He is 26 and played almost 200 games. He has a career as a pro footballer.

I’m struggling to understand the Cantwell criticism. That shot into the BBE was poor but he was the only positive of the night. He did exactly what you want a creative midfielder to do. It’s just no-one could finish any of it off. His best league season is only ever 7 league goals in the SPL. If you think he’s banging 15+ league goals it’s not happening. That’s not what he does.

VE day

We know about the misses late on, but there's other elements that piss me off from yesterday. First goal. Travis is coming back from behind play and can see everyone in front of him. You can see the eventual goalscorer in front of him. So what's he now doing here. He's just run into space, not looking and god knows what he pointing at. It's no wonder the guy has so much time and space to turn and shoot. Then for the chance they had shortly after which Pears saves, watch Britain. The minute they break over the half way line he is just jogging back. He breaks into a quicker trot briefly and then just gives up. Shocking attitude. We know from the final days of JDT that he was one of the first in the rubber dinghy.

Szmodics left for 15 mill, hoorah, hoorah, Armstrong left for 20 mill hoorah, hoorah, Venkys they don’t care one bit, Spend no money or give a shit. Now Makhtar Gueye is Rovers' number 9.

No one was clamouring for him to start up top in the summer. But when your choices are Yuki, Gueye and Leonard, there’s a chance he’s better than the other 2. One of them has to start.

I’ve just looked him up as he was just before my time and all sites have him playing for Trelleborgs in 1983 ? Random connection if true.

Currently 20/1 to get relegated. Even the most blinkered of Rovers fans surely see that’s way too big.

Ward was crap but fucking leagues above this guy over the last 2 months.

I said on the ground, if you got 10 top strikers to line up and head that cross down and over the bar from there they wouldnt be able to manage it. The angles don’t compute.

Fair points. I think I just wanted to point out it’s not a dislike of the guy why he’s getting criticism. It is actually wholly based on his performances. We could play to his strengths more and find out if he does look any better, although if we aren’t going to do that then again you do wonder if the recruitment team have different visions to how we should be playing when targeting signings than Eustace.

If you watch Keiffer Moore performance and watch Gueye's cameo you see a huge difference in target men. Moore didn't just win headers. He also directs them into the path of a team-mate. When long balls come up to Gueye, he can win them but often they flick on or get knocked down to no-one. As I mentioned above, there are three crosses in injury time - one he doesn't really go for, the other the keeper just comes and claims it easily from him and the third and final one he should really be favourite for but the shorter defender does enough to get it away. As much as I would love to see him knock it down like he did for Weimann at Burnley, that touch has been few and far between. Admittedly Sheff United probably have a very good defensive line. If he started against a bottom half team and we put more balls into the air it would be interesting to see how he did. Against Derby on the opening day he looked a right handful. But he's featured in 12 Championship games now and he is looking progressively worse each time. The longest he's played in a game is 65 minutes so Eustace clearly knows he isn't getting a great tune out of him. It's nothing to do with not liking him as a person, but I dont particularly like what I've seen as I footballer. However I'd love him to become Rudy Mk2.

Go on rovers.co.uk and watch the full game. There’s 3 crosses put in towards him in injury time which he doesn’t get close to winning. If heading is his forte, the one on 95 minutes he really should be able to outjump the full back and make something out of that.

I’ve seen quite a bit of Burnley this season and they don’t look like they will make the top 2 at all. Serious lack of creativity and goal threat compared to last time. I suspect they will need to take a risk and throw money at it in January to get up, which judged on the summer seems unlikely.

Pears JRC. Hyam. Batth. Beck Trav. Tron Siggy. Ohashi. Cantwell Leonard

On the ground I didn’t really notice anyone jumping out of tackles. I saw a lot of shit control, badly executed passes and wrong decision (and a lot of pissing around at the back which could be solved quickly).

To be fair you are right. We had a net spend of £40million and still got relegated.

I meant relegated in 1999 when Jack was still in charge and, despite all the enthusiasm, vision and control he had, still couldnt stop relegation. Go back and follow the conversation. London Blue was saying that criticism yesterdays performace should be tempered because Sheff United were a level above us because their owners have spent money and we haven't. Basically Venkys have sold anyone decent and just replaced with bargain basement buys (incuding in the board room). Therefore, although you can level some blame at Eustace and the players, it's always going to be difficult to compete against teams on seriously larger budgets. Abbey said that not being able to compete with them was 'nonsense' and "good job uncle Jack had a better vision than you." My point is Uncle Jacks vision was to spend money. But to your last point, yeah Venkys were fully responsible for relegation last time and are fully responsible for our inability to even look like we can mount a sustained challenge to return at any point. Therefore a lot of the blame for yesterday's performance rests with Venkys and not fully down to JE and the players.

Uncle Jacks vision was having vastly different spending power than most. Once we didn’t we got relegated.

I’ve backed them to win the league and still think they will. They can play good football, break quickly and also just toss it in and go direct. They will adapt their style depending on the opposition and how the game is going.

You could argue that we lacked ambition in the game but I didn’t think effort was lacking from the players. They’re just not good enough. Sheff United were just better in every department.

Sheff United were just better than us, both technically and in decision making. You watch some of the basic errors we make (JRC not clearing, Dolan and Ohashi not playing the pass accurately, Gueye running it out of play, half of our team unable to control is properly) and you you rarely saw Sheff United make those errors. Time may show that they are the best team in the league, but they were way infront of us today. However the pissing around and the back, refusal to leave anyone up from corners and lack of any real changes to how we were playing was frustrating.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/makhtar-gueye/transfers/spieler/606849 I hope those fees quoted are in cents and not euros

Don’t know why but I suspect first goal wins in this game.

I was annoyed after all 3 games, but I think after yesterday I absolved Eustace of any blame, which was not the case at Coventry and Plymouth. I felt the setup and the game management was OK, but the players simply lack quality. Gueye and Ohashi stated well but almmost every Rovers fan is now questioning them to some degree. The Weimann signing looked a good experienced head on paper, but ultimately he's been an averge Championship player for average mid-table Championship sides for almost 10 years now. This during the 'best years' of his career. Therefore at 33 what can we realistically expect from him. Even so, his decision making for that chance was poor. He had several options, and gently looping it over the bar was the worst.