The fates of Sam Burns and Connor McBride, compared to Jack Vale, show how fine the margins are between success and failure, when it comes to securing minutes and new deals - and how luck plays a part. Whilst, I think, Vale has been the most prolific, in terms of goals per game (I'm guessing here), all three were regular goalscorers at U23/21 level - and largely unspectacular during lower league and even, non-league loan spells (though Burns scored some goals during a month at FC United and Vale had injury problems during his loans). Vale, however, has got his break and a new deal and the others are disappearing without trace. I suppose the Welsh U21 caps adds value to Jack Vale and raises both his profile and possible transfer market value, so giving him a new deal (though, I think a 2 year deal might have been more appropriate) has commercial sense - if the club play it wisely. As long as he scores a few goals from sub appearances, you would think that he might grow in confidence and form - or attract a buyer.

Szmodics, I fear, will go down as mistaken signing for the fact that he incurs every injury going, it seems. The latest is, apparently, an 'acute neck injury' which kept him out of the last game. Great credit to him that he has come back from serious injuries, including, I believe, further ankle surgery and a broken leg in the same calendar year at Peterborough. He keeps coming back but you have to wonder for how long and at what cost to his body. I believe he missed out on Ireland international recognition after a call-up as a Peterborough player, due to a shoulder injury. We'll have to wait and see as to whether he can stay healthy for a prolonged period but his record is not good.

Chelsea's website has a report on, from memory, a 3-0 win for them. They had Omari Hutchinson playing, the signing from Arsenal, and it sounds like they walked it, with Rovers having one shot on target. Hopefully, a good learning experience for the team. Gilsenan reportedly came off h-t, which is hopefully, not due to injury after his ACL recovery.

Fantastic to win and score two excellent goals but based on the highlights, the defence had some really poor moments and are susceptible to pace. It looked like reliance on much pure luck and keeper heroics that we won, papering over some significant failings.

Liverpool's struggles makes me wonder whether they'll try to negotiate a return of Tyler Morton come January. Not that another young CM is what they really need but his form for us and the potential for World Cup injuries and fatigue might make it a possibility. I suppose, their priority will to be to make more experienced signings, though.

The contract extensions for Sam Burns and Dan Butterworth haven't really benefited the club. Would probably have been best to have let at least one go in the summer. Burns needed a loan move too, if he wasn't going to be involved but has disappeared without update from the club. I suppose, he could be injured.

Since breaking into the team with Mowbray, this is, I believe, the first time that Buckley has fallen out of the first team squad, albeit, it's only been a couple of games and he will likely be back sooner rather than later. At the moment, it would seem that Tomasson favours Adam Wharton, Morton and Travis ahead of him - and, perhaps, Garrett too - and he's no longer in contention for the No.10 role he took up for a while under Mowbray. It's something of a worry to hear reports that in the last game for the recent U21 league game, he didn't impress greatly, and, in fact, Jake Garrett got the nod after the U21 Wolfsburg clash. Whilst players like Garrett and Wharton deserve chances given their talents and form, I would hope that the management are doing everything possible to try and get Buckley back in form and confidence, for he is, arguably, the most naturally gifted player in the squad, though Adam Wharton is showing signs too. I do believe that CM is Buckley's position and we've seen some majestic performances from him there, albeit, he has been very inconsistent and since Tomasson took charge, he's hardly performed. My suspicion is that as an instinctive and, perhaps, 'confidence-player', the pressure of playing one or two touch and not holding the ball, which he likes to do, may be contributing to his loss in form and confidence. Not to mention the fact that Travis, alongside him, has struggled with form too. He is something of a maverick player but if he can re-find his form, he'll be a huge asset for us. At the back end of last season he scored a couple of brilliant long range goals, which raised the hope that he was going to kick on and become both a creator and scorer but, so far, that hasn't materialised.

Zak Gilsenan back on the bench after a long injury recovery period. No, Hilton, Markanday, Rankin-Costello or Cirino. Sam Burns and Dan Pike continue to be absent - injured? Eastham returns after Rovers had no goalkeeper on the bench in the last game. I'd be curious to know how many Rovers take on a first team matchday nowadays, because one would've thought that Buckely would be a reserve, in case of injury or illness pre-game. However, he's playing today for the U21s. Perhaps, they go with just the 18? Edit: Rovers win 1-3, courtesy of Wood, Leonard and a late Buckley free-kick. City took the lead. Courtesy of @ManCityAcademy

My guess is that Buckley is struggling with Tomasson's two touch style. He's always been an instinctive player who likes to take his time on the ball. Admittedly, he's never consistently performed but at times he has shown a lot of ability and seemed on the verge of cementing his CM role. Again, just my guess, but this may have contributed to a drop in confidence. Without him performing, we are nowhere near the same team. I feel that it should be one of the manager's priority to try to get him performing again.

Marcus Bent is an interesting one for me. He was signed by Souness in November 2000, after a great season for Sheff Utd. This was when we would buy up other clubs' star men. We also signed Barnsley's best forward, in Craig Hignett, at this time. He came in to partner Matt Jansen and oust the struggling Nathan Blake, with other strikers, Ashley Ward and Kaba Diawara being let go. Bent did decent for us that season, though, outshone by Duff, Dunn and Jansen, and helped us to promotion - only to struggle at the start of the following season in the Premier League and getting sold in November 2001. He only lasted a year at the club and was sold for a fee not much more than we bought him for and went on to do quite well for Ipswich in the Prem, though they got relegated and then also scored goals for Leicester in the Premier League. It makes me wonder whether we sold him too quickly. He was never very prolific in the top league but was decent for struggling teams. I don't recall the full circumstances of his departure but I suppose the deal was rushed through to finance the Andy Cole transfer. Seeing as we went on to win the League Cup and would also qualify for Europe, the next year, perhaps, the sale of Bent was arguably the right decision, on balance. Nonetheless, I'm sure, had we been able to keep him, I think he would eventually have done a job for us in the Premier League and a useful back-up. Edit: It's a surprising, in a way, that we only came second that season of 2000-01, considering, in retrospect, the team we had (albeit, Fulham had great players too): Friedel, Curtis, Berg, Short, Bjornebye, Duff, Dunn, Flitcroft, McAteer, Bent, Jansen - Subs: Filan, Gillespie, Berkovic, Hignett, Hughes Competing for the bench would have been Martin Taylor, Damien Johnson, Marlon Broomes, Alan Mahon, Egil Ostenstad, Nathan Blake

Probably mentioned before but the rumour that Adam Wharton was dropped for the previous game due to his England U19 call-up preparations is all but proven false, as he’s with the U21s again today. Clearly, Tomasson can’t fit him onto the bench with Morton and Buckley ahead.

Of course, I meant Martin Andresen, who was on loan and was part of the team that ground out survival in 2003/04 season. In a key win over Fulham, Souness fielded four central midfielders, such was the fragility of the team - Jonathan Douglas, Martin Andresen, Tugay and Garry Flitcroft: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/3592783.stm Thanks for the correction, yes, it was Ewood where we got outplayed by Celtic in that UEFA cup second leg. Chris Sutton is on record as saying that part of their tactics was to stop Tugay from playing and he played behind Hartson and Larsson. In an interview on the Open Goal Youtube channel he said: "We were 3-5-2 and, basically, I was given the job of sort of not letting him get his head up... let the other centre halves have the ball - if they're on the ball, fine - but don't let him play. So, I basically just rashed him all game. Every time he got the ball, played it backwards..." None of this is to deny Tugay was an outstanding player for Rovers and key to our achievements under Souness, including the Worthington Cup success, UEFA cup qualification and so on. However, there's no doubt that there came a stage when his ball retention was not so good, though, he was still pulling off great passes and also scoring the odd wonder goal. I suppose it was inevitable, given the fact that he was at the end of his career by this time. It would be inaccurate not to acknowledge this reality. As we struggled in the league and faced relegation, it was not uncommon for fans to complain about Tugay's inconsistent passing and defensive weaknesses.

My impression was that every player in that baggy-shirted, sun-lit era was a deity, even those who could barely run, like Grigoris Georgatos who played football like it was snooker. Wenger's prime Arsenal averaged 6"7 in height. And Eddie Nolan had a solid Rovers career.

A forgotten player is Tugay’s invisible friend who was extremely wasteful in possession but was always played, for obvious reasons. I do feel that it’s forgotten that towards the end, Tugay was an erratic passer who’d frustrate the fans with several poor passes between a worldie. After all, he was in the team that narrowly avoided relegation and needed three central midfielders crammed into the team to help him (Douglas and Flitcroft in the wide positions, Andersen next to him). Moreover, opposition teams sometimes took him out of the game with a more mobile marker, eg Chris Sutton for Celtic in the second leg of that UEFA cup tie, after Tugay ran the show at Ewood. He was brilliant for us but age did catch up and he frustrated many at times.

I'd guess that George Gent might've played ahead of Cirino at LWB. Cirino got a hamstring injury last season, I believe, and missed a lot of games and has fallen down the order, it seems. I hope he can get back as he was a star performer a few seasons back with good pace and technical ability. He came on in a first team friendly last season and did well in the brief showing. If fit in Jan, a loan move would be helpful. As far as I can see, his contract expires June 2023, so the club has a decision to make, as does he.

Adam Henley's an interesting one. Broke into the team when we were in the Premier League, was Young Player of the Year, got caps for Wales but struggled later and, apparently, now plays for Chorley. Keith Barker, a few years further back, was a formidable strike partner in youth football for Joe Garner, but gave up football to become a first class cricketer for Warwickshire and Hampshire. I think he might have been of the same era as Raffaele De Vita Does anyone else remember checking transfer news on the internet, in the late 1990s on a website that listed news headlines URL links in a series of rows? Kind of like the news aggregator site, NewsNow or even Teletext, albeit, it was a dedicated football site and, I think, latest news was presented in a pop-up box with live updates. I appreciate that this might be describing a lot of sites. I'd be on that site after school every day to check if Rovers had signed anyone.

The grotesque money in the league has always been a problem but I have a feeling things might get more toxic, in some ways, as the billionaires and venture capitalists slug it out. Todd Boehly, the new Chelsea owner has been talking recently about relegation play offs and All Star games to raise revenue and reach of the league, albeit, with some talk about using some extra income for redistribution down the pyramid. I think back to Emiliano Sala's death and wonder why it was necessary for the player to fly back to the UK on a suspect private plane with a suspect pilot at 9am on Monday morning (though the flight was pushed back to the evening), after returning to Nantes for the weekend, after his medical in Cardiff. Sala had been invited to watch Cardiff's game against Newcastle that evening, on Monday 21 January 2019, but the flight delay meant he wouldn't make it anyway. Cardiff didn't have another game for eight days. Whether such private flights are routine in the game or not (I suppose they might be), it should be a reminder that players are not mere commodities. Unfortunately, the financial stakes and dubious oversight means that, most probably, football has not learnt from this - at least, not in the general sense of player welfare, as commercial interests dictate.

Bentley's third goal was a brilliant strike, in that game, but the first one sticks in my mind, as it seemed to me such an unorthodox goal. Most players, I guess, would bring the ball down to shoot, or wait for it to drop, but Bentley leapt and scored with a sort of side foot downward volley, with the lack of power being made up for by the speed and surprise of the move. I wonder how players like Bentley would fare in the modern game without wide midfielders. I suppose, like Harvey Elliot, who seems a similar player, he'd end up a CM in a three, but it wouldn't give him the opportunity to show his full ability, such as his crossing and his dribbling, as much. He probably wouldn't be considered prolific or fast enough to be a wide forward, in the modern game, at the highest level. Maybe, that's partly why he gave it up, seeing the way the game was heading, with individualism being increasingly wiped from the game. He has complained that the game felt too robotic for him.

Ostenstad scored two goals on his debut, I think. I also remember reading some quotes from him saying that he was about as much use a training cone by the end of his time at Rovers (or, perhaps, he was describing himself at the end of his career) - either way, didn't work out. Per Frandsen and Carlos Villanueva were two that I was excited about and a lesson in having low expectations for signings. (I needed umpteen lessons before I became cynical, as I consider myself now.) Frandsen had a really good reputation at Bolton and I was expecting a classy playmaker, perhaps, a Claus Jensen type player. Villanueva looked unbelievable in highlight reels but, the best laid plans of mice and men... A random name I'd throw out there is Nick Blackman, the winger/forward signed by Ince from Macclesfield. He has since had a career in Maccabi Haifa, in Israel. He is also playing for Barbados, these days.

It might be the case but I find it hard to believe. My guess would be that Tomasson chose Buckley over Wharton for the bench and Edun is there as LWB cover.

I'd be interested to know if there was a story behind Chris Taylor's time at Rovers, because he had a great reputation as an old-fashioned winger, from what I heard, and was a consistent performer for Oldham and Millwall. Then he came to us and seemed to struggle and then, looking at his record, his career fell away somewhat. I see that he's still only 35 years old and is with FC United.

I wonder if motivation, even at a subconscious level, is an issue for some. I have no evidence of this and am only speculating but I can imagine that 'senior' players like Annesley, Burns, Rankin-Costello, Saadi especially, really would prefer to be out on loan, having had a taste of first team football and/or knowing that they're being released before too long. The concurrent games does create a clearer delineation between firsts, seconds and thirds, I suppose, and risks a greater sense of demotion for those overlooked. In which case, loan transfers becomes even more important for players, I feel. The management have to work even harder, I feel, to encourage players that they are being assessed just as closely and have a decent and equal chance. Edit: I do feel that some planning could have got some players a good level loan spell. For example, Burns, who is, apparently, behind Leonard in the pecking order, would possibly have a chance of a League 2 loan, as he got with Scunthorpe last year. Like Butterworth, having given him a one-year deal and decided that, apparently, he's not in the picture, it seems productive for all to try to get him out on a season long or half-season loan somewhere, preferably, in league football.

Surprised by this score and performance. It's notable we don't have anyone fast to come off the bench to test tiring defenders. It seems like it won't matter here but I think Markanday really needs to be fitted in there.

Arguably, a victim of the move away from 4-4-2, as he, perhaps, could make it as a solid right mid (though, that would be a struggle in his current form). But wing-back, right back or winger aren't, apparently, his game. I believe, when he came through the youth set-up, he was a midfielder and impressed a lot in the reserves. He performed quite well when Mowbray put him in at times as a 'possession-based full-back" rather than Nyambe, but injuries have clearly set him back. A loan move would be perfect to test his body and attitude and he could come back as a decent player, if things went right.

He was struggling and had lost the youthful stars that led our promotion in Dunn, Duff and Jansen and was clashing with some of his senior pros, who he couldn't, it seemed, manage as well. If I remember rightly, he couldn't find successors for the ageing Tugay and Flitcroft, with the Barry Ferguson deal proving a disaster. Near the end of his reign, I believe the midfield was Jon Douglas - Martin Andresen - Tugay - Emerton. We went from having dynamic wingers in Duff, Gillespie and David Thompson, to players put out just to hold the fort. Emerton had so much potential but wasn't a winger.