With difficulty! That's sort of my point. He's had three seasons where he's managed to play enough to be properly judged. One, with everything in his favour, he looked brilliant. Two, with everything going against him, he looked well short. What we can say is that he has obvious shortcomings with his game (mobility, accident prone on the ball. Although he can pick a pass when he gets it right). But as a Championship centre back, there are lots of players who you could put in that bracket who do perfectly well in the right set up. Because of injuries and him having a slightly weird career with the managers he's played under, we still don't know if Wharton would thrive in a more ordinary system, and we don't know how Ismael is going to get us playing next year. I wouldn't be quick to write him off, that's all I'm saying.

He did, but it caught up with him eventually. Largely because I think he basically has the same strengths/weaknesses as Wharton. I should say too that I'm not suggesting that Wharton's the better player, or that I don't rate Hyam. But I'm saying first that we shouldn't be too harsh in judging Wharton, because the vast majority of his appearances have either been i) in easy street in a back three where he looked great, or ii) where he looked very shaky in a system almost custom designed to leave him exposed. We've basically never seen him in a 'normal' set up for more than a few games here and there. Let's wait and see what Ismael wants. If he wants mobile defenders then his lack of pace will be a serious issue. But then again it's only really Carter who would get away with us layer a high line at present.

That short spell was the longest time he's spent in the side, isn't it? You're right than playing in a back three made his job easier, but then again there's probably not a manager in world football that would make his job harder than JDT. Zero protection from the midfield, playing on the half way line, being judged for your work with the ball as much as defending. If we're saying his good spell under Mowbray has caveats, then his struggles under JDT should have at least as much, if not bigger ones.

I'd put them both in a pretty similar bracket to be honest, in that they're both massively impacted by our style of play. They lack pace (this will likely be a huge issue for Wharton now) and can cause us problems if we're asking them to do too much with the ball. Both though, have looked really impressive at this level when they've not been asked to do what they don't have in their kit bag. I've always liked Wharton and I think the Eustace set up this year would have got a tune out of him had he been fit. I'd definitely like to keep him and see him stay fit and get back to his best, but if Ismael wants to play a high line then he's an accident waiting to happen. As are Hyam and Batth too, in fairness.

Perhaps they did. But we'd only have evidence for this if they were picking him over other decent options. Which he wasn't, because we didn't. There definitely are. In fairness to a lot of them (maybe not Lowe!) second division footballers are usually those who can look fine if you play to their strengths, and can look almost semi-pro if you don't. We've had heaps of them at Rovers - our current Head of Football Operations being one! And it's not even as though I think Hedges is without his good points. But he's played well over 100 games now and his numbers have been just as poor in a range of systems, from playing on the counter to more possession based.

To be fair Chaddy, that would only tell us something if they were picking him over decent players. The reason why he has played so much has had far more to do with the him having no decent competition - not his fault admittedly - than him deserving the shirt through his own form. Hedges has aspects to his game which are fine. His attitude is good. He's is reasonably athletic and a decent size which is more than you can say for most of our other attackers, and that helps in and out of possession. Him being left footed can balance the team etc. But his attacking output is abysmal for an attacking player. Really poor. I don't hate the idea of keeping him as a squaddie, but there will have been players in his position with as many goal involvements in a single game last season as Hedges managed in 42. Not acceptable I'm afraid.

Not fit to lace Holtby's boots in my view!

Lad is an excellent finisher. Didn't see any other aspect of his game which was up to scratch - be it through ability or attitude. Wish him the best, but he was the obvious casualty if we had to trim the squad by 1.

Can see the logic, but I disagree. An underappreciated problem we face is that we're down three first team coaches, not just Eustace, so I'm not sure it's realistic for us to keep carrying on without standards slipping somewhere. That's before we get onto the question of whether those who remain are good enough. I think the longer we carry on, the less likely any siege mentality will compensate for not having a proper coaching set up, so whilst getting someone in by Swansea isn't essential, I wouldn't leave it until the summer either.

I think Boro would work nicely for him in fairness. It's unlikely that he'll get a prem job - fairly or not - and so he can join a club that if they can sort their form out have every chance of a top 6 finish this year. If they fall short, fans won't hold him responsible and he has a good chairman and decent squad to start again with next year. Other than a recently relegated club, it's as good as he's likely to get for me.

Absolutely. It would be a sentimental move, and you can't afford to make those for such an important role. If it we were using 'blind' CVs, Duff's wouldn't put him much beyond Boateng or Boa Morte in most fans' eyes. Great to see him doing well, but we have to be going for a manager who we think is capable of leading a Prem side in a few months.

It would be harsh on Forshaw, but I think Buckley should play. Mainly because we're likely to have about half of the 74%(!) possession that we had vs Plymouth, so younger legs are what's required for this one.

You'd basically be looking at either i) go full Nottingham Forest and buy a new team to stay in the league, or 2) pick up a few of the best young players in the Championship and bank the rest of the money to be strong in the Championship. The way that we've operated over the last 10 years or so strongly suggests the latter. I think if we were set up to be hard to beat, frustrate teams and be direct, then perhaps one or two of our players could compete with some better quality around them. I'd be interested to see how Travis & Tronstad go especially. But like most teams coming up from the play offs, as things stand there's a massive gulf in quality and we'd do well to even to lay a glove on most teams.

He did. Nice lay off, but until then he was struggling to impose himself like he often has done when he is denied space. Lots of effort on show as always. Second half was a totally different story. When he can isolate defenders Dolan looks really dangerous, just as he can do when he's playing with another forward with feet as quick as his, like Kargbo seems to have. To be clear, I'd be delighted if he were to sign an extension, as unlikely as it seems now.

I think like most Championship attackers, Dolan isn't good enough to excel if you don't play to his strengths. When he has a bit of space to play with he's very handy at this level. Without it he can be totally anonymous. Yesterday was a perfect case in point - he struggled in the first half, then looked top drawer once we scored and they started leaving a bit more space. I'm really hoping that Kargbo's pace alongside Gueye's form could be a catalyst to bring more from the rest of our attack. Dolan's an obvious one who would benefit from the extra space, but Cantwell hasn't really had anyone running in behind to aim for until now. We've seen that Ohashi has a quality finish on him but can be easy to defend against if all you're doing is hitting it long towards him. We've been lacking a decent blend for as long as I can remember, but all of a sudden it seems like we've got a nice mixture of pace, power, finishing and hold up play. A lot of that is relying on Kargbo kicking on from his promising cameos though.

Isn't that the truth!

Their form is as bad as it gets. Utterly dire. Their last 10 reads W1, D1, L8. In that time they've not scored more than one goal in a game, and have failed to score in three of their last four. The Championship is mad and away points aren't to be sniffed at, but we have to be targeting three points from this one.

I think we need to bank on requiring 70 points at least. We might be lucky and need a couple fewer, but that's only happened twice since 2006 according to a quick Google. Maybe even longer. With that in mind, we need to be looking to get about at least another 20 points to be confident of the play offs. 6 wins with a couple of draws. Looking at the fixtures I really think we need to make a serious dent in that over the next 5 games. Swansea (A), Norwich (H), Derby (A), Stoke (A) & Cardiff (H). These are all on form that varies between average and utterly abysmal. Getting say 10 points from these would put us firmly in pole position before our remaining 8 games, which are undoubtedly tougher on paper.

Absolutely delighted with Gueye's turnaround. I'd like to think I was always in the 'let's wait and see' camp, but I didn't in my wildest dreams expect as good an all round performance as we saw last night. As recently as a month ago I was worried he could end up being a total disaster, so I'm not going to criticise anyone who wrote him off. Funnily enough if we were going to be comparing him to Rovers' horror strikers of yester year, he's sort of the anti-Chris Brown. Brown's ability was extremely limited and we signed him at a time when his body was letting him down, *but* at least he knew the position and could bring others into play. Gueye's ability to bring the ball under control was on show from that first friendly. The main issue is that he looked like he'd never played the game in terms of knowing where to run, how to spot the movement of others, general game awareness. The development of that side of his game has been massive and means that he's worth his place in the team even when he doesn't offer much of a goal threat. If he can do all that whilst scoring 10+ goals a year, then what a bargain he'll turn out to be.

Like the first post I quoted, it's a totally valid view. I think a lot of it comes down to how you view the first half of the season until JTD left. Early doors we played some great stuff (and had Adam Wharton). When it went wrong we looked absolutely abysmal, and so whilst Eustace's results *overall* were pretty similar, when you look at JDT's spell in two chunks then it felt like he pulled us out of a real nosedive. Tomasson may have also done that of course, but he wouldn't have done that by making us more solid. I think that was needed for us to stay up, and it's what we've carried on into this season. We've certainly had better managers and he's not been here long enough for me to feel particularly attached or let down. But I wish we still had him.

That's a valid and defendable point of view, but I think it sells his contribution well short. Especially the keeping us up part. Agree the football was defensive (personally that doesn't bother me, but I appreciate others care more). But staying up last year was largely about the solidity he introduced. Szmodics' goals were essential too, but he was banging them in under JDT in the final months & that wasn't delivering us points. I think when JDT had got us so committed to a particular way of playing over a decent period of time, it's quite hard to 'unlearn' that overnight. So I think the fact that we were generally hard to beat is testament to the work he did, and bar the odd hiccup like Bristol City you could see a positive direction of travel. This season I think has been a story of us generally being good but we've buckled when the squad has been stretched. Had our form remained patchy from now til the end of the season once we managed to get some players back, then we could criticise the manager, but from the situation we're in now he gets a good grade on this season too. I think success of managers at this level is often less about ability and more about fit. I think Eustace fitted really well with our group, and whilst you're right that he isn't irreplaceable, we were in a good place with him and even a manager with a good record won't necessarily be able to replicate what he was doing.

Third game in six days for both teams. That'll definitely come into it, and I'm pleased we're at home. Difficult team to pick, this one. You'd ideally like to go with as close to the same 11 as yesterday, but some fresh legs will be needed. I'd be looking at Sanderson in for Batth and this is probably a good game to be bringing Kargbo in.

I think Johnson mainly (and rightly, in my view) gets a pass mainly because of his involvement with the academy at a time that they were really exceptional - but I totally agree with you about Benson. The stick that occasionally comes his way when we have next to no evidence about how good he is at his job baffles me, to be honest.

The small time way in which the club has responded to Eustace leaving is almost as concerning as his departure in the first place. Everything about the club away from the playing side screams amateur hour.

Agree. A good deal all things considered but hardly a steal for a Championship club. I think it's also a good illustration why lots of deals only get done in the last minute though. Forest will be happy letting him go for a fraction of his salary off the books when the alternative is paying them all. If we made the same offer a week ago I'd imagine they'd have sent us packing.