Blue blood

Not sure what the fascination is with Gally for TM. Really don't think he has been very good. Could he be TM's Lowe holding the team back? Also harsh on Samuel who has done a solid job for a couple of games. Outside of that right team imo. Probably a scrap not suited to Buckley who could cause havoc though when people are tiring in the second half.

Didn't realise that Bristol were in such a slump. Thanks for pointing this out. Looking at their goal difference you can tell there's something not quite right for it being so poor for a team just out of playoff positions. Surprised QPR were favourites as Derby have done ok of late. Seems like the bookies were right which is no bad thing in the case of Dodgy County. Glad WBA beat Preston as can see them getting something from the Fulham game.

What a great set of results to come home to. It puts more pressure on us as it's given us a fantastic opportunity to get into the playoffs with a couple of good results. That said a win for Luton and given the other bottom teams getting points at the weekend there's a lot of pressure on Stoke too. Forces them to try for a result which is a good thing for us and our style.

Deffo a draw for Cardiff-Forest - 3 points is three hard fought Brentford results so a draw there would be great. Think Bristol, Brentford and Derby are unfortunately all favourites so would settle for them all drawing their games, though losses would be nice! Nerve wracking for us but great to see a league so open.

Not to worry. Thought I was having a very senior moment so quite relieved to not be having one!

You are spot on about protecting him Think a loan is best for him to do that. The U23s is fairly pointless imo bar improving fitness. Think he needs a loan away where he can bang them in and get a bit of sharpness and confodence, and develop his technique. Probably a league 1 club or weak foreign league would do that better than the U23s.

Untrue on several levels: 1) it's a false model for assessing transfers on what they may do not what they have done. I mean how can anyone judge any transfer then until they have left the club if it is based on what they may do? Also does this model work both ways? I mean Tosin may make a dozen muck ups in the next few games as we make playoffs. Because he might do that does that mean I can't rate him as a good signing? 2) opportunity costs. What else could we have done with that money? Signed Bauer, maybe Walton (never thought I would say that) perhaps got in an actual winger or better cover at full back. There is a cost to spending that money now, which meant we can't spend it elsewhere. 3) There is a huge difference between Armstrong and Gally and Bereton. For starters at 19 Armstrong had time to develop. Gally at 24 (I think) is at best a late developer and more crucially should be more developed than he currently is. 24 is not a development project. Also Armstrong showed attributes that suggested he could develop - great pace, some goals and a few good performances in league 1 and Championship. Consistency was absymal but he showed evidence - attributes and performances- that he could improve and get better. Bereton has shown none of this and Gally imo has shown little. Assessing the current evidence of whether they wil improve I would suggest that it is unlikely. We can't remove the price tag though can we? That £7 mill is gone. Of course price makes a huge difference to whether a signing is good or not. Smallwood was a good signing for one year on a free. Would he be conaider e as good a signing if he cost £5 mill? Fee matters. And neither Gally or Bereton have been worth their fees. Also your endorsement sounds rather like Jason Lowe - huge difference between cutting it at those levels and in the championship. And all the evidence I have seen of Bereton suggests he is not a footballer. Few strengths whatsoever. I should say I would love for both to prove me wrong. In fact Rovers need at least one of them to. But so far the future looks bleak and a waste of money for.both of them.

This threw me as I couldn't remember saying such a thing, then realised it was part of the post I quoted! I think there is an argument that both Gally and Bereton could come good as they have time on their side to develop but I wouldn't think it is very likely. Bereton doesn't look like a footballer at all to me and Gally doesn't look to have much of a football brain if he does have the physical attributes. At present, since how a player may turn out doesn't really count - Dack could come back crap or Armstrong could go back to his prior form yet these possibilities aren't considered, and rightly so - both are failures in terms of performance level and contribution. Factor in the cost and they're catastrophic errors. Not sure why or how there is so much debate on saying these players haven't been failures as it's pretty clear cut imo.

Actually they can. Even TMs biggest fans can see Bereton has been a waste of money and Gally isn't living up to his £5 mill tag whatsoever. Granted there is time to improve for both but it's not looking likely. There's tons to praise TM for at the moment but just as it is wrong to ignore these when things are going badly, it's just as wrong to ignore these clangers in the transfer market. Thank heavens for some quality midfield signings and Armstrong to redress the balance. But let's not pretend Bereton and Gally haven't been hugely disappointing.

I think it's mainly that Wigan fans weren't bothered about keeping him plus didn't hear much about him in league 1 that makes me say that. For example if he went to Wigan instead of us next season we'd probably be disappointed.

Well if you had asked at the end of 2019 I would have said yes, easily. He was dropping a ton of errors and didn't pull up any trees at Wigan, so Brighton would probably have let go on the cheap with a big sell on fee / buy back clause. Now - I appreciate it is a bit of a different story. A keeper doing well in the championship is probably worth a fair bit of money, more than we can afford. They probably won't want him as first choice yet (nor after a positive 2 months or so is he ready) and not much benefit to him sitting on the bench so they would also be happy with another loan. Its another problem deferred and very risky for us if there is a recall clause but that's the most likely scenario imo.

Well I'm going to keep criticising him because the more I seem to do so, the better he gets! Terrible keeper. Seriously though it is looking like a different player in the second half of the season. Watching him closely yesterday he made one error - missing a low cross into the box - but made a couple of good saves and dealt with every routine thing with a minimum of fuss. A very solid display. Is this the real Walton or was the error prone chap at the start the more regularbkeeper? Was it adjustment problems or is this just a purple patch? (I suapext the former). Problem is if he keeps up like this can we afford him? However these are questions for next season and hopefully the improvement continues till then for us.

Games Vs Cardiff, Bristol and Millwall will help us stunt the others charge for playoff (or hand it to them.) Very few really hard games in there which is encouraging although there's no easy games in the championship and we struggle most when heavy favourites.

That's interesting to know, didn't know about the Ipswich situation. Yes, totally agree, I'd he leaves it suggests that the future is very bleak financially should he chose to leave.

Some interesting questions of other clubs. Once again the championship proves it is much more exciting than the championship - anyone can beat anyone and tons of intrigue throughout the table. The jobs at Stoke and Huddersfield by new managers is an interesting one. Both had a long run of brokenness - Hudds about a year, Stoke 3 or 4 years. Especially in the case of Stoke that is not a quick fix. Add in its a league where anyone can beat anyone - Barnsley's wins Vs Fulham and Charlton beating Forest as 2 examples and it shows its not that easy to get clear from danger. Add in how badly both were doing prior to the new managers and even being a few points out of the relegation zone is not bad going. It might not be enough but it shows it's not a poor job they are doing. Boro - have said all along they are prime candidates for relegation with a rookie manager and cutbacks being a terrible recipe for trouble. They have hovered in or just above the relegation zone for most of the season so it hasn't been a great year for them and the negative consistency (as in being in or around trouble) suggests they aren't in great shape or making good progress. The thing to their advantage is the chairman is a fairly smart cookie and may we'll get rid before too late. Would TM go there. I honestly think tbat depends on FFP at Rovers. There's obviously an emotional tug and his record at Rovers will look quite positive on paper despite the relegation. That said Boro aren't any more attractive than us and further behind so why would he go? The only reason would be if we were going to have to dismantle the team due to FFP restrictions or he knows that he won't get the resources to build on what he has done. Past history suggests such a scenario is possible. And whilst there may be better candidates for Boro there are certainly worse, so I think it comes down to plans for us for next season from the owners/board.

Woodgate had them in or around the bottom 3 for most of the first half of the season. Had a mini run driving them up the table for a bit but most of the season they have looked poor and relegation candidates.

Perhaps - and I hope I am mistaken! Am not convinced from what I have seen but as you and Joey say there is a case and evidence Armstrong can do this. So hopefully we do have it in our locker. I'll be honest I still think we don't have enough magic out of nowhere in the team but perhaps the weakness isn't as big as I fear if Armstrong can contribute to this.

Would fancy them vs Fulham who are wobbling. A lot of quality the Fulham lot, but no nous in the manager.

Thanks for the compliment. ? No I don't think he is as he needs through balls and balls lofted over for him to run on to. If the service is poor, i doubt he'd get as many as he has been doing. He's in part imo dependent on others giving him some service. For example I couldn't see him scoring the type of goal the Brentford forward did for their first goal, when it wasn't really a chance but then became one. That said, I do think he is a great player, a huge asset and his pace gives us a huge out and means he can capitalise on mistakes. So yeah, he's a big goal threat, but I wouldn't say when there;s nothing on, he'll make something happen. Hope this distinction makes sense! For me Mulgrew attacking wise was a player who could magic something out of nothing with free kicks from any area, or Duff who could start a run on the byline just inside the opposition half and end up waltzing past a few players and scoring. Can see the argument the other way though, but he doesn't have that X factor, nor do any of the others, that i think one or two other teams had. We had it in League 1, we don't at this level.

I think part of the reason we do poorly in the second half - not the fault for today's goals although it didn't help our game - is the lack of options from the bench who are any good to see out games. Today for example, who could we bring on to shore things up? What happens is a defender is having a poor game? How much trouble for the opposition strike force is Gally really going to provide? Where's the pace off the bench? Rovers have a plan B Graham, but outside of that, at the moment we have very few options to see out games and protect leads. Part of that is the injury crisis but part of that imo is an unbalanced squad. Along with our lack of a something out of nothing player, this is why I expect we won't get playoffs this year,

A few thoughts on today's game. Not read anything back so pretty unedited/initial reaction type of response. If there was a table for effort Rovers would be first. The effort we put in was phenomenal, almost a Hughes-like team effort. We worked really hard against a technically superior team and deserved at least a point if not all 3. Actually, we deserved all 3 end of story. So regardless of what else, well done TM for instilling a hell of a work ethic in the lads. Their goals came about in a pretty unstoppable fashion. The first was because they had players who can make something out of nothing - as what happened for a magnificent first goal for Brentford, That;s something Rovers don't - with no disrespect intended to us - have in this league that a number of the other top 6 contenders have: a player who can make something out of nothing, even when the team isn't playing well. In the hunt for promotion this is a definite factor against us. For their second the referee was wearing a home shirt. That never was a penalty, it was not even a call that the ref had to make and got wrong - plain and simple it was a penalty out of nothing. If our penalty was dubious - and there certainly was a strong case for the penalty, though I appreciate there is an argument the other way - then there was no case for theirs whatsoever.So neither goal could really be helped by Rovers. As for Rovers - lots of huff and puff, looked decent on the break, but really limited Brentford offensively. Had it not been for a moment of magic and a referee assist WWE would think twice before sanctioning, they didn't look like scoring in the second half. For all their nice passing and possession in the second half they seemed to have run out of ideas, as shown by a fair number of balls lumped forward at the end. Really thought we had weathered the storm - first half Brentford were sloppy shooting straight at the keeper or messing up the final pass. But having weathered the first half a tad fortuitously, probably brought about in no small part through to our endeavour and hard work, I thought we had them fairly nullified. A few comments on individual players: Walton - been very critical of him, however today he was immense. There was one poor piece of keeping early when he came for a low cross at the near post and missed, but after that error didn't put a foot wrong. Was an impressive performance, from him. Bell - I just don't know about the guy. He worked hard, defended well, but everything looks an effort and a struggle with him, and Brentford had their best attacks down the left side. For all his improvement I suspect we need better to progress, but he is no longer looking a liability which is a huge step forward. Buying 1 left back instead of 2 is kind of helpful/useful. Travis - immense and immensely frustrating. A terrier in breaking up their attacks but dribbles far too often, and often dribbles into trouble. I counted 3 or 4 occasions where this was the case, and he needs to cut this out of his game to go from being a good player to a top class one. Nayambe - excellent and immense. Tosin and Lenihen too. Likewise Armstrong. A bit more clinical in one on one situations would be nice, but then I fear he'd be at a different league to us, nevermind club. Gally - he wins flick ons but doesn't look at all threatening or creative in any sense of the word. Want him to come good but yikes, doesn't look all that likely on today's showing. Buckley - an absolute gem and asset when in possession, a passenger when we don't have it. Really torn as the lad has lots of skill but no athleticism. Perhaps better as an impact sub for now until he toughens up. Speaking of subs we had so few options from the bench it hurt. Up front isn't too bad, Gally is like for like with Samuel (although I suspect the latter may be a bit better) and a Plan B in Graham (would perhaps have been worth a cameo today). However midfield and defensively there wasn't really any options which again is a huge worry. If any of our players are playing poorly or tiring there isn't any options to bring on to change the game. This is another factor I think that will cost us in the run up. Sure, the injury situation is a key factor in this, but again, it could be a difference maker in top 6. Overall I am encouraged as we deserved to win, and if we put in that level of performance and effort we will get more points on the board. However, today also confirmed to me whilst we are capable of getting into the playoffs it's through hard work and consistency (I guess that is always the case) and that we've no X factor, in player magic or squad rotation that we can call on to help us. This lack of X factor I feel will be the difference maker in whether we make playoffs or not. .

Nayambe excellent block, though whole team defending well. Our liabilities don't look like liabilities. Brentford look super uncomfortable with long balls in behind the defence. Utterly torn on Buckley today - does so much for us when in possession, so little when out of it. Brentford sloppy imo and could have had a goal I'd they had done a few simple passes better. That said our effort alone deserves something from the game.

Not a fan of downing and Armstrong on inverted wings...

Bench is horribly unbalanced but lots of attacking options if a Graham long ball attack would work or Gally's, ahem, energy. No Mulgrew on the bench shows he will never play for us again as if not on the bench now then never will be. Team is as good as it gets with our injuries. Doesn't look that strong on paper but did the job Vs Charlton so here's hoping for a similar result.

Its not negative but pretty factual I would say. I'm really enjoying us doing well too - really enjoying it - but even taking a snapshot of the now (by that I mean TMs reign) there are still a bucket load of issues. I've not gone into any pre TM. Sure it's going ok on the pitch but that doesn't make the issues disappear. And long term they are going to hurt us.