DE.

I knew QPR were shit but wow. How embarrassing.

Great result, first win of the season. Just hope Dack isn't hurt too badly.

Decent half. We look pretty solid. We were set up to nick a goal and we've done that. I just hope we don't revert to type and start sitting back because we all know what'll happen next. Get a second and this Hull team are done.

Very similar to Dack's goal against Ipswich.

Not too dissimilar to the structure under Bowyer. I wonder how much the likes of Tom Cairney would have cost us in today's market? From recollection we got him for under a million...

Yeah they look in real trouble this season. Hurst's departure seems to have been the catalyst - if he'd stayed I think they'd have had a season similar to last. Funny to see and hear Ipswich fans turning on each other already. It might be dawning on some of them that Mick wasn't necessarily the problem. Meanwhile Hurst is already berating players in post match interviews, which might have worked at lower league level but may not have the same effect further up the chain. McCarthy very rarely criticised the team even when it was deserved, and truth be told most successful managers choose to keep that kind of thing private.

Looks like we could handle ourselves in League 2. Good to know I suppose. Let's see who we get in the next round. Our FA Cup run a few years back was the highlight of an otherwise horrifically boring season, so it'd be nice to progress as far as possible.

Brian Kidd is the perfect example of somebody destined to always be an assistant. By all accounts a very knowledgeable and hard working person to have as a member of the coaching team, but just doesn't have the type of personality to manage. At first I thought Bowyer was of a similar mould but he's done alright at Blackpool in fairness.

Maybe. It's usually the same type of people who like to jump on ambulances and smash things after an England victory. #lads Anyway, loan arrivals... we could do with some.

Amongst some, maybe, but plenty of people I spoke to were convinced that Southgate was some kind of genius and we were going to breeze through to the finals and win the whole thing. Pointing out the flaws in our tactics and limitations of our players was considered treasonous by the quarter finals so I generally kept quiet after that.

Sparky's an odd one. He seems OK until something goes wrong and morale starts to dip, then he seems absolutely incapable of arresting the decline. In terms of how we remember him it's probably best that he left when he did, as another season of penny-pinching from the Trust would probably have led to a decline that Sparky couldn't do anything about.

I don't buy the whole "England are underdogs" schtick. A couple of wins and suddenly football's coming home and we're going to streamroll our way to the final. The expectation has been and always will be there because of our standing and history in the game on a global level. Roy knew that and picked his teams and tactics accordingly imo.

Roy struggles anywhere that has expectation of success. Put him in an underdog scenario and he'll almost always overachieve, put him in the opposite situation and he'll generally fail miserably. Even during his time at Inter they'd been struggling massively prior to his arrival, hence the relative success he had there.

RIP Anvil. Considering his lifestyle during the heydey of the 80's it's a miracle he got to 63 in all honesty.

I think you could make a pretty good case for either. I'd say Eddie was better at promos than AJ, which might push him marginally ahead. Both exceptional talents though. Eddie's best match (imo): AJ's best (again imo):

Well Dack wasn't injured, so he either wasn't fit enough to play the full match or we decided to go defensive and settle for 2-1, despite that mentality repeatedly costing us points over the past decade or so. Pick whichever one you're happier with, I'm not impressed with either of them. As for which Championship teams can keep up a decent level for 90 minutes, we'll know that by who is up at the top end in a few months time.

Don't kid yourself into thinking it was all down to luck. The goal itself was a bit of a fluke, but the reason Ipswich scored is because we reverted to type and allowed them to come closer and closer to our goal. Had we been less cowardly and kept Dack on we likely would have won and maybe scored another. We saw another Mowbray special on Saturday during the first half - a Rovers team that looks like they stumbled out of a pub for the first 45 then suddenly hugely improve for the second half. That has been happening since Mowbray arrived and it's concerning that he evidently still hadn't worked out how to fix it. We got away with it last season because we were playing shit teams, and yesterday we had luck and the post on our side. As the season goes on though we will get found out if we aren't able to play for the full 90 minutes. It'll be no good starting to play in the second half if we're already two or three down.

Bennett is a great player to have in the team, but his position is clearly in the middle. He hasn't really got the pace or crossing ability to be effective out wide, but in the middle his constant running never gives the opposition a second to think. He's got a decent footballing brain on him as well so tends to make good passes rather than poor ones. The main advantage to playing him out wide is that obviously he provides good cover for the full back, due to his stamina and good reading of the game, but it essentially leaves us void of any real wide threat on whatever side he's on - save for when the full backs overlap.

Same old story, one good half and one bad half. A shame we threw two points away last week, as it would have made this result seem a lot better. No choice now but to put this one behind us and move on.

5/10 so far. Squad not good enough for a full season, not enough ambition shown for my liking so far and very confused as to why we started panic bidding towards the end. Does not fill me with confidence. Could end up a 7-8/10 by Sept 1 if we bring in some top quality loans with a view to buy. Not holding my breath at this point though and won't be paying much attention to what Mowbray says in the press about transfers going forward. His comments have thus far been disappointedly at odds with reality.

The market has been inflated for years now - can't use that as an excuse or we'll be signing League 1 and below players forever. Will be interested to see what Mowbray says. Let's see how the loan window pans out. If we still have nobody decent by September 1 then we'll know exactly where we stand with both the manager and the owners.

"Short notice" ? Other than most of June and the entirety of July? OK. I'm not that bothered about us not signing players (I fully expected as much) but I can't help but feel we had a real chance here to put out a statement of intent, and have instead broadcast that we're happy with just surviving with the squad we have. It's an achievable aim if our first eleven stay fit for the majority of the season, particularly Mulgrew, Dack and Graham. I suppose we'll find out in due course whether Tony's faith in our L1 squad is justified. We can always play the loan w/option to buy game, too, but I think the quality of our loan signings will depend on the results we get leading up to the deadline. Millwall (H), Hull (A), Reading (H) and Brentford (H)... if we're aiming for safety this year we're realistically going to want to be winning two of those.

I have that concern too, and it is worrying as at least two of those four aren't good enough for this level and none of Armstrong, Samuel or Nuttall can play the role that Graham plays. We're also completely screwed if any of the back four get injured. We might get away with Bell replacing Williams and Bennett shifting to right back if Nyambe has a spell on the sidelines, but an injury to Mulgrew or Lenihan makes us much, much weaker. Being loaned back for the first half of the season at least, so it won't make them weaker immediately.

The extended loan window makes everything a bit murky. and gives TM and his team an 'out' should we fail to get anything over the line today. Problem is the season has already started, and we're currently going into games under-strength because the club doesn't see fit to get its business done early. Any new signings will now have no pre-season training with the Rovers squad and will essentially be expected to hit the ground running. That's the main and only reason I would prefer for business to be done early. Obviously you can expect the odd one or two signings to be done near the end, but you don't want the bulk of your signings all left until the final minute. IMV we're still in need of a decent back up keeper, competition for Williams and Nyambe, a decent centre-midfielder, a wide man (ideally two but we'll be lucky to get in one) and back up for Graham. That's a lot of players to bed in with the season already underway.