As good as his is, the only circumstances in which I'd take Van Hecke is if the money involved is ridiculously low. Someone will get a bargain, but we're so much better stocked at centre back than anywhere else on the pitch (apart from possibly in goal, ridiculously). Something else worth considering is that whilst he was very impressive, he was also playing in a back three. I suspect that had he been playing in a four, then his ultra-positive approach to defending may have backfired a bit more when he didn't have two mates covering for him. If we have plans to play a back thee again - then that's a different story and a five of Van Hecke, Hyam, S. Wharton, Carter and Phillips would be the envy of the league. But if we're sticking to a back four, that's too much when we're struggling to get enough quality elsewhere in the squad. Even if he is on a free (which I seriously doubt) he'll be on a half decent Championship wage. Not insignificant when we need to bring in a Brereton replacement AND another first team quality forward.

He'll be a top player for somebody, but it's the area of the pitch where we least need reinforcements. The only caveat is if JDT would prefer to go with three at the back.

Should've picked up a result away too. One of the misses of our modern era from Jason Roberts who somehow managed to miss from about two yards out.

Hope he likes the look of the place. Declaring an interest slightly as I work at the uni - but it's a great city to be a student in.

Excellent question. I'd take an F.A. cup win over promotion, without a shadow of a doubt. Would I take a semi-final where we would likely be massive underdogs over a realistic chance of promotion? Probably not.

Not completely disagreeing - I think four years would be more sensible. My point was mainly that we don't need to worry about him not keeping on his toes if we gave him a long contract, like Henley. There is an issue about where his ceiling is, and how much more improvement there is left in him. I've said before that I worry about his size, and that he'll really have to go some to compensate for being so small. To be fair to him though, he is being more productive when on the pitch this season, so I'm happy enough with his progress.

That's true, big error in retrospect, for us and probably him too. I don't see the two as quite the same though. Henley got a five year deal (supposedly on about 12k a week) as a 17 year old after two good games against Liverpool & United. Dolan would be getting one as a 21 yr old after 100 appearances. If Dolan signs a five year deal I'd be pretty happy to be honest.

Not going to go game by game, but I think we'll need to break the back of the points total that we'll need by the PNE game. I wouldn't like to go into back-to-back derbies, Luton and then Millwall needing more than 3/4 points. After last night I think we're just about more likely to do it than not, but it's a close run thing. All the games are big from here on in, but that Norwich game in a few weeks looks like a huge opportunity for us to put some daylight between us.

Biggest complement I can give him is that he keeps the shirt when Dack gets back fit. If you would've told me a few months ago that i) Dack would get back near his goalscoring best but that ii) Szmodics would still deserve to get picked in front of him, I wouldn't have believed you.

Did he though? Let's not forget that most of our worst spells happened during Covid, and by the time the fans could come back properly, we looked like we had a half decent chance of at least getting a play off spot. I'm sure there was a poll on here a couple of seasons back which asked if people wanted either or both of Mowbray & Waggott out, and it was literally 90-95% who wanted him gone. Obviously that's not going to be representative of all match going fans, but playing behind closed doors definitely helped shield him from any fan reaction when we were at our worst.

Very close to how I see it. By the end it was the right call for him to go. People rightly talk about the horrible form we went on from a great position last season, but it was actually the season before which changed things for me. That was the season where our squad was good enough to really have a go for the top 6, and we fell woefully short. Slightly unlucky with the injuries we picked up at centre back, but that only goes so far as an excuse. He rightly got some more credit in the bank after the unexpectedly excellent form before Christmas last year, but then the inevitable slump just felt all the worse after it. The best manager we had since Big Sam, but then again that isn't saying much at all! On JDT, I still think that there are a couple of question marks but overall I'm really excited to see what he can do with a full summer. He was always playing catch up this season, but he'll know exactly what we need to be competitive next year.

I think it's just the phrase being used differently. It's not must win in the sense of if we lose, that's effectively the season done. But yes, this looks on paper the most winnable game that we have left, and we probably need to win about half of our remaining games, so it's 100% one that we should be taking to the bank.

I think it definitely has it's uses, but the tendency for some fans (often who don't have much of a clue of how it's put together) use it as a proxy for 'were we the best team or not?' without questioning it is really annoying. When you get a situation like ours when xG has us as relegation fodder and the results show that we could get promoted, the response is always 'they must've fluked their position' instead of asking if there is something about the way that we play which means that xG isn't capturing our performance as well as it seems to do for other teams? Instead it's treated as this magic formula which measures whether you deserved to win or not (although I'm sure that clubs themselves won't look at it in that way). It's probably a bit of both in our case, because we weren't that fantastic before Christmas even though we were riding high. But equally how many games have we won this year when the opposition would've come away thinking that we've done a smash and grab on them? Only a few. The games where we've been poor, we've tended to get beat.

If we're being completely honest that was the case earlier in the season. We banked more points than our performances deserved going into the World Cup. That said, we've been very good recently, so that's where the optimism is coming from. Comfortably outplayed some of the lesser sides, but looked even more impressive in the last two against teams with much bigger wage bills. I saw someone on your message board say the first goal wins the game, and I think they're bang on. I just hope it's Rovers who get it.

To be fair, that's exactly what he's trying to do. It just so happens that instead of having a team full of generational talents, he has a squad full of average second division players. It must be so frustrating for their fans seeing their team dominate the ball every game without doing anything with it.

Happy to echo the praise for Gally over the recent weeks, but we shouldn't forget that lots of his very forgettable performances this year have come as a centre forward. He has real strengths which he has showcased well over the last few games, but he also has two or three serious flaws which hamper him as a centre forward as much as they did when he was playing further wide. It has been good to see him be more of a handful for defenders though. If he can keep that up and chip in with another 5 goals before the end of the season, he'll have contributed very well.

Yes, certainly since the 3-2 win there in the first year after promotion. Absolutely mad game which summed up the good and the bad of a Mowbray team in 90 minutes. 3-0 up and cruising and by the end of the game we were seriously lucky to come away with the three points. On reflection, we've actually got a decent record there over recent years. 3 wins out of the last 4.

Crackers indeed. I think one thing which is an important factor is that we take a very old-school Italian approach to protecting a one goal lead. Scoring the first goal then shutting up shop is something we've done plenty of this season, but that's always going to harm the number of chances you create per 90 compared to teams who don't do that. Having said that, I think the position that we were in just before the World Cup did flatter us pretty significantly. Equally, our form over recent weeks I think shows more that we're capable of being one of the better sides in the division when it all clicks, so hopefully we can cash in on our slightly fortunate first few months!

Tends to give the ball away trying things though, which you can accept if a decent number of them come off. I was concerned that he would be a bit of a flat track bully, scoring and creating against the lower teams when we're on top, but not the sort of player who you can rely upon if you want to get promoted. Let's wait and see, but the last couple of performances have really impressed me with his quality as much as his work rate.

Agree with that. It should be pretty extreme circumstances that we ever take a point before kick off in this league. Maybe once or twice a season at a push. Having said that, we probably need 4/5 wins plus a draw or two to secure a top 6 finish. A tricky looking away fixture as one of the draws is a decent result.

Im never confident playing Stoke for some reason, especially at their place. If we have aspirations of top 2 (I don't think we do, realistically) then 6 points from the next two games are probably needed to keep us in touch going into the quarter final. For the top 6, four points will put us in a very strong position going into March, so I'd not be overly disappointed with an away point here so long as we back it up with beating Reading.

We have so many games in April, we will definitely need them both before the end of the season. Having said that, if we are going into a must win game towards the back end and they're both fit, I don't think you can drop Szmodics on current form.

His performances since coming back has gone a long way to convince me that he will be money well spent. His early performances showed the could be useful enough and create/score the odd goal, but they tended to be against the poorer sides and he wasn't that great in general play. Against a Premier league team and a team that will probably be there soon, he has been brilliant. The spell yesterday before he hit the bar he was looking imperious. If he can keep those levels then we have a very good player on our hands.

If we get United at OT or Spurs away, it will literally be millions once TV money is added into the equation. Not trivial. Obviously Fleetwood at home would be nicer though!

I criticised him a couple of pages ago, but I wish I didn't now because his 15 minutes (where we barely had a kick) was such a minor part of what has been a magnificent evening. For what it's worth, I think it was probably more a lack of agility rather than a lack of application. I'm not having that a young player in his position trying to get in the side and make a name for himself wouldn't put the effort in for the final 15 mins.