Admiral Nelsen

I'd say that it's out of our hands, rather than beyond us. They are a couple of last minute wins away from being on extremely ordinary form for a promotion contender, and that's been going on for much longer than our recent spell, so I'd say there's potential for the wheels to come off when they play so many of the stronger sides, back to back. We'll be relying on them taking a nosedive though, as well as us putting some form together which is similar to our spell before Christmas. The absolute bare minimum that we'll need will be 80 points, which is a bit of a stretch even with the kind fixture list.

Ryan will be back sooner than expected

A good question, I think there's a pretty good chance that this is going on a lot more than we appreciate. I know PNE had a similar situation a year or two ago when four of their best players (Davies, Pearson and maybe Fisher and another?) were all leaving at once. Not sure if all of them left in the end, but most did and it was certainly hanging over them for a while, like our situation has this season.

I expect the pattern to be something quite similar to the game at Brammall Lane. They'll almost certainly be asking most of the questions to begin with, but the longer we can keep them out, the more I'd expect us to frustrate them and then start causing them problems. Wouldn't go as far as to say I'm confident that we'll get something - they're obviously the better team - but it wouldn't shock me. They give you a chance on the break, which should suit us, especially if Rothwell is back.

Could you imagine if at the start of the year you were offered the chance to go up from beating QPR over two legs, then beat the winner of Luton vs Huddersfield? To be fair, the fans of those clubs would be talking about us in exactly the same way, but I'd absolutely snap your hand off for that now. I'd be looking at QPR as strong candidates to drop out come the end of the season. Even assuming they put on a better show than they did at Ewood, they still have Luton, Huddersfield, Sheffield United and Forest all away from home, and Fulham and Sheff U again at Loftus road. Very tough set of fixtures compared to ours, so you'd assume that they would need to beat a decent number of teams in and around them to stay where they are.

No arguments from me there! I'm just saying that Mowbray tends to give out praise and criticism to all players when he talks about them in the media. With Gally he's mentioned his physicality and having 'fantastic attributes', or something along those lines, whilst also saying that he needs to score more. My point is that sometimes he's accused of unfairly digging out certain players in his interviews, but I think there's more of a pattern of him talking about good points and bad points at once, and that he does this for pretty much everyone.

I seem to remember Van Gaal tried it in the World Cup with the Dutch national team and they ended up winning with the keeper (Tim Krul?) making a few saves. Would be interesting to see how many times that a team swapping their keeper has actually lead to them winning the shootout though - wouldn't be at all surprised if it has no difference whatsoever.

Without wanting to go back and dig out the quotes, didn't he say that if he ever wants to play in the prem then he can't be missing chances like he did vs QPR? Seems to me like he's very consistent in the way he talks about players. Talks up their good points, but (maybe a bit too much) does so in the same breath as bringing up the thing they need to work on. Rothwell - looks amazing when running with the ball/needs more end product. Nyambe - Unbelievable athlete/needs to offer more going forwards Wharton - Really solid defender who can pick a pass/needed time away to 'become a man' Gallagher - Can physically be a handful for defenders/needs to score more Graham - Class finisher & target man/ not mobile enough to be play in the way that we wanted to at the time. Buckley - Amazing technique & ability to weave out of challenges/ needs to put chances away when they come. And you could go on. I think he only stops doing that when the form of a player is so good that it sounds churlish to say anything negative, i.e. Dack or Armstrong in their purple patches.

Very true - they don't half pay for it in the long run though! The state of some league players once they retire really makes you notice how tough that game is.

I remember reading somewhere that Pedersen had a similar story. Naturally right footed, but practiced with his left to the point where it became his dominant foot.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/february/26/injury-update--ryan-nyambe/ Encourage noises about Nyambe's injury, at least in terms of having him back this season.

No arguments that we look toothless once going behind, but I think losing 4-0 is (nearly) as unlikely as winning by that sort of scoreline. Our attack has been off, but we're still a very solid team. That said, a loss by the odd goal is looking like a decent bet, so I'd take a draw in a heartbeat!

Our fixture list reassures me plenty when it comes to at least finishing in the play offs. We've suffered in the last month by having so many tricky games bunched up together (and some underperformance too) but we should really be able to cash in after the Fulham game. Doubtless there'll still be some slip ups, and these will probably be the difference if we find ourselves outside of the conversation for the top 2, but we shouldn't be panicking too much about the top 6 just yet.

I get what you're saying about the Fulham game being a free hit, but we have so little room for error for the top 2 now in my view, we can't be treating any game (even Fulham away) like that. Say we need the average of 84 points to go up automatically, that means basically 5 wins and a draw out of the 7 games coming up which would put us on 70 before the international break, before needing another 14 from the last games. There are so many winnable games in there that it's not impossible (and chances are we might need just less than 84 this year) but every game is precious now. Agree that all that being said, 4 points from the next two would be a great return. QPR is looking like a must win, but you could argue that Sheff. U away is possibly the toughest game that we'll have between now and the end of the season, bar maybe Fulham.

Splitting hairs a little bit, but I think his issue was more lacking imagination than being too cautious. We tended to score plenty, he just didn't seem to really know how to do anything beyond setting us up as a standard 442, even when it clearly didn't suit some of our more talented players. I can count the number of games that we genuinely controlled on one hand, it was just a case of get it to a winger who can then cross it to Rhodes/Gestede. No wonder we used to concede so many late on.

Bowyer deserves a lot of credit for stopping some of the rot when he was in charge and his transfer record overall was very good. That said, when you look at how we wasted some quality players (King, Cairney, Judge) to play our system whilst constantly having the likes of Williamson, Evans, Lowe, Akpan and other assorted hangers on in the middle of the park. What a wasted opportunity.

Might be a lack of imagination on my part, but I genuinely don't know what they could do, realistically. The last day of the season can't be moved because of the play offs, so they need to play all of their games before then, same as everyone else. They already have more than one game a week (international break aside) until the week before they play us at the end of April - and you'd imagine the Swansea game will probably be rearranged for then. Definitely agree that they're catchable. Their last minute win against Blackpool can't mask their very ordinary form over a long stretch, much longer than our recent spell. They've also got a run in March/April which looks similarly horrendous to the one we're hopefully going to come out of after the Fulham game. Not saying we'll do it, or even that we'll necessarily get that close in the end, but they're vulnerable to a team who can put good form together, and our last quarter of a season is much, much kinder than theirs.

Bournemouth have had their game against Swansea called off because of stadium damage! They'll be playing three games a week until May at this rate!

I wrote him off by the end of the Bowyer era, but he came close to winning me round a couple of times in the years since. Never fully though, and I wasn't remotely sad to see him go last year, which speaks volumes for a player who was here so long. One thing I'd say in his defence for the first few years at least is that we were completely mad to sign him and then play him in a 442. He never had anything like the mobility to thrive in that role properly, which should have been obvious before we signed him. When he played deeper in the L1 season and after, he had spells of being quite a lot better in my view, admittedly without ever being brilliant.

Think you're right about Leicester's performance flattering them, although to be fair Forest were still very good. It'll be a challenge for them to get up to the same level for this one, and we're typically a very tough prospect at home. I fancy us to win this one.

I think for the automatics that might be undershooting what we need, slightly. Say if we need 87 points to go up, which I think is the average, 7 from the next 7 games leaves us needing 27 from the last 10 games. There's a decent chance that we'll need slightly less than that this season, but still a big ask. I think you're right that we need to look at this run as staying in contact though. If after the Fulham game we're within two results of second I'd be pretty happy. I'd guess that probably means something like 12 points, which really highlights how important today's game and Millwall at home are.

A curious development with modern football I suspect, although maybe it's always happened to a degree. I definitely don't think it's just a Rovers thing - media performance seems like another thing which a manager gets judged on which to be honest, I really don't get. Even taking an ultra-extreme example of K**n and the nonsense he came out with, I would've been fine with him calling Ribero Dennis Irwin if he was even semi-competent at managing the club.

I blame Coyle almost entirely (and I suppose those responsible for appointing him). The after that I blame Shane Duffy and Anthony Stokes. I know some disagree, but I don't really blame Huddersfield at all. We had 46 games to get to the level needed, and I think managers' concerns has got to be on the club that pays them. Put it this way, if we go into the final game having secured third spot but with no chance of coming second, I'd be pretty furious with Mowbray if any of our key players got injured when they needn't have played.

I think this is completely right. The pessimistic view though is that for all our struggles against solid, well drilled teams last year, there were occasions when we got it right and were genuinely very difficult to get to grips with. Especially when we scored first. I think we'll win, but there is an element of danger with this one. Teams that are capable of dominating the ball like they do can cause good teams problems, they took a point off QPR at their place only a week or two ago and could've nicked three.

I don't think many would go as far as to call him a 1 in 2 striker - Rhodes and Rudy only just made that ratio when they were here. But if you look at the number of minutes that's played in the league, it's a smidgen over 15 games (let's not forget that he's been brought off injured in those starts). So 6 in 15 is better than 1 in 3 and a pretty decent strike rate. Could be better, but it's a lot better than crap. I'm convinced that if we signed Gally this season, the only gripe we would have (apart from his first touch) would be that he hasn't been fit enough to play more games.