If Buckley and Travis don’t get yellows in the first half then I think we go on to win that match. The Buckley yellow was just one of Stroud’s baffling to shocking decisions that ruined an otherwise competitive and relatively enjoyable game of football. Buckley has been booked a number of times in first halves this season and it has always led to a reduction in his presence in the second period. Huddersfield were rarely overran in the second half, unlike the first 20 minutes where I thought we were outstanding as they struggled to come to terms with the conditions and the tyro that is the ‘new’ Buckley was at his best. We didn’t create too much throughout but I put that down to a very solid defensive display from the Terriers.  The most influential person on the pitch was the referee and that tells you everything you need to know. He’ll be back in Huddersfield by now, genuflecting to his bust of Herbert Chapman. Twonk 

Conclusion made after that atrocious 45: Sheffield United must be abysmally shit 

As international football has become more of a squad exercise then I think the retention of the minnow nations is fairly important as it allows teams like England to rotate the team and rest players where appropriate. Southgate changed seven between Albania and San Marino…thirty years ago that would have been unheard of as the ‘best’ available XI usually started every match regardless of the opposition. We’ve rotated the squad in all four matches against Andorra and San Marino and it has given players like Connor Gallagher, Emile Smith-Rowe and Aaron Ramsdale a taste of international football. Plus, being utterly and unashamedly greedy…when you support Rovers, it’s nice to see your national side banging in ten goals and romping through another qualification campaign…definitely not what we see each week at Ewood!!!

He tried playing all his creative players against Hungary and it left us vulnerable through the middle. Albania are a much better side than the last time we faced them. Chilwell and James will offer us plenty going forward so I’m happy with Phillips and Henderson starting. Plenty to come off the bench if needed 

That was the best game of football I’ve seen at Ewood in years. Aided by the conditions, a blood and thunder battle that maintained a high tempo from start to finish. What a way to bounce back! Our counter-attacking play was superb and we finally saw Poveda come to the party. I’m absolutely buzzing. 

2 hours ago, RoverInverness said:

Full respect for coming on here and being prepared to go against the flow of mainstream message board opinion. I don’t think you’re trolling, but who knows for sure.

Our worst home defeat EVER- in 146 years is not a freak result though. A freak result is a result that - as you correctly define - actually happens from time to time. Losing 0-7 at Ewood does not happen from time to time. It has NEVER happened before. No living Rovers fan has seen such a big home defeat and not even any dead Rovers fans witnessed this before. This is not a thing that happens at Ewood ‘from time to time’ it has never happened at Ewood before. It never happened under Kidd, under Kean, under Ince, under Coyle or under whatever shit managers we had before my time. It never happened before this century, last century or two centuries ago, it never happened in the time of Elizabeth II, George V or even in the reign of Queen bloody Victoria. 
 

This is not a ‘freak result’ it’s an absolute outrage - as is the fact he hasn’t been sacked - as is the fact he hasn’t resigned and as is the fact he didn’t even apologise or take responsibility. 
 

It’s not a freak result it’s a disgrace and so is he.

If you were trolling well done on winding me up - it worked.

 

I’m not trolling, I’m just saying it how I genuinely see it. Last night we came up against a rampant Fulham side, packed with quality, who took advantage of our ten men in clinical fashion. I have taken a lot of enjoyment from the majority of home matches this season. We won on the opening day for the first time in eons , the 5-1 demolition of Cardiff, wins against Reading and Hull, the development of Dolan, the almost unreal transformation of Brereton, the form of Ayala…I’m not going to slide all that under the carpet because of one result, no matter how embarrassing it may have been. It wasn’t to local rivals. It wasn’t to a team inferior to us in the division. Arguably the defeats at Huddersfield and Blackpool were worse because they were games in which we could/should have won. I want a change of management and I have stated that on these pages before but Mowbray did not send his team out to lose 7-0 last night…circumstances combined to deliver a result that may not be repeated for another 146 years. 

I know this is playing Devil’s Advocate to the max but we have taken 6 points from the last 9! I chose a good night to miss my first Ewood match in ages! I fully expected us to lose last night and when we went down to 10 a royal thumping was always on the cards. I personally wouldn’t read too much into it. Freak results happen from time to time. How many hammerings have we taken in recent years? Not many. We’re the masters of losing by the odd goal. Southampton shipped 9 at home to Leicester and then went on a decent run culminating in a victory in the reverse fixture. Anything can happen. Yes I’m pissed off but we were seventh on Saturday night. From memory it’s been eleven years since we last conceded 7. I’ll take that. 

Derby missed a trick in not targeting Buckley aerially as he struggled under the high ball, but other than that I thought he was excellent. The advantage of having a player of his ilk in that position was seen in his fantastic cross for the first goal. Nyambe has improved massively but I still don’t see many balls into the box like that from him. If fit on Wednesday though, he has to start. Nobody has a stinker from what I saw, just the usual collective inability to do the basics when defending a 2-0 lead. So many wrong decisions in the last ten minutes…surely that scenario can be replicated on the training pitch? Just keep things simple…it seems an impossibility for us. Bottle the first half and hope that at some point we put in a full 90 minutes and show what we are really capable of. Satisfied tonight 

I thought Dolan had one of his best games for us today…great skills, tracking back, getting blocks in, unlucky not to score twice…yes he made the wrong decision on a few occasions but he’s still a teenager and I’m seeing progress from him on a near weekly basis. 

Kaminiski: kicking awful, Pickering: seemed ok to me, Edun in the second half: awful, Ayala: good, Lenihan: ok, Van Hecke: dodgy, Nyambe: good, Clarkson: out of his depth, Travis: missed in the second half, Johnson: a waste of a squad position, Rothwell: usual inactivity with bursts of promise, Brereton: not tonight, Butterworth: not the game to blood the lad…but that should have been done months ago. Overall, a predictable performance from a team only going in one direction. We might get a draw at the weekend, we probably won’t. 

Awful but so predictable. Mowbray out! 

We’re getting nothing from this match. 

I want Rothwell for Clarkson and Dolan for Butterworth. The Travis injury sadly means this might not happen for a while in the second half. 

For me the current problem (aside from the manager) lies with the midfield. Rothwell was anonymous up until scoring yesterday and then anonymous again from half time up until the last 15 minutes. Travis has yet to find his pre-injury form (how long can we wait?) and Buckley (despite being decent on the ball) is still too lightweight. We are crying out for a midfield general…someone with a physical presence who can grab games by the scruff of the neck. I’m relatively happy with the defence, I just feel they are too often left exposed by a paper thin midfield…see Coventry’s second yesterday. It reminded me a bit of England in midweek, the clamour to include another attacking mid at the expense of a holding player cedes more control to the opposition. We are good at having quick bursts in games (see Swansea, Luton, Cardiff and yesterday) but rarely do we stamp dominance on a fixture over say, 40-50 minutes. Rothwell’s goal yesterday was the first by a midfielder this season…that is a worrying statistic too. You could argue that this has been Mowbray’s biggest blind spot in his tenure. He has brought in good forwards (Armstrong, Dack, Brereton…eventually) and recently better defenders (Ayala, Pickering)…but midfielders? We need a poor man’s Patrick Vieira, a Pound Shop Roy Keane…even a Aldi N’Zonzi. I won’t hold my breath in January. 

I’d still go with the same starting XI. We all want to see more of Butterworth but I’d be tempted to bring him on for a significant amount of the second half. He might have flourished against a Luton team pushing for goals on Saturday but we’ll never know. Game management needs to improve markedly…we were lucky to hold on against Swansea, we didn’t have long to hold on at Forest. Against Morecambe and Boro we went to pieces and it’s a problem that affects the whole team. Kaminski kicks it into touch…the ball comes back at us, Gallagher fails to do the basics and hold up the ball, the ball comes back at us, Travis gets bypassed in midfield, the balls coming back at us. Keep the ball, win the game. So simple, so evidently beyond us. 

Battered for large spells of the game, one of the most lightweight midfield performances I can remember, can’t remember their keeper making a save, putting more than two passes together looked like a toddler attempting trigonometry, red card for Carter…..but….we escaped with a point. We desperately need some steel and height in that midfield. I’m reserving judgement on Clarkson as his first two games have come against two of the most physical teams in the division…he’s going to have to adapt to that but it wasn’t his game again today. Ayala, Gallagher and Dolan leave with credit, the rest need to put it behind them and move on to Luton 

7 minutes ago, mr bishi said:

 

This one has disturbed me ha ha…plus, has a footballer ever had a more inappropriate name? 

Brad Friedel. I’m pretty sure they’re Tranmere fans but two Rovers references???

Ha ha, there’s more than I thought! I’d love an Oumar Konde reference but I doubt I’ll find one 

Only a few appearances but I think this counts 

Getting a bit bored of transfer non-entities so I thought, having just discovered that Bobby Svarc’s move from Colchester to Rovers is referenced in the Half Man Half Biscuit song, ‘Feel my Wraith (I read the news today, oh boy
Svarc rejects new Layer terms)…

Have any other Rovers players ever featured in song lyrics??? 

3 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

“ When you get the ball make the pitch as big as you can “, I was told that as a 16 year old player.  Also, “ When you lose the ball make it as small as you can. “

That could have been Ismael’s team talk yesterday 

16 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Kevin Gallagher said it was like watching the football his dad had told him about from back in the day. Two guys out wide all the time and three up the middle.

I’m reading Pat Nevin’s autobiography at the moment and that approach was almost ingrained on young Scots growing up in that era. The wingers were often more jinky than physical (although John Robertson could do both). What stood out yesterday was, with the width they had, when they countered they had an abundance of options. The cross field ball was utilised well which really splices open a team of our current limitations. Power, pace and width. The gulf between us and them 

9 minutes ago, Wing Wizard Windy Miller said:

A club willing to take the direct ' old school direct' approach of the 80s Wimbledon and Beck's Cambridge would have a great chance of getting out of this league. 

Don't get me wrong, not a fan of that style of football, but given the current approach of tippy tappy possession football, a team taking that approach may well upset the applecart.

We won't do it but somebody will. 

The more successful managers of bottom half Prem clubs (Allardyce, Pulis, Dyche etc) have taken the POMO approach and adapted it so that the team can also play good football when required. For all the negativity surrounding Allardyce he still found space in his teams for the likes of Okocha, Dunn, Diouf, Pedersen and others who could really play…plus the evolution of bigger players like Nzonzi who are both physical and technically excellent (see Pogba for a more recent prototype). I for one enjoyed the Allardyce era as we rarely lost at home and regularly ‘roughed up’ the big boys. Watching West Brom’s first game at Bournemouth reminded me of this. When the opportunity is there to get it in the box, do so (the long throw being their weapon of choice) but aside from that, play attacking, forceful football utilising strong pacy wingers and a general air of physicality throughout. It’s ironic that a team that Allardyce couldn’t save is now more Allardyce than ever under different tutelage. They will go up automatically 

3 minutes ago, Wing Wizard Windy Miller said:

I've said this for years.  Assemble a team of predominantly big, quick lads and it scares the death out of most teams at this level. They don't have to be that good technically. Reading went close last year, their team dwarfed ours and out - muscled them from the start. 

 

We have neither the physicality or the pace in our side.  It never seems to get addressed so by default we often lose to the more physical teams.

A Samba sized CB 

An Nzonzi  sized CM

Even if they are only used against certain sides.  In other words a bloody plan B.

 

It’s amazing how cheap Samba and Nzonzi both were…a product of good European scouting and the confidence to sign such relative unknowns. We must have the shortest squad in the division…the subs all warm up directly in front of me and it was like watching a bunch of Olympic skateboarders