1 minute ago, arbitro said:

Thanks for that. Personally I would have though a 90 minute competitive match would be more beneficial to the players than a BCD friendly.

Yeah, I must admit it's not obvious to me what the advantage is. I suppose playing first teamers in these fixtures blocks the progress of the next crop of lads, so they might be wanting to have a game to keep fitness up whilst at the same time letting some of the kids play a competitive game? 

2 minutes ago, arbitro said:

There aren't too many names I recognise in today's under 21 game. There is no Harlock, Leonard, Gamble, Pratt and a host of others I would have expected to start. Strange to say the least.

 

Think JDT said something about us playing an internal game tomorrow including some of the U21s and the first teamers not in today's squad.

47 minutes ago, Realistic Rover said:

Bit of an overstatement in my opinion. Still sh1te and a couple of man utd 20 year old rejects doesn’t make you a different beast

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.

21 minutes ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

Beaten them four times on the spin - without trying to pull a Merce, there should be nothing to fear here and hopefully we’ll have the 3 points come 5pm! COYB.

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.

4 minutes ago, Hasta said:

Fair enough. I have no problem with him not being in the starting line up.

What I have a problem with is him being put on the bench for the last few games (until Sunderland) and not being sed, even when we are behind.

 

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. 

5 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

He is fitter and faster for two points. He puts in a shift and can last 85-90 minutes whereas BD can’t - that’s a starting point

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. 

21 minutes ago, Mhead2 said:

£15k+ per week and 2 years out = £1.6million

Where has he showed he is back to anywhere near? Poor Matt Jansen did more.

Very sad and I blame that PNE player, but the club has moved on.

If top 2 paid players are Ayala and Brad then there will be lots of scope for the Head Coach and Greg in 2023.

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. 

3 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I look forward to the investment then in January, should still be in the promotion mix.  Absolute barmy decision to let him go and not bring in a replacement in Jan.....Let's see if these lads in charge have some bollocks....they'll need them if we are near top in Jan and they sell our most naturally talented player.

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. 

1 hour ago, dingles staying down 4ever said:

You can use the two successes but lets not forget others like Raheem Harper or the centre half from Everton. Harper came from West Brom and was younger than our youth players with no experience.

With the exception of Buckley, Mowbray had to be forced to pick our youngsters like others have said. He also like to use them as scapegoats withe prime example being Raya.

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.

51 minutes ago, dingles staying down 4ever said:

or they came from another club on loan. If Mowbray had been here this season Garrett would have been at Curzon Ashton not in the first team

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. 

21 minutes ago, islander200 said:

JDT said it was cramp with Szmodic or has there been more news come out?

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. 

1 hour ago, Mellor Rover said:

Travis was due to go on loan to Portsmouth before he played against Sheff Utd and Smallwood got sent off.

Scott was blooded due to lack of options in defence after being publicly described as a 'boy' and 'not ready' the week before... 'defenders are coming'.

Mowbray made no reservation in any of his interviews about the fact he didn't trust youth and pushing for more funds to buy some 'real men'. 

There's absolutely no way, at all, Jake Garrett would have started on Tuesday under Mowbray. Nor would Phillips or Wharton have made their debuts.

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. 

3 minutes ago, longsiders1882 said:

Including the game against you and the cup game we have 7 games in 3 weeks from Saturday, 3 of them mid week kick offs.  It's quite a schedule and will test our squad to the limit.

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!

2 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

We are infinitely stronger than the last time we played them just after we got relegated. That would have been a great time to batter us, we’d a bloody awful team out that night and they had a good side on the night. As it was we only lost 2-0 in a reasonably close game. It should really have been a banging for us.
 

The clash of styles will be interesting. We always seem to do better when we let the opposition have all the ball and hit them on the break with more direct play. When we have all the ball we don’t know what to do with it. 

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.

2 minutes ago, longsiders1882 said:

Nothing I've seen in your games suggests the gap between squads is greater tIMO - and I thought JDT wanted to play a similar style to Kompany, possesion based etc? So far this season the teams who have been most effective against us have gone for a high press, really disrupted our passing and building from the back, not letting us get a rhythm. After this it's been those with more a low block, 5 at the back etc and challenged us to open them up. Our game comes at the end of a gruelling schedule so it might come down to which side has the freshest players though, least injuries, suspensions etc  We both do have a week to prepare though. I think any result is eminiently possible.

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. 

3 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Having Adam Wharton in will give us a bit more passing from midfield as he drifts into the number 10 role.

I am a bit fearful however that we will maybe play Smodics and Travis which wil lead to us finding it hard to get the right passes into the front two. Also think he may stick with the inverted wing backs.

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

12 hours ago, norwichblue said:

Wasn’t so much a bad game, just a bad beat that I can’t seem to erase from my mind. It was about 10-15 years ago at Ewood against Bolton. We DOMINATED the game but Bolton led 0-1 against the run of play. We missed a penalty on about 90 mins, and then missed another on 93 mins or something. Benni McCarthy era. Disgusting beat.

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!

11 hours ago, JoeH said:

Still very much of the opinion that Burnley is a game that suits us. We have every chance of beating them in a few weeks. Much more confident than the years where they had Dyche.

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.

19 minutes ago, superniko said:

We had Elliott and the 2nd top scorer in the league (as well as the 2nd top scorer the season after) all in the same team but still failed to make the playoffs! Almost feels more of a missed opportunity than how we threw away last season. We looked unreal at times in the Elliott season but just couldn't defend. If only we had Hyam, Wharton and a fit Ayala!

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.

4 hours ago, longsiders1882 said:

Never mind Norwich - your run has taken you top of the league, you are the team to catch now.

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. 

25 minutes ago, SAFCfaninpeace said:

Well that was a disappointing game from our perspective. Awful officiating gifted two goals to you instead of giving us a good chance to go 1 up. Missing a striker for half our games this season is killing us and Stewart still not due back until the new year. Mind, we’ll be some force when he’s back and IF he can stay fit! Comfortable mid table finish for us I think. Could have been so much more with a striker. 

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. 

1 minute ago, joey_big_nose said:

Thought he was much better in midfield today than he has been up front earlier in the season. Great energy and harrying, and has genuine pace and carries the ball forward well. Only issue was poor passing. Could have released the strikers several times but couldn't find the right pass.

Can see him playing in midfield more.

 

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.