As much as some weren't impressed with his interview the other week, JDT's style of football must've been an absolute nightmare as a centre half. It's not even the passing out from the back as much as it is the positions you have to take up when we have the ball and the lack of protection you get from the midfield. It might still be worth it if you get more from other areas of the team, but I don't think any defender in the league would flourish in that system.

Results elsewhere are showing how important last week was. We can still see today as a step towards staying up with a point. Had we lost last week, and with other teams at the bottom picking up points, we'd probably be saying that draws against the likes of Southampton and Leeds/Leicester are not enough.

Exactly the sort of player who if we signed on a 4 year deal, we'd be absolutely delighted. A 6 month loan when you're in a dog fight, it feels a lot more like he's just making mistakes on your time. Having said that, he too is winning me round. He looks very, very green in terms of his game awareness I think, but that's understandable. I think it goes to show how tricky it is to bring in good quality loans who from the get-go are only ever likely to be squad players.

Agree with quite a lot of this, but I'd add a couple of caveats. The first is that when you've had 18 months being so committed a particular style of play like we were under JDT, you can't just unlearn that overnight and start afresh. You have to try as best you can, but it's not a simple transition to from that to a completely different way of playing without a decent amount of time on the training pitch. And that's the second point, we were playing Saturday - Tuesday - Saturday since his arrival until after Plymouth, meaning the last three games were the only genuine chances to see the fruits of his labour in my view. And like you say, there's been an improvement there. It would still be a big failure on his part if we were to actually get relegated. He hasn't been dealt *that* bad a hand. But it was a bad one nonetheless. I think we've seen how important playing Wharton and Trondstad together was to our early season form for instance. If he keeps us up, as it looks like he will, he'll start with pretty much a clean slate from me next year and we'll see what he can do with a full pre-season and with any luck a better squad.

Doubt it to be honest. I think if they view him as having even the slightest chance of making their first team squad in the next couple of years, then they'll want more money than any club would realistically be willing to pay. Even if they don't see him as a future player for them, they'll probably be looking to loan him out for another 12 months to get more value out of selling him next year.

I'd be amazed if signing him permanently would be an option - prem teams don't give away their kids who don't quite make it as readily as they used to. He's really growing on me though. I had a downer on both him and Ayari after their first few appearances. They looked far too green to come into the situation we found ourselves in. Physically he looks great though and he has improved markedly not he's getting used to the Championship. Even another 12 month loan would be worth exploring.

I think the thing which meant three at the back worked under Mowbray was at least as much about the pace of Khadra, Brereton and Rothwell than it was about the defenders. Eustace doesn't have that to rely on sadly.

If that one win is alongside a draw or two I think you're right. By itself, I'm still very nervous. Plymouth still have Rotherham, Stoke, QPR and Millwall to play, alongside Hull who have nothing to play for. Huddersfield have both got several winnable games too, although 49 points is probably beyond Wednesday looking at their fixtures.

Agree with all of this. Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere but the Coventry game also comes as their third match in six days after they play Man United in the FA Cup semi. Whereas we have the full week following Shef Weds. Still a game that we need to go out and win, but it takes the edge off a fixture which otherwise would look tricky with their recent form.

Having been at most of these, I'm genuinely shocked it's as good as 25%. Grim.

Basically agree with that. I do think that defenders were basically left out to dry by JDT's style of play, but for the most part we could take that because it was worth it in helping us create more (until December, as you say). And Brittain's talking more about being too rigid going forward, which just hasn't been a problem at all until recently. not least because Gally hasn't even been playing because of his injury!

I think Moran will end up being a very decent player. I think you can really tell that this is his first year as a first team player though. Physically and/or mentally he has looked shot for a while. He'll be better for the experience, but it'll be another club who benefits.

It says something about the rest of our business that this may genuinely be the high point of the window!

To be honest, I'd be amazed if they ever become aware of it. They've never shown any visible signs of being bothered about negative publicity from owning Rovers, and some of it has been on a much larger scale than a social media post.

Also worth throwing in his actual performances that he has put in so far, which have in the main been pretty ordinary. I'd be pleased if we sign him in fairness, but that's only when taking into account his lack of pre-season and getting to grips with a new league, etc. So far he's shown that he can finish and not that much else, so I wouldn't be calling it unbelievable business at this stage. His ceiling should hopefully be quite a bit higher than he's currently showing.

The 3-3 at Wednesday the previous game hurts me more. We seemed like we were generating a head of steam at that point, we should've got in the top 6 easily with that squad. As much as I like Bowyer, he's such a good example of why you can't just rely on the talent of your squad to get you out of this league. Near enough every non-parachute team who has managed to get to the prem has done so off the back of picking a style of play and really committing to it. Whether that's Luton being direct or Huddersfield a few years ago. We were so passive and wishy washy under Bowyer, in retrospect we were never going to succeed with him in charge. Give me JDT's suicide ball every day.

I'm not sure that we're in a position to give Moran a week off just at the moment, but I agree that he seems to be flagging more than the rest of them. I think as talented as he looks, you can tell that it's his first season playing men's football. He doesn't respect possession as much as he needs to (understandable at his age) and that can really get highlighted when the team isn't firing. Arguably it cost us the goal against Bristol City, albeit Carter probably takes at least as much of the blame. I'm still very happy that we have him, but he'll need managing over the Christmas period, for his sake and ours.

I remember when JDT came in he spoke about avoiding the Dutch disease - i.e. passing it about for its own sake. I wonder what he would make of Southampton this year? On the face of it this is a really tough game, but I've got a feeling that we'll cause them a few problems, even with our stretched squad. Whether that will be enough to take the points is another question, but I can see both teams giving the other chances. Optimistically going for 2-2.

Dolan out for 7-8 weeks! Not as bad as it could be for a knee injury, but still 10+ games.

They've seemed able to spot good goalscorers for quite a long time now. Dwight Gayle is another that comes to mind, but I'm sure they've had loads at L1 level. Clarke-Harris being one, and maybe Craig Mackail-Smith before then.

I think any sort of win has to be seen as a positive with the players we have out. We're a defender short of being able to put out an Unavailable XI which is arguably better than our first team! Pears Hyam Wharton Barnes Hedges Travis JRC Dolan Gallager Ennis

Personally I never saw the lack of effort thing - thought it was just his style, but plenty of people bring it up so I accept I could be wrong. Agree with the rest of your post though - I suppose we can't complain about securing the contracts of young players after what has happened over the last few years, but I thought such a long extension for him was really strange with what he had shown on the pitch. With any luck he can show his potential over the rest of the season and he can finally get his career going. A decent scoring run and there's a chance we can get a low-ish fee for him.

It did indeed. Although I always thought it was David Gold who said that, not Bruce. That could be my memory playing tricks though.

On the whole, Rovers have been very bad a taking the points from the low hanging fruit away games for some time. Add in the fact that their performances have picked up under the new manager, will have their tails up after getting a point from Leicester and that we have a perfectly decent Championship XI sat on the sidelines, I'm not as confident about this one as I should be. Still really looking forward to it though, their tends to be goals in our trips to Hillsborough and with the way that we're playing at the moment it's odds on to be the same. I just hope it's more like the 5-0 of a few years ago and less like the 3-3 under Bowyer. One of my least favourite games in living memory, that one. With our squad stretched as it is, the run up to the New Year is not looking kind. Leeds, Southampton away, Hull away and even Watford are not particularly easy games to be having back to back even with a reasonably fit squad. Three points and a clean bill of health here would be a huge bonus.

I think it's part of a wider change in how the game is played at the top level(s), and you can put the standards of defending in as a part of the same conversation. Basically if you're judging a player on a much wider skill set (i.e. contributing with the ball) then that's going to: i) promote players who are good at that but not so good at the traditional 'core' skills - see Alexander-Arnold ii) incentivise players as youngsters to spend more time working on all aspects of their game, and not just the typical aspects of goalkeeping/defending. As well as that you've also got teams setting up in ways which (by and large) leave keepers and defensive players much more exposed than times gone by. It would be so interesting to see how Brad would be perceived in the modern game. Obviously he was as good as anyone when he was at Rovers, but there would be plenty of managers who wouldn't even consider him these days, and not just at the top clubs.