Possibly. At the start of the season I'd have had them right down at the bottom though, and their recent away form is pretty impressive. I'd still back us to win at Ewood, but they're no mugs this year.

They're a different beast this year, or at least have been so far. New manager seems to have a lot about him, but hopefully our home form will see us over the line.

This is it in a nutshell for me. Ultimately JDT has to call the shots. If he doesn't like what he's seeing from Dack in training, or that his injuries have taken their toll, then he has to be backed to select whoever he chooses. He'll live or die by results, and so far they've gone brilliantly. BUT when Dack has got on the pitch this season, he has shown that his talent hasn't disappeared. Away at Wigan, or away at Luton, the team were putting in absolutely woeful performances and were screaming out for someone with more guile and attacking nous to help us create or score. Dack was the obvious option, so I can't fathom why he has been so sparingly used even as an impact sub.

Again - that might or might not be true. It's not been obvious from what we've seen on the pitch this year that Dack isn't physically up to playing at the level required.

I think the point there is that we don't know. He got a handful of sub appearances last year where he looked off the pace but still scored and showed glimpses. This season he's looked a different level to the opposition in the league cup (can we read anything into that?) and produced a match winning piece of skill in one of the few games that he's started against Blackpool. It's nowhere near enough to say that he's back to his level, but we haven't really seen much evidence that he's done either. All we have is Dack obviously upset about not playing whilst saying that he's fit, and JDT saying that he's not ready. As fans it's impossible for us to be too confident one way or another in terms of whether he can still contribute.

I'm 100 percent not advocating letting Dack go, but he's not going to take much replacing if he isn't even getting on the pitch! I hope that he'll be able to show his worth in the few chances he'll have before January and force his way back into the reckoning. Obviously seems very unlikely at present.

I did think about Harper, but like Clarkson last year, when it became apparent that he wasn't doing the business he was binned off. Branthwaite was to cover an injury crisis if I recall. I'm afraid we'll just have to disagree about him only playing youngsters when he had to. He didn't have to play Dolan who already is approaching 100 appearances for us. He was happy to start JRC until his injuries. For all the talk of him not rating Nyambe, he started him in a large majority of the games where he was fit in every season he was here. He didn't have to play Travis when he did either, but he took his chance and hasn't looked back.

To be fair, JDT has brought in Morton. Mowbray only brought in youngsters from other clubs if they were instant first teamers like Elliott or Van Hecke, and if they weren't up to that then they didn't play. He also gave at least eight academy players their league debut since the L1, some becoming mainstays of the team before he left like Trav and Buckley. JRC and Butterworth would've played more too had it not been for injuries. This isn't even including the players like Dolan who he signed as an academy player and brought straight into the first team, or Nyambe and Raya who weren't established first teamers before Mowbray took over. I know we're all glad that he's not here anymore, but saying that Mowbray didn't bring through young players just doesn't tally with the evidence.

I hadn't heard that to be fair, so that's good news. His hobbling in front of the BBE looked quite severe! So I was expecting a muscle strain.

A key part of that was that he was started against Sheffield United! And then carried on playing after his performance. Before then he had played a few games in L1, looked okay but got a stupid red card in the run in which could have cost us. At the same time the much maligned Evans and Smallwood had us winning plenty of games until we approached the end of the year, so no surprises that he wasn't getting a look-in at that stage. Like almost all managers, Mowbray wanted a blend of youth and experience. But you don't end up playing (usually multiple) academy graduates in every single league game over a five year period, and having near enough the youngest squad in the league, if you never give youngsters a chance.

True. The last one of those is against Crawley in the cup though. It wouldn't surprise me if you make wholesale changes for that one and get the full week of prep in for the game against us. I just hope we do the same!

Miles stronger than then - I was thinking more about the league games when we were both in the Championship. I'm not sure if Burnley are necessarily that much stronger than they were then (maybe they are in some aspects but lack the solidity they had). But we had some good individuals throughout the Bowyer years, so arguably we've gone backwards. Then again I don't think we had anyone as good as Brereton, and least Hyam and Kaminski get into Bowyer/Lambert's teams, so maybe I'm overdoing the difference.

Mixed signals on that front. We're consistently playing out from the back in every game, and one or two of our worst performances (Wigan away especially) involved us having a lot of the ball and doing nothing with it. That said, he has talked about avoiding the Dutch disease of having the ball for its own sake, and lots of the players have spoken about how he is encouraging them to take as few touches as possible before getting the ball forward. Some evidence of the message getting through on that score. We've also been happy to let some teams have more of the ball and set traps for them. The 3-0 win away at Swansea was probably the best example of that. We press reasonably high - but not as much as some teams. Basically at Turf Moor, there isn't a cat in hell's chance that we'll try and go toe-to-toe with a possession game. We'll not just be long ball either, but we'll look for Brereton to exploit space on the break. I think you're completely right about the unpredictability element though. Either side could easily win by a couple of goals and it wouldn't shock me in the slightest. Our schedule isn't quite as bad as some given that we've already played an game extra. Personally I'd play the full second string in the cup away at West Ham. That leaves just one more midweek game for us before the derby, so hopefully not too bad.

The way he was limping off against Sunderland, I'd be amazed if we saw Szmodics at the weekend.

That was a horrible one. Made worse for Rovers fans of a certain generation who were starved of genuine Lancashire derbies growing up and had to make do with treating Bolton as our rivals as a result. It was amazing how our fortunes seemed to mirror each other for about 10 years. Fortunately we had a decent run against them after that. Not long later we came back to beat them 2-1 after Kevin Nolan - who always hated us for some reason - scored as good a goal as you'll ever see. Cue a Samba header and Jason Roberts scoring from a massive deflection in the last minute. There was still chance for them to still have an Ivan Campo equaliser wrongly disallowed, so that went some way to make up for it!

I agree that their style suits us, all things being equal. Equally I worry about our ability to respond to conceding the first goal against a team like that. I wouldn't say I'm more confident than our last fixtures against them (cup game aside) purely because I think the gap between the squads is arguably quite a lot bigger now, but the clash of styles is definitely intriguing.

Just the one game for 5 yellows wasn't it? I assumed he would be back for this one anyway. Hopefully with an extra days rest and with a full week coming up, there's no need for much rotation. Equally, there are first teamers who will be coming back into contention, so you'd expect a couple of changes on that basis. I'd have the same team as @Paul Mani only with Pickering coming in, although I'm sure if that leaves Hedges on the bench or playing elsewhere. They've been much better than I expected this year, but I still think we'll beat them at home. 2-0 Rovers.

I was saying the same before kick off yesterday when talking about Mowbray. Last season was the most frustrating considering how well we had done before Christmas, but the season before was the one where we really should've expected to get in the top six with the squad we had. We were a bit unlucky with injuries, especially in defence, but it was still a badly missed opportunity. We also should've took the opportunity to extend Brereton's contract when he started looking like a player that year, but there's an element of hindsight there!

Not sure if we were ever looking to appoint Beale as manager in the summer, but looks like we dodged a bullet if so. Leaving QPR to join Wolves apparently.

I think it's telling so far that no team has really got near the 2 points per game benchmark for promotion. I think your lot look by some distance the most likely to get to that point - all of the other clubs with parachute payments look more fragile for various reasons. Taking into account our extra games I don't think we're in a meaningfully better position than the rest of the top half in reality, but then again there's nobody in this league (again, with the possible exception of Burnley on their day) who we should feel inferior to based on this season's evidence - even though we've not exactly been setting the world alight ourselves. I would've put Sheff U there too, but they've lacked consistency too & seem to be missing some big players until after the world cup at least.

You knocked it about well at times, so having a decent recognised striker could've made a big difference. I was surprised about how comfortable on the ball most of your team looked. Think you're right about finishing comfortably in Mid-table. Mowbray will likely start to annoy sections of your support in time, but he has enough about him to keep you well clear of danger. Kicking on might be a slightly different question! Even though plenty of refs would've given a pen, I'm still not at all convinced so I don't agree that he gifted us two. I think we should've made a lot more of some of the breaks that we made in the second half too, but I accept that it was a pretty tight game overall.

Couple of misplaced passes aside, I was pleased that he was getting involved in the build up more today. He was good against Rotherham but he seemed to be playing much further up, so didn't really get on the ball all that much. Still forming my opinion on him, but I'm happy to say that he was good today.

Very impressed with young Garrett tonight. Very assured debut. Dom Hyam though, what a signing he's turning out to be. We've really had Coventry's pants down there. The thing I don't understand is how other teams didn't also go for him at that fee. Elite defender at this level.

That Oldham game gets glossed over slightly because our upturn in form came just after it. That and the next local away against Bury was much, much better. It was a shocker though, to be sure.

No argument with him being on the bench if we start with a front two. But most games we have played with either a number 10 or a false 9, and yet we've only started Dack once. Incidentally in that game he split the defence to set up the winning goal, which would suggest that his talent hasn't gone away! I wouldn't care quite as much if he was even being used as an impact sub, but he struggles to get more than 5-10 minutes at present even when we're not playing well and need a goal.