan B. Our issue last year is we started really well but the 433 got found out in November but we didn't really switch the system till Feb. I hope we go into this season a bit more flexibly.

Another game to chalk up to "the kids rarely let us down". Today we had 4 academy graduates (Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis, Buckley), 2 more effectively academy grads (Brereton and Dolan) as we bought them so young. Only experienced players really Kaminski, Lenihan and Ayala. Gallagher is a weird one, 25 but never really established, Pickering an established player at League One level and still only 22. All the subs were academy grads (Butterworth, Carter) or effective grads (Davenport). The lack of experience in the team is on one hand worrying, but on another was anyone out there really lower quality than Douglas, Bell, Evans, Bennett, Smallwood even Holtby? Not really sure they were... I am struggling to think of many games where young players have let us down, compared to the many where journeymen have. On the whole I have always thought we just don't play the kids enough. This year we get to find out if that is true. I think I prefer that to us bringing in a new raft of Smallwood's, Lee Willamsons, Chris Brown's etc. I struggle to think of many of those who have truly worked out.

Can we bring in Marc Anthony, Napoleon and Sun Tsu while we are at it? Would help with our both our strategy and our tactics.

Definitely has that feel.

It's hard to be sure with a very transitional squad. Only players with a proven track record at this level are Armstrong (probably going) Travis (injury prone) Johnson (34) Lenihan, Rothwell (going?), Nyambe (going?) Kaminski. If you are being generous you could throw Brereton and Gallagher in there. Only 100% solid players to plan the season on are Lenihan & Kaminski really. Everyone else has question marks or unknowns. I think making predictions almost impossible. Could end up having a weirdly good season as the kids turn out to be the real deal. Could end up stick to the bottom of the table. Only wil be able to get an inkling around October.

That's a certainty really, Ayala will do well to play 30% of games.