Hi Suhail

Whilst I couldn't give a shit about PNE and barely give them a second thought in the rivalry stakes, them having a pop at our crowds is a bit rich.

Play Buckley further up the pitch would be another option, I think he's had some unfair criticism in the couple of games he started. Bearing in mind he's barely played 300 minutes in 18 months I think he's actually done remarkably well. There has been loss of possession through delaying but he's also created some chances and looked relatively dynamic going forward. Most notably he seems to have been improving as each game goes on, which is to be expected given the lack of playing time. Shaky first 10 before growing into the game and being subbed at 70 (match fitness).

I get what you mean, it’s not like people were queuing up to sign Kenna, Gale and Slater. People just look to shearer but fail to see/open their eyes to the importance of our cogs in the wheel; Wilcox, Sherwood, Ripley et Al

The money suggestion re 94-85 is such bollocks, so easily swallowed by idiots. United, Liverpool and several others spent more than us, we bought unbelievably well amd turned some solid players into champions with a sprinkling of stardust. People go on like we were throwing money around like florentino Pérez, utter shit.

We’ve controlled the game 2nd half, but have zero quality in the final third and a goalkeeper who wouldn’t get a game in league 2. That’s what is costing us, at either business end of the pitch we’re shite

If he does drop Cantwell I think it’s a good move managerially. He’s been poor of late and regardless of how thin the squad is we should never have automatic starters. There has to be a consequence of poor form

Sigurdsson won’t be going anywhere this window, only thing we can hope for at this stage is a move to the Middle East or gets his contract paid up. He’s barely kicked a ball this season and from his recent Instagram postings has been struggling with illness all year whether that’s his ‘injury’ or football related injuries are in addition to illness we’ve no idea. I feel a certain level of sympathy for the lad as what looked a promising career has effectively been derailed by the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Admittedly at times he hasn’t applied himself to the levels we expected, he’s now looking at a career that’s on a massively downward trajectory.

Championship really is a poor league this year. It’s a great spectacle as it’s so open but the top couple of teams are really poor in comparison to those who’ve been promoted over the last 6 or 7 years

Costing me a fortune is the new sky deal, I’m passing up overtime to watch us put in our worst performance of the year (it always is) to watch PNE once again beat us at Ewood with Dolan doing his best job of showing them they missed out on absolutely nothing

Agreed, he maintains shape extremely well. He’s clearly an intelligent player and with the game in front of him I think he’d do a decent job. Didn’t he play RWB for a period under JDT?

To make the playoffs we need Batth, Hyam, Brittain, Beck and Pears to stay fit first and foremost. We then need to get Travis back and up to speed. Without doing that it matters not a jot who we bring in. That said we still need a striker who scores regularly, a wide player (ideally with pace and can beat a man), left back cover.

I don’t hate Hedges at wing back

the most frustrating aspect of our owners/executives ability and/or willingness to act is that this year the championship is a really poor league and the best chance of a non parachute team getting promoted. The top 3 teams in Leeds, Sheff Utd and Dingles are rank average with Sheff Utd being the only team with a plan B. Sit deep and give Leeds and Burnley the ball and they look bereft of ideas. Anyone who goes up this year will get slapped all over the Prem but it really is a golden opportunity to go up given the relative lack of quality in the league

A front 4 of Dolan, Cantwell, Hedges and Gueye has a collective 6 goals between them in 28 games. Terrifying

At least we didn’t give him a 5 year contract or whatever it was after 8 good games at right back, 2 months after looking so far out of his depth most fans felt sorry for him.

A few who watch a lot of Scottish football (Celtic ) said this at the time but we’re shot down as being biased and not welcoming the second coming of Christ to Ewood. Everyone’s cottoning on now to the the fact he’s a show pony, and a lame one at that!

Our world beating number 8 running the show against a poor side again……… thought not

Absolutely, my point was more disproving this idea that he's effective and it's the fault of what's in front of him rather than him. I think he's currently on exactly the same number of goals and direct assists as Brittain

Josh Maja is 12.7, Finn Azzaz 13.3, Josh Windass 9, in terms of being a creative player of the so called quality of Cantwell it's not great IMO. Breaks down at he's expected to score 2 goals and create 5 over the course of the season. As a 'direct' comparison - Dack was 23.5 before his ACL and in the 20 games he played when he returned it was up at 8.4, which when you consider how many of them were him working his way back it says a lot IMO. For comparison against other 'talismanic players' (excluding SS as he was a freak) and so called crap players, in 22-23 BBD was 15.1, the season before that it was 19, with Rothwell and Gallagher both with scores of 10, in that season Josh Bowler was on 11. Armstrong 27, BBD 15, Rothwell on 9 again and Gallagher on 8 in the season prior to that. So all in all I think it's a really poor return for a player of his supposed quality especially when compared with others, some of which were largely considered to be crap.

Posted this in the transfer thread but thought it might be of interest to those in the debate I've just looked it up the stats in terms of forward actions for Cantwell to run a statistical view against my own visual and personal opinion. Cantwell is 19th in the league for shot creating actions per 90, virtually every club in the league has a more effective creator at this moment in time. In terms of actions that lead directly to a goal he's 51st with Dolan our highest ranked player at 15th and Gueye at 31st. Hedges and Dolan have the most progressive carries at 41st and 49th respectively with Cantwell 68th. Progressive passes wise we've got Tronstad and Travis at 31st and 47th with Cantwell at 62nd. He is our highest ranked non penalty XG and assist XG ranked player at 6.7 over the season, made up of 1.9 non pen XG and 4.8 assist XG.

I've just looked it up the stats in terms of forward actions for Cantwell to run a statistical view against my own visual and personal opinion. Cantwell is 19th in the league for shot creating actions per 90, virtually every club in the league has a more effective creator at this moment in time. In terms of actions that lead directly to a goal he's 51st with Dolan our highest ranked player at 15th and Gueye at 31. Hedges and Dolan have the most progressive carries at 41 and 49 respectively with Cantwell 68th. Progressive passes wise we've got Tronstad and Travis at 31 and 47 Cantwell at 62. He is our highest ranked non penalty XG and assist XG ranked player at 6.7 over the season, made up of 1.9 non pen XG and 4.8 assist XG.

Agreed, I think the added time Buckley has in a deep role affects his decision making, in a sense of he has too many options, dithers and either loses it or makes the wrong decision. When he's further forward and with less time/space he's much more reactive and effective. I think we will definitely go to a 3 back tonight, it's just a matter of what midfield looks like which could be realistically be any 2 from the 4 of Buckley, JRC, Forshaw and Garrett. I reckon we will end up with a formation that looks something like Tuchels' 3-4-2-1

exactly, good players make things happen regardless of what they''ve got playing alongside them.

he's been doing it all season, for all the noise and bluster about him his performances were distinctly average at the start of the season, he had a good game against Leeds at home but outside of that and 1 or 2 others his performances have been forgettable. If you compare him to other creators we've had they run games regardless of who is around them. I get that as a 'marquee' big name signing people want him to do well, as do I but the fact is in terms of what we've invested in wages we're getting very little return and to attribute his lack of form/quality/decision making to others is unfair on those other players. I look at the amount of games we've lost 1-0, tight games that need a spark of quality from your playmaker, someone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and go win it, Cantwell isn't doing that and ultimately thats what he's getting paid for.