Well they tried a newish face in Ismael but that didn't work out too well... Interesting to note that many of the managers who lots of us were touting as worthy replacements for TM in the summer (Hughton, Ismael, McCarthy, Jokanovic, Karanka Johnson, Cook) are all polishing up their CVs... Football eh?! 🤣

That's bad news, there's more than enough ability in their squad for a decent manager to get a tune out of. Still, we have a good lead on them, so if we keep our own house in shape we don't need to worry about them. Not losing to them later this month is imperative though.

Fulham are clearly streets ahead in an attacking sense, but the point re Bournemouth stands up so why shouldn't we compare ourselves with them? We've scored one more goal than them (ergo also got 1 more assist), and only Billings is in the top scorers chart for them besides Solanke, but he's only got one more goal than Gally has in twice as many games. I have more faith than most in Gally, and believe his stats back that up. My main fear re Bournemouth now is Keifer Moore; I think he could easily score 12-15 goals in the remainder of the season in a side that plays long ball & puts good crosses in, but then again that's not Bournemouth's style. They prefer to play on the floor and I can't see how Solanke & Moore can play together in either system so it's either one or t'other most games.

Thing is, that table could be overlaid on last season, only with AA ahead of BBD (or BB as he was then!), and SG below them. This season, BBD has taken AA's place, albeit to most people's surprise. If BBD gets injured, any one if SG, Khadra, Hedges or even Dack could cover him. Take Mitrovic's 30 goals off Fulham, Solanke's off Bournemouth or Grabban's off Forest and they're in a similar position. Yes another goalscorer would've been great, but they don't grow on trees & I'm not convinced Maja or Healy or Dembele would've been the answer.

I take the view that compared to every other club bar Bournemouth, we seem to have had a reasonable window, in that no-one key left and we've made some shrewd acquisitions. Shame about Markanday obviously, but the others seem to have something to offer that we didn't previously have. Another striker would've been nice, and / or a CM, but I think we're OK. Up front we have BBD, Gally, Khadra, Hedges, Zeefuijk to fight for 2/3 spots, Dack to return, plus Buckley as a false 9 & JRC. In CM we have Travis, Rothwell (assuming his head's right), Buckley, Davenport, Johnson, possibly also JRC, Edun & Garrett. Even Lenihan could cover there in a real emergency. There's plenty of options there if we have a worsening personnel crisis. Bournemouth will either walk away with top 2, or fall further away. I don't think they got rid of anyone yesterday so to add SIX players in 1 day must be a desperate move on their part. Why are they so desperate? Because this Rovers squad (and perhaps QPR) have scared the bejesus out of them with our spirit, desire, fortitude & no shortage of ability. If we can keep that, and stay no worse off with injuries etc., I'd rather be TM than Scott Parker right now having to find an identity in such a large group in such a short space of time and all the pressure that he'llbe under given the cash splashed. COYB!!

I've realised that I now hold an intense dislike for every club that Eddie Howe has been employed by. If he ever gets appointed at Rovers, I'll be in a dilemma.

I'm not getting much work done this morning...😲

Try 6 or 7+!!! Diaz, Rothwell, Khadra, Pickering, Markanday, Dolan. Not to mention Dack & Poveda, plus also now Edun & Gallagher. That's some injury list... Great point all things considered.

But then again, we scored afterwards & Boro didn't!!

Zeefuijk in for Khadra then? Upsets the system the least

With reference to Ivan Toney, the naivety shown by some footballers is truly staggering.

For those that haven't seen it, here's a still off the BBC website. THB is a very lucky boy, Koroma will surely receive a retrospective ban as Gavin Ward didn't even give a free kick.

Are we talking about football, or Scrabble?! 😁 Assuming it's football, I get what you're saying to a point but there's only 10 countries in the whole confederation, 4 of which definitely qualify, & quite probably a 5th, which is half the continent!!

I'm guessing that, in the context of a low block meaning defending deep, then a vertical pass is a forwards one into midfield or the forwards, with progressor meaning carrying the ball forwards. Maybe.

That was 3 or 4 years ago, after Wilder had been at Sheff Utd for 2 or 3 seasons & made them into a well oiled machine. The circumstances are barely comparable to tomorrow. Boro are on a decent run, have a decent manager & some good players at this level. They'll be tough opponents, but they're not all that imo, we should be confident of a win if we approach it right.

I didn't know the FA Cup had gone European. Anotther nail in the coffin of the oldest cup competition in the world. Bloody UEFA.

On the plus side, I heard WBA's Dike went off with a hammy injury after an hour today. I would guess that if he's out for any length of time, that'll be more damaging to them than the loss of Markanday is to us.

100%. I will admit that we were far from at our best again & started slowly, but all teams MUST be able to rely on officials being competent. Every key decision went against us; the none penalty & red card (which totally changes the game after what, 25 mins?), shortly followed by the clearance by their last man who shouldn't have been on the pitch. Then their 2nd goal where TK was clearly fouled. There was another time too, the corner when they hit the post, that Eaves shoved Wharton (or Van Hecke) into Kaminski, putting them both out of the game for the corner, not seen or given. I'm fuming, absolutely fuming.

It's fair comment that the "possession game" is less important than it was made out to be last season, but the "build from the back" aspect still applies. For example yesterday, the goal came from a couple of passes at the back & between DL & JR before DL played a Tosin-like sliderule pass up to Khadra who laid it off for the onrushing Rothwell. Against Brum, TK threw out to Dl, who brought it out of defence then played in Khadra to round the keeper & finish. Building from the back is good, so long as it us done sensibly & is one tactic amongst many.

This is all sounding very positive. What's telling to me is that all 3 signings (assuming Markanday is confirmed) are all off-the-wall in different ways, and generally kept under wraps until more or less done. No mean feat these days, and shows some creative thinking with an eye to the future, whether promoted or not. Let's hope the likes of Elliot, Kaminski, Pickering, Van Hecke & Khadra are good indicators of the type of match-ready player we're signing, as they've all worked pretty well for us from varied sources.

3-0, Wood again on 46 mins. Maybe we could sell him to Newcastle for £25m?

U18s currently 2 up in youth Cup match, & well deserved according to the Stoke Sentinel's correspondent whose feed I'm following! Harrison Wood & Harry Leonard the scorers.

Of course, I meant Dembele!! 🤣

I've just had a quick squint at transfermarkt; I think it's quite accurate re player contract expiries, even if other aspects are off the mark (eg it gives BBD'S market value as £9m). Anyway, it says there are 212 championship players whose contracts expire this summer. Across 24 clubs, that's nearly 9 players per club. Included amongst those for Rovers are BBD & TK (both of whom appear to have 12 month options in the club's favour), plus some of our U23s (McGloire etc). And there are some decent names on that list too (David Brookes, Nick Powell, Jonathan Swift, Debbie etc.). So are we unusual in having so many players with contracts expiring this summer? The stats suggest not; it seems to be across the whole league, and to be fair if one assumes the average contract is 3 years long (?) then that's potentially 27 players OOC every 3 year cycle. I suspect / speculate this year's divisional figure is higher than in previous years due to covid, with club finances being unforeseeably stretched as a result, leading to a mismatch between player expectations & club resources (assuming we did start negotiations with them 18 months ago, as stated). Where we are unlucky / stand out from the rest, is that 3 of our "rebels" are all very suddenly considered very important due to this successful 5-3-2 formation that they all fit right into, whereas 5 months ago a significant cross section of fans (me included) wouldn't have been too despondent to see any one of them leave. That puts the club in an unforeseen difficult situation that I'd think would be hard to navigate currently. FWIW, I think we should push the boat out (without rocking it too much!) to keep Lenihan as he's been huge recently; and likewise Rothwell, who has some rather unique ability that I think is irreplaceable, and who's also now found some consistency to go with it. Re Nyambe, I'm really torn; he's obviously a good egg, an academy product & in a 4 he's absolutely solid; but in a 5 he lacks ability offensively & just hasn't developed as far as I'd hoped he would; plus he does have injury issues. Of the 3, imo he's been the least influential & most replaceable overall. That doesn't mean I want to see him leave, and he certainly deserves an improved deal, but clearly the club don't value him as much as he / his advisors do. If the difference is down to the funding of his academy (as SW has seemingly suggested; sorry if I've got that wrong), why should the club pay him more just so that he can continue to fund it, without a say in its operation at least? It's up to him how he spends his money (and I applaud his intentions wholeheartedly), but is that Rovers' responsibility, without benefit? Absolutely not. None of us have any idea how far apart each offer is from the players' bottom line. Traditionally, forwards get paid more than defenders, signings from other clubs get paid more than Academy graduates (at least in their younger years); I'm not sure there's much different to that pattern here? Ideally all 3 renew, perhaps with bonus & further improved standard terms if promoted. If not, then we just have to take the risk of them leaving for a small amount this month (but absolutely not to a promotion rival) or for free in summer. Tbf to all of them & much to their credit, whatever their reasons for not re-signing, none of them have letvthe uncertainty affect their performances, or indeed look like they're hankering after a move. Hopefully that continues if they're still here on Feb 3rd.

It's only sensible to make a prediction once we've seen the teams, otherwise it's a total lottery!