DE.

Last five minutes were pure torture. Kaminski an absolute hero, made 4/5 top class saves to keep Birmingham out. Defence was cut apart many times, and we put ourselves in serious danger on three separate occasions by passing it around our own backline. Lucky today not to be punished. Gallagher worth a mention, better than BBD today and only just behind Kaminski for MoM. Diaz looked leggy, was trying but never really got into the game. Ref was shockingly poor. I don't usually comment on refs, but my word. He was infuriating both sets of fans and got a loud, deserved chant of "you're not fit to referee". A word on Brum, much much improved compared to last season. We took a good scalp today. A Rovers win makes the 10+ hour journey to Ewood and back much sweeter 👌

Am at game and can confirm ref is a joke. A Birmingham player could chin one of ours and he'd wave play on. Farcical.

Probably would have missed if he'd hit it cleanly. Lad was a nightmare when it came to one-on-ones with time to think. Especially ironic considering the infamous (BBC, I think?) one-on-one training video he did whilst playing for us. Roberts was a decent instinctive striker of the ball, though.

Strange one. You'd think they would have learned their lesson when they sacked McCarthy and let Terry Connor relegate them. Different owners now, mind, but this kind of decision rarely ends well. A dangerous gamble to take.

I'm sure some will consider it petty, but I went off Dack after his reaction to our 7-0 drubbing at home to Fulham. It wasn't the behaviour of someone who really has any pride in being a part of the club. We've had a lot of talented players come and go over the years, but mentality has always been our Achilles' heel during the Venky era and partially why we've had to endure repeated death spirals and a total inability to recover when we concede the first goal. If JDT is addressing that mentality issue by letting certain players move on and bringing in others who will take the club as seriously as the fans do then that's OK with me. If this isn't the primary reason then if we do let Dack go I hope we have some ideas as to who to bring in, because with the likelihood of Brereton leaving in January as well that's a ton of goals and assists heading out the door.

BBD has been class tonight.

Tony, what's the score? 😎

Ipswich had a pack Portman road initiative going on and are flying in L1 at the moment, so not a surprise to see the attendance high for yesterday's match. By the sounds of it they were extremely unlucky. Something like 33 shots to Lincoln's 3 and lost 1-0. A proper FM scoreline.

I think that goal on the stroke of half time changed the entire complexion of the match. Go in at 2-0 and we probably have a much more comfortable second half. Scoring that goal against the run of play meant Boro came out with their tails up and we fell back and let them come at us. Ultimately three points is three points and you can't argue with our league position. We must be close to setting some kind of record for a consecutive WLWLWL pattern?

Ouch! Not sure I'd go as far as to say these players are deeply flawed, but yes, if they were scoring every decent chance they'd be playing at a much higher level.

BBC has it as a Lenihan OG 🤭

I don't think there are many people seriously calling for JDT to be removed, just flagging up some genuine concerns from the opening couple of months. Of course we have to give him time to adapt to the job, the league and the team he has available to him. The only time to consider sacking him this season would be if we went into a major downward spiral and were genuinely in danger of being relegated, not that Venky's would make that decision in time anyway. They left it too late with Coyle and they'd leave it too late again if it happened this time around. Not that I think this will happen. I envision a frustrating season where we ultimately finish mid-table. The question at the end of the season, assuming this is how it goes, will be whether JDT is growing as a manager and learning from his mistakes. It's too early to tell at this point, but by the end of the season we should have an idea of whether he's got the flexibility to cope when things aren't going as expected. Good managers are able to work with what they've got until they are able to mould the side into something closer approaching the vision they have. Allardyce is actually a good example of this, particularly during his time at Bolton. He always retained his core ethos but was able to develop the team's style of play as time went on and he was able to bring in better players. Hughes whilst he was with us similarly adapted the way we played and set up depending on the calibre of players he had available - from the likes of Amoruso, Douglas, Matteo, Flitcroft, Dickov and Stead to later on with Nelsen, Samba, Bentley, Benni McCarthy, Bellamy and Santa Cruz. Generally speaking a decent manager will build from the back and add the flair and panache over time as they become more comfortable with the players they have and their abilities. JDT deserves time to build a squad capable of playing the football he wants to play, but also has to be able to utilise what he has in the meantime.

We've had a lot more convincing defeats than victories, which is a valid concern.

Can't help but think Dack's absence has more to it than just stats. Think there may be a clash of personalities there.

Dack should have started, let alone been brought on as a sub. Watching Sammie flail around helplessly was painful.

Only one constant throughout that time... a fish rots from the head.

Says it all. Embarrassing. Chasing the game and I don't think we had a single shot in the last 10 minutes? Travelling fans deserve a refund from the club for that.

I don't know, we started off similarly against Rotherham with this aimless passing around nonsense. Main difference there is that we scored quite early and that changed the game. Score a goal and we become a different team, concede a goal and we might as well forfeit.

Didn't we start with the same team tonight that beat Rotherham 3-0, though? Hirst/Gallagher aside (and why this change was made is beyond me) it's the same team that easily beat Rotherham. One change shouldn't produce such a drastic dip in performance levels, regardless of how poor Hirst is.

I'd say the death spirals were more demoralising as you knew one loss meant we were in for weeks of nul points, but the current situation is more frustrating as it's hard to make sense of how we can go from looking OK to looking like utter garbage. You could say for the death spirals that we just had very fragile confidence under Mowbray and the team struggled to get form back after being defeated, but it's more difficult to explain what is going on here.

Not sure if WLWLWLWLWL OR WWWWWLLLLL is more frustrating.

Guess the detractors had a point after all. Not convinced this is going to help much, mind, but nick a goal and I can see us scraping a 1-0.

Terrible half. Fortunate that Wigan have been lacking the quality to capitalise. Massive rethink needed at HT.

So we bought Brittain to be backup for an out-of-position wide player at RB? Honestly JDT is just as bad as Mowbray when it comes to selections. First red flag was when he persisted playing with Gallagher on wide right, but it's getting worse as time goes on. With that said if we win I couldn't care less, pick whoever you want and play them wherever you want. If we lose then it would be pertinent for our resident journos to raise a question or two.

Bruce showed at Newcastle he'd put up with pretty much anything to get a payout. Imagine it'll be the same at WBA. His stock will be incredibly low after bombing there, and he knows that better than anyone. He'll be seen by most clubs at this point as a manager whose methods no longer work in the modern game.