Hasta

We have been spoilt by Charlie and MGP over the years.

It’s still probably going to take about 70+ points for the top 6 even in this strange season. That means we need 7 or 8 wins from 16 games. I just can’t see us getting anywhere near that.

Well, Thomas played his part in setting it up along with Brereton, Pickering, Dolan and chiefly JRC. But I would hardly say he 'set it up'. Would definitely start for me though.

People talking about why our other strikers don't get chances. Watch the Rovers goal again and it's classic Dack. As JRC receives the ball and turns Dack is tightly covered by one defender with another one close by. Everyone watches JRC as he's clearly going to shoot. Dack isn't watching, he's backpedaling quickly into open space. It's simple but is the reason why he gets chances in the box and Vale / Gallagher don't.

If you watch the 15 minutes highlights shown on Sky Sports (the tv, not the website) its shown on there. Its a foul.

@longsiders1882 So who was worse. Rovers or Preston?

I thought it was soft but a bit stupid by Gallagher. He just lent into him with his arm. Allowed him to go down.

Good point and decent performance in isolation. Watford were on top when they scored. We then changed it removing Dack and Brereton which, for once, helped us get back into the game, albeit removing any goal threat. Just another game that reminds us that, outside of the top 2, this league is very ordinary all the way through.

Did you know JRC stands for Joe Roberto Carlos ?

As far as I am aware the Rochdale move was permanent with him coming to Rovers immediately.

It's clearly covered by the unexpected income the cup run has generated. Regardless, it's still a nice touch by the club.

Just watched the whole thing. Excellent Ian.

The initial report was that we hadn't agreed a contract with the player in the event of promotion, hence the last minute legal wrangling. If that is true then that should have been expected. However to be honest I don't believe the media leaks here tell the full picture. What I do believe is there were other screw-ups earlier in the night leading to us being on the last minute before the club secretary had to file the documents, but he probably has then made stupid mistakes which pushed it over the 11pm deadline. A collective shambles.

If that's what happened. The only thing the club has confirmed, which was also reported by the media, was that we needed to bring in legal advisors late in the day and that the registration was filed late. Hopefully on Friday after we lose the appeal Rovers will come out and give a full account of what the problems were as GB promised.

Yep. I think it would either be 25th / 26th April or the week after. That would mean we have Burnley and Preston back to back in the league again. What could possibly go wrong?

Because the reason we were so last minute trying to submit the form was because of unexpected contract problems which he hadn't foresaw which caused legal teams to have to be brought back in at the last minute. That caused a significant delay which led to rushed / incorrect forms. And also because he came out on social media and accepted full responsibility for the cock up. Which means he is responsible.

I think if we had signed those 3 we might have had a chance of keeping in contention for 6th.

That's absolute nonsense.

Only just got around to watching that. Ouch. That's a bit more than a crack appearing. He could have easily batted that question away like he batted the one about BBD lack of confidence. He has chosen to make it clear he was not happy with the recruitment strategy of GB even had the deadline day fiasco not happened.

I'm not entirely sure it was more direct. I just think Wigan didn't press us anywhere near as high as other teams do. Certainly against Middlesborough when we played well first half we were more direct. Last night was the same pass it around at the back mundanely. I lost count of the number of times in the second half we get a corner or a throw in their half, and it ends up back at the feet of our own centre halves. We did switch it long and wide to Thomas quite a lot, but I doubt he will have many more games for us where he is left in that much space. First half he was pretty bad and looked like he was trying to hard, although second half seemed much better.

You could argue that back 5 (including the keeper) is missing 4 first-choice players.

I've never bought in to the "Brereton has to be wide" stuff. I'd put him through the centre with Hedges and Thomas on the flanks and Dack in behind.

They have, but they would have to go at 2 points a game - clear automatic promotion form - just to get to 70 points. That’s a big ask. I know it might take a bit less but they’ve probably given themselves a bit much to do.

Mowbray because he spent £5mill so would have looked a dick if he hadn't. JDT because he's no other decent options yet, but he is at least alternating him with Vale and Hirst.

I really don’t know what you mean. Danny Graham was a good championship striker when he was at rovers but was significantly better than Gallagher in my eyes. Therefore if you think Gallagher is average championship quality then Graham must be levels above, hence champions league quality. Why does that opinion, which I’m guessing most people agree with entirely, and even you probably agree with somewhat, mean that’s why I clearly don’t work in football?