Hasta

As he was injured he didn’t go out on loan. Meaning he’s still here. And last week the Rovers website , when stating Baradji was a “longer term” absentee stated that the under 21 game on Friday would come “too soon” for Carter and Garrett.

It's a good job we got Gardner-Hickman done on deadline day. I'm not saying he's been good, but at least it gave us a viable alternative to Tavares who we knew could perform to a certain level (League One / Bottom Championship). Jake Garrett seriously comes under consideration for the bench once he's back, which is something last year you'd have scoffed at.

Martin sacked ☹️ I was enjoying that.

Owen Coyle won away at Newcastle. Steve Kean won away at Old Trafford. Plymouth beat us when we were in the top 6 last year. Relegated sides aren't poor all season. They have good results, just less of them.

Pleased for him to put midweek behind him, although shame he didn’t convert one of the other chances. Best thing today was he kept getting in the box and central, something which the two wide players in the first half rarely did.

Generally, when sides go down they aren’t terrible all the time. The number of sides that get relegated with 45+ points tells you this. There will be times in the season when all those sides will have played well, won games and thought “we might be OK”. My big concern is what happens every year. We get injuries, squad gets stretched and we get worse. It’s just this year we won’t have points in the bank.

I thought for the first half Stoke were very good. Very fluid going forward. However once they got in front they decided to stop coming onto us as much and that led to us getting a foothold in the game, and by the end we looked like we might nick it. Overall probably fair. Toth and Alebiosu good again. Thought De Neve was a game changer. Rather Ohashi than the Gudjohnsen, who was poor. Cantwell is frustrating. Does some good thing (such as the cutback) but then can be too lackadaisical, and also give the ball away very similar to Kargbo last game and similarly didn’t track back.

It hit a high on the 20th against Ipswich of 1.69. It hit 1.1 yesterday. Question is how high covers the outlet? Rivers Darwen Ewood historical levels.

And was techincally wrong that day.. Seems to get a kick in trying to pursuade away fans not to travel. Wierd place twitter.

Currently lashing it down outside.

Do you think John Fleck was a good signing? Only featured for 17 minutes but played well in a game we dominated whilst he was on. If we judge him solely on what he did on the pitch he’s surely an outstanding bit of business.

It’s bonkers. And for all the quotes of “he should return after the international break” which Chaddy kept quoting, it’s suddenly turned to “longer term”. So either they didn’t understand the severity of the injury. Or, get this, they lied to us.

"[this afternoons] clash comes too soon for the likes of Hayden Carter or Jake Garrett, who remain weeks away from returning to match action, whilst Moussa Baradji is a longer-term absentee." So not expected back in the next few weeks. More a longer term absentee. Nice one Rudy.

It started raining against Ipswich at Midday, but it wasn't heavy. It seemed to turn heavy some time around 4pm. I'd say the weather at the moment is far worse than it was before kick off against Ipswich.

Preston, Blackpool and Bolton are all at home. I know it's not the same, but you could always take one of those games that clearly won't be at risk in.