Admiral Nelsen

We conceded 2 in 90 minutes. One of those was an enormous deflection. There were a couple of times when the defending was not good enough, especially for their second, but there's no need to exaggerate. If we're talking about reserves, how about the fact that we only had one first team central defender available?

Quite right. Just realised that after viewing the page for the fourth time! But it's a disgrace that there's no Flowers option!

In a better team, certainly. Time plays tricks on you, but I genuinely remember thinking towards the end of his time at Rovers that you could make a case that Brad was the best in the prem era after Schmeichel. I don't remember Lehmann having a too much of a stellar time at Arsenal, even though he was in a great team.

Rovers twitter say he's ill. No idea whether to believe that or not.

Partial update: Dack, Rodwell & Downing all ill, apparently. As far as one believes that, explains Nyambe at centre back. Got everything crossed for Brereton tonight. Happy to play the long game with him, but he could obviously do with showing some of what he's got in his locker tonight.

I can only see Nyambe at centre half, played there before a few times. Also, a back three would involve Bell playing there, which while I think he's had a bit of unfair press of late, doesn't bare thinking about.

Not having that Lehmann should be an option instead of Brad either.

Even sat in the dressing room with his cheek faced away from the coach so he didn't clock how bad the injury was and bring him off. Hard as nails. Back to the football, this could come back to bite me, but I really think that we'll do them tonight. Without Shelvey, I'm not convinced they have that much more than us on paper, and everything coming out of St James' suggests that they're simply not that bothered. We score first and how much are they going to want to get back in it, with potential extra time? 3-0 Rovers

Wouldn't be against having Smallwood in somewhere, given he's had the last few weeks off, but I'd be more than happy with that.

Also, any excuse to post this

Loved that team so much. Difficult to convey to non-Rovers fans just how dirty we were for a spell. Potentially a starting XI that included Todd, Neill, Flitcroft, Savage, Bellamy, Dickov, Mokoena, Reidy and probably several more that I can't even recall off the top of my head. Madness.

6th from bottom. Not good enough

Rafa giving his press conference for tomorrow. No Shelvey or Diame, could well be short in the middle of the park. With a 6 pointer with Cardiff on their minds too, I think these are there for the taking.

Up and down, I thought. Started well, but tailed off towards the end. Remember him scoring a belter against Milton Keynes, and played well in the away game at Boro when we managed to draw after playing them off the park. Wouldn't want to be next to him in the trenches, I'll grant you.

Lambert brought in a handful of players in next to no time when at Rovers, and they made a fairly instant impact. Some, like Bennett & Graham are still mainstays, others, like Jordi Gomez & Tony Watt, played a big part in an uplift of form for a while, before we realised that he was on his way and our season petered out. If he can do the same in January, then you have a chance, although I agree with others that 50/50 is looking a bit on the optimistic side. I'm expecting a much tougher game on Saturday than it would've been just a few weeks ago, but given our home form over the last year or more, I'd be expecting three points for Rovers.

The big question mark on whether we do or not is still fitness, for me. He hasn't fallen to bits yet, like some may have predicted, but he has missed a few squads and has only managed one full game. He has time to prove more beyond the end of the season, which is good. His quality is undoubtedly there though, and I agree that playing in a back three is made for him. If we could get away with another 12 months with an option of another year in our favour, then brilliant, but I'm not sure if he'd accept on those terms.

The first post was about Nuttall and that, even if he's not the best, still is a mark-up on some of the dross we've had recently. I feel the same about our midfield, who I think sometimes get a bit of unfair stick. Simple as that, I'm not against improving any position if we can find better players. Agree completely about Travis by the way. It's fantastic when players of his promise are brought through, he clearly deserves to keep his shirt on current form.

And with Butterworth on the bench.

Agree. I still think that we'll be looking back at this season come May and look at it as having made good progress though. Looking at the Sheffield United model, another 12 months experience and the addition of David McGoldrick has clearly done them the world of good. Nothing stopping us doing something similar with a canny couple of additions. I don't think they'll be the starting two in a midfield pair that gets automatic promotion, but I do think that without being the most gifted that they've set a platform for us to compete with not far off every team we've played this year. Young Travis looks extremely promising, I suppose I've felt a couple of times that his emergence has been framed in a "thank god we've got someone to take the place of Evans/Smallwood" sort of way, and whilst both have their limitations, I think they're our best pair since relegation from the prem (even if we assume that Cairney was the best individually).

Have to say I feel very similar about our midfield. Whilst it's great to see young Travis coming in and taking his chance brilliantly, Smallwood & Evans have gone about their job more effectively than the likes of Murphy/Etuhu/Lowe/Williamson/Akpan/Guthrie/Byrne/Taylor/Tunnicliffe & Spearing managed to do.

Our soft underbelly has done us time after time this year, so I'm more than happy to get a horrible but resolute win in the way that we did. Six points off the play-offs is probably too much to make up with our squad, but when you consider that we've played Leeds, Sheff U & West Brom twice, as well as Boro & Derby away, these last two wins are still keeping our league season alive at the right end of the table. Whilst December was horrible, our last two wins have come against teams on a nine game unbeaten record & a four game winning streak. We're not ready yet, but there's clearly something there in this set up. One or two important additions aside, I don't think we're that far away.

We've not had much luck with scheduling over the last couple of seasons. Several potentially large followings have been dampened by being clustered together, this Christmas being a good example. 1,000 for this fixture is thoroughly decent for us I think, given we've just had yourselves, Sheffield & Newcastle in next to no time.

Over 900 sold this morning. With pay on the day, possibly just over 1,000.

Juries out on Nuttall for me. Last time out he seemed like he was physical with a knack for a goal, but severely lacking in the all round game needed to be a starter at this level. Had a huge amount to work on, even if he had some raw attributes to work with. Let's see if he's managed it.