Eastham not playing is no surprise as the U21s have bizarre goalkeeper rotation policy in which a keeper rarely plays three consecutive games before dropping out completely. It makes little sense to me because exposure is one thing but continuity and building confidence through sustained games is a completely different matter.

I don't recall seeing Lenni Cirino on a team sheet for some time. I presume he's injured, along with Sam Burns, who seems to have not played much. Also no Saadi, Gilsenan or Eastham today. Cirino had shown a lot of promise but it seems he's never recovered from injuries last season.

Famed right winger, Ryan Giles, continues to make a name for himself at left back for Boro, who look destined for the play-offs. Carrick has got the players performing, with Lenihan a regular after a rocky start - and with Alex Mowatt and Isaiah Jones on the bench, their squad looks impressive, though, looks like they can't catch Sheff Utd. Moreover, as we struggle to find a striker with a goal in them, Boro managed to get in Cameron Archer on loan from Villa.

I haven't followed the match so no comment on how we've played but that first eleven might be one of the slowest, on average, that we've had for some time. Aside from Dolan , Thomas and, maybe, Brereton, there's no pace out there at all. The back four of JRC, Carter, Wharton and Pickering has some ability on the ball but little pace. But, we've got a draw against a highly rated team, so fair enough to the team.

My guess is that it is, at least partly, a strategy to keep the Champions League expanding and, effectively, becoming a European League. Apparently, from 2024, the new Champs League will have a single league stage and the tournament as a whole will now be 189 games, compared to the 125 currently. English clubs might publicly reject the ESL, these days, but I would bet they want it to keep rumbling on in some way. There will be 36 clubs (increased from 32) going into a single league, playing eight games each. Two of the additional four places were intended to be selected based on individual clubs' past record in Europe. Now, two places will go to the league whose clubs have collectively done the best in Europe, I believe - which currently is the Prem and the Erevidisie, according to the BBC. The effect of this collective achievement extra place will be that it will be in the interests of most, if not all, Premier League clubs for Man City, for example, to dominate Europe and, arguably, to grant them as much slack as possible - so that a floating extra Champions League place comes to England on a yearly basis. It would be frowned upon for Blackburn, or another smaller club, to ever get back into Europe (as we did in the early 2000s) because the chances of us boosting the Premier League's coefficient are much slimmer. It is, possibly, a further incentive for oligarchy, especially, in regards how the Premier League clubs vote in league decision-making with more power granted to the wealthiest. It could even influence transfer sales - Tottenham would have an additional and significant incentive to sell Kane to City or Utd, rather than abroad.

Alex Baker had a promising start as a U21 striker but I haven't seem his name mentioned lately. Another who succumbed to injuries? I see that his contract might expire this year.

On the topic of Rovers' home grown strikers of note, perhaps, Ellis Simms might become one, even tenuously. He was on the bench for Everton (and scored for Sunderland recently against Rovers). Though, according to Everton's site, he joined their academy at sixteen and had spells at Man City and Rovers before that, so don't know how much of his time was spent at Brockhall.

I think Burns is all but gone, though, surprised he didn't get a loan move. The problem we face is that no-one is setting a standard, which is needed, I feel, for most young players to come in and perform.

An experienced but mobile CM to direct the flagging Travis, Morton and Buckley is essential. Someone of real ability and authority could revive their forms. But, then, we've been saying that for an age and the best that's come in have been Johnson, Holtby and Downing and the odd youth loanee, like Clarkson. The manager wants a certain style and the current crop are struggling to implement it.

How did Reda Khadra play, aside from his goal? I felt that he or Poveda would've been good options for Rovers to add some pace and trickery to the forward line and give Dolan and Hedges some competition.

I see Boro were trying to use the dark arts by not playing Ryan Giles as a right winger but Mowbray and team were unfazed.

Not a lot of options at the moment but there does seem to be an inconsistency with the relative treatments of Vale and Burns, who has fallen way down the order. That said, neither have shown enough on loan and Having given Vale the nod, it makes sense to give him sub appearances to try and reach the necessary level until an alternative is found. I guess the next in line is Leonard until we bring someone in, unless Markanday can do a job there.

The Rovers official site match report gives an alternate view that it was an even contest!

It's surely a bubble that must burst, if you consider how much clubs like West Ham and Everton have spent to poor effect this season (and in Everton's case, for maybe a few seasons). Player fees and wages are skyrocketing at the elite end and the quality of football is not necessarily rising proportionately with it. I would suspect that there is or will be a mental health crisis in the Premier League because given the money spent by pretty much every club, the pressure to win is only increasing. Clubs like Palace, Everton, West Ham have spend huge sums or have amazing players that are internationals and probably good enough for Champions League clubs, in some cases, yet, they languish, because the league is being rigged by money and the even wealthier. There seems to be bigger expectations but, perhaps, less opportunities of success, because of the money at the elite end.

No match reports on the official site for the last couple of U21 games, thus far. However, apparently, Rovers beat Wolves 0-1 yesterday, with Ben Fyles scoring again. Some newish names in the team such as Grady-Macken, Davies, Weston. I suppose at the end of this year there will be a long departure list as the likes of Burns, Butterworth, Whitehall, Saadi, Annesley, Pike, Eastham, Cirino will be considered to be let go.

I must agree the wild inflation in player fees makes it hard to watch a game without feeling queasy. You might add the wild hypocrisy about keeping politics out of sport when silence is political affirmation of the status quo. Watching City and Chelsea, there seems nothing much to enjoy. Possession football can be inventive and gripping, best exemplified by the dominant Barcelona and Spain sides. But apart from some really nice crossfield passes and occasional quick interchanges, City's play seemed languid and conservative, with skilful players inhibited somewhat. That said, it was a one-sides contest, so maybe there waa no need to exert themselves.

Others will be in a better position to say, but I wonder if it partly goes back to that Newcastle game in 2020, when Travis flew, in typical fashion, wholeheartedly and somewhat unnecessarily into a challenge and sustained a serious knee ligament injury. Prior to that, from what I vaguely recall, he was pretty much a stand out player for Rovers every game. I think he carried on playing with the injury during that match. Since then, Travis has played virtually every game, when available, due to Mowbray failing to find a decent sub and that had continued until this season and the opportunity given to Garrett. It's probably too simplistic to put it down to physicality and it does seem that the midfielders are finding it hard to process the manager's tactics, but I suspect Travis has been overplayed over the years.

Travis has regressed badly and it's not just recently. I wonder if it is at least partly due to injuries and being overplayed when not fit in the past. There was a time that he looked destined for the Premier League. This season, all the CMs, have been inconsistent with Morton and Travis struggling more recently, Buckley being dropped out of the squad. Garrett and Wharton haven't played that many games, so hard to judge. I wonder whether they're struggling to get to grips with JDT's tactics, in part, which, as far as I get, is a minimal touch - one or two touch, expectation.

Van Hecke should've been a target from January, last year, before his stock rose too high. We don't know if Rovers did enquire about him but, if so, it didn't make it into the media, as far as I know. Had we planned ahead and raised some cash by selling either Lenihan, Nyambe or Rothwell before they left on frees, who knows, it might have been more possible. That said, with the managerial uncertainty here and having broken into the Dutch U21 squad, the player would likely have fancied his chances of returning to the Prem and getting games. Not sure if it's been mentioned but Reda Khadra may be returning to Brighton after not making it on loan at Sheff Utd. I would look to sign him here, if we could. He divided opinion but I recall that winter surge we had last season, with Buckley playing as a lone No.10, and it was Khadra's pace and directness that had a big role in that good spell.

Players putting their hands behind their backs when defending their box to reduce risk of giving away a penalty. This is a fairly new behaviour - is it connected with rule changes for hand ball? I didn’t think there was a problem with the rules based on intentional/accidental hand ball, as they were before, even if there were debatable cases. My other bug bear is how repressed player creativity is. I’d like players to express themselves but the modern elite game seems safety first, probably, at least partly connected to the financial stakes.

I think it's a fair bet that Szmodics will be the new Lewis Holtby, in that he will play infrequently and drift towards the effluxion of his contract before drifting down the leagues, at best. Unlike Holtby, however, he wasn't a free signing and isn't in his 30s. A cursory look at his WIkipedia page and an online search reveals that despite his age, decent record and clear resilience, he picks up a lot of and varying injuries. It was a massive risk to spend money on him and it would appear to be backfiring, though, he still has two and a half years on his contract to prove himself. I hope I am wrong and wish him well - and admire him for his clear resilience in coming back from injury after injury (in one of his last season's at Peterborough, I believe he separately damaged/broke his ankle, had knee surgery and then was out with a hamstring injury in the same calendar year). However, you've got to question the due diligence on this one.

I would hope not, as I think international football tournaments bring players and fans together like no other football tournament. However, I read that the Champions League will expand from something like 125 games to 189 from 2024. Who will precisely be playing these extra games, I'm not sure but the tournament is expanding in size and might well be accompanied by greater fatigue and injuries for players. The World Cup, I think is, or might be, expanding too, and the toll might well see more of the top players absent literally or not able to perform. I got the sense from Kevin De Bruyne's recent comments about the Nations League and Belgium's World Cup that he was disillusioned with the sheer number of games and international football was, to him, a lesser priority. This could be just him but I wonder how far it might spread. Then, there is the fans. I just wonder whether the club v country debate is moving increasingly towards club, as each match, especially, in the top flight and Championship, becomes so financially crucial and the Premiership and Champions' League becomes like Super Leagues. I have no evidence for this but it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. Edit: I wonder if there is something in the fact that the winning Argentina side was made up of a significant number of players from outside of the elite European sides of recent years. On a separate note, or maybe, not so separate, I wonder where the mercurial African talents have gone - the Kanu, Okocha, Obafemi Martins, Moustafa Hadji type players. I stand to be corrected, as I didn't watch much of the earlier rounds of the World Cup, but it would seem to me that there has been a Europeanisation of African players, with flair and risk taking being trained out of them. There's still some like Mahrez and Benrahma, but, especially, West Africa doesn't seem to produce them in the abudance of before. But, I'm far from an expert on this, so may well be wrong and, perhaps, being nostalgic about former players.

Scott Wharton has been excellent for Rovers, in general, and let's hope he gets back to his best form but that 'fall' as he tried to stop Pukki on the wing but instead collapsed like a sack of potatoes was, I suspect, a clear sign that something isn't right with his game. Timing, confidence, pace all looked off. (Unless he slipped, but it doesn't look like it).

I think Foden is the closest we have had in recent memory to a top level No.10. Any other club than City, and he would always play central, I would guess, and thereby be England's main man. Guardiola's embarrassment of riches has sidelined Foden as a support act, often, to likes of De Bruyne and Silva. You might say, but for City stockpiling, Kalvin Phillips and Grealish would be in better form, match fitness. If City sign Bellingham, you might see him start once every 3 games, at least initially. The arrival of petrodollars and billionaires is going to damage England's chances, I suspect, with new recruits prioritised over regular football for young players. Then again, with the Champions' League expanding yet further in 2024, international football might well be in decline, at least, for Europeans and European-based players.

I got the impression that Henderson was given the task of doubling up on Mbappe and he did seem to drift out to the right a lot, which might be a reason that Griezmann got a lot of space. Walker didn't seem to get forward, which might have also been part of the tactics. It worked in keeping Mbappe quiet but, perhaps, with Bellingham getting forward, it left that pocket of space that made us vulnerable to Griezmann. Declan Rice is a fantastic striker of the ball and can run with it too but we saw nothing off that because he was so deep. As with the Euros, we looked dangerous with our wingers running with the ball and turning defenders, but we didn't seem to be able to unlock teams with short passing movements as well. All that said, it was nearly enough and the team were unlucky.