DE.

Yeah I'd be pretty worried if I was an Everton fan at this point. Newcastle have enough to get out of it now. Hodgson will get points on the board for Watford over the next few months. Dean Smith has got Norwich climbing towards safety. With that said Brentford are falling fast at the moment too, and Leeds are far from safe themselves. Now that the bottom three have all woken up at once, suddenly there's a lot of clubs who will be starting to worry.

Little chance he'll be sacked, but yeah, tough to see a way back for him after that. To not only do something like that, but think it's OK for it to be filmed and broadcast publicly... well, the bloke obviously needs help as he must have some severe mental and/or emotional problems. Heartbreaking that he's bringing his children up to think stuff like that is OK. Makes you wonder if he was brought up in an environment where actions like this were normal. It doesn't excuse his behaviour at all, as anybody with any ounce of common sense or decency knows that physically abusing a defenceless animal is wrong regardless of upbringing, but usually behaviour like this traces back to some kind of source.

Both most likely around the end of this month, if I recall correctly.

Problem is right now we are relying on our defence being absolutely perfect and keeping clean sheets, as we simply cannot score regularly, as 2 goals in 6 games attests to. A solid defence is the backbone of most promotion sides, but we need the attacking side to step up in the next few weeks as well. With BBD, Gallagher, Dolan and Khadra all returning imminently we should be OK for firepower, but we need these lads to hit the ground running as we are already beginning to lose ground fast and numerous teams below us are riding their own waves of momentum right now.

Our defeat to Wigan in the cup was the first game that worried me. We had a pretty strong team out that day and didn't look up for it against a League 1 side. Since then performances have continued on a slow decline. Obviously injuries don't help but this is where the tactical and recruitment nous of the manager and club (or lack thereof) come to the fore.

We know we're highly unlikely to turn a game around if we concede first. Much better to put our best players on at the start and withdraw them when we're (hopefully) in front, rather than putting them on when we need goals because we're losing.

Tonight's game was on ESPN+, a US-based subscription service. They show a fair amount of Championship games, so worth the $6.99 a month if you have any interest in the competition.

I can understand the thought behind saying we were unlucky, when it comes to missing a couple of very clear sitters which on another day would have been dispatched comfortably. However, it also has to be acknowledged that the reason one of those fell to Buckley - a notoriously poor finisher - is because he was being played as a false 9 and therefore more likely to be in a position to take that chance then another, more capable player. One also has to question why our other major sitter fell to Lenihan. What was he even doing storming into the box from wide attacking position, and where were our other attackers? That stuff isn't luck, it's just poor game management.

I dread to think what our record is over Tony Mowbray's tenure in that regard, but I'd be very confident in saying we'd be up there with the very worst teams in the EFL when it comes to gaining points from a losing position. It's a mentality problem that has never been addressed.

Unfortunately he'll be toiling out on the right wing somewhere so likely won't have the opportunity to benefit.

We've scored 2 goals in the last 6 league games. This is not just a bad game in front of goal, it's a clear issue.

Simple fact is we don't have good squad depth and a few injuries reduces us to being the team we were last season - lower mid-table and not very good. We can get by with a couple of injuries at most, where we can reliably swap like-for-like without any major drop in quality from the replacement player. Beyond that we just don't have what it takes to adapt. Key players like Buckey and Rothwell go missing when things aren't going our way, and we must be one of if not the worst team in the entire EFL when it comes to gaining points when going behind. We couldn't score playing against a dismal Swansea side with 10 men for 40 minutes. We didn't even look like scoring until the very end when we started missing sitters. Don't kid yourselves, this is an awful Swansea team and we barely worried them until the last 7 or 8 minutes of the game. Try to name a decent save their keeper made over the 90 minutes. Swansea going down to 10 was probably the worst thing to happen, as that meant the only gameplan that works for us - let the opposition have most of the possession - was off the table and from that point all of our weaknesses from the past came back to haunt us like an extremely early halloween exhibit. Watching this match and the Hull match I'm pretty sure we aren't getting automatic. We don't look or play like a team that's a cut above the rest of the league. We've been able to ride an incredible wave of momentum buoyed by a frankly ridiculous purple patch of goalscoring from Brereton, but that's gone now and we are looking very much like the Rovers we're all used to seeing under Mowbray. Bournemouth and probably QPR will finish above us imo. Just a question of if we can hold on for 5th/6th. That's where I see us now. Not signing a striker at the very least in January will cost us. I felt sorry for Giles tonight, he must be wondering how the fuck we are second top scorers in the division, when most of the team seem to think the objective is to strike the ball anywhere other than between the sticks.

SMH. Why is Lenihan of all people getting all of our chances?!

We obviously don't want to go up. For fuck sake.

Breaking down teams and having a lot of possession is not our strong suit under Mowbray. This could be a long 20 minutes or so.

Khadra and BBD on, thank god.

Swansea down to ten. Won't get a better opportunity to turn this around.

Another disappointing first half. Quite common these days unfortunately. Swansea are awful but we're so poor going forward that we haven't been able to take advantage of multiple gifts given so far. Defending for their goal was non-existent - wtf happened there? A big 45 coming up. If we can't lay a glove on this Swansea team then it doesn't bode well for the run in.

In fairness we haven't been since the end of December either.

Desperately need someone on the pitch with some goalscoring instinct. It's painful to watch the current front line try to be threatening. Giles has looked good but has nothing to work with.

Pathetic dive from Buckley.

Lol. Sums it up so far.

Unfortunately there are no goalscorers on the pitch for him to actually provide assists to. Hard to see where the goals are coming from here.

3 games without a goal, then we roll into town. That was disgraceful defending from a defence that should be so much better than that.

I'd take that tbh!