sharpysharps86

2-1 Cov. We have a rubbish record there. I think Mark Robins will have them well drilled in Rovers weaknesses that at the moment are far too easy to exploit. Moran with the goal for Rovers. The team I would go with: Wahlstedt Brittain Hill Hyam Pickering Travis JRC Tronstad Moran Szmodics Sigurdsson

Whether it's Tronstad or someone else, something needs to change in the middle. Just having an extra body in there would help massively. Having Wharton and Travis both looking to get forward is leaving us massively exposed when we lose possession, there's nobody left to protect the defence, which is bringing about more errors from them. If JDT doesn't rate Tronstad then I'd be looking at chucking Garrett or JRC in the middle to crowd the midfield a bit more, certainly away from home and against the top teams at Ewood.

Sort of agree on this, but there's loads of clubs out there that seem to value style of play over winning. For example: Southampton bringing in Russell Martin who has arguably been the most overrated manager in the league for 2 seasons at Swansea, flattering to deceive and struggling a lot at times with continuous individual errors...the kind we are seeing with this Rovers side. Maybe it's outdated view now but I've always felt that Mark Hughes and Big Sam's mentalities of sorting the defence out first before figuring out how your team is going to score goals is a better way of going about things. After all, if you're not conceding goals then you're not losing games.

I honestly don't think we are miles off, and a couple of changes and tweaks to the system will have us play with a much better balance. The Pears experiment is certainly over for the time being at least. Wahlstedt will get a run in the team and we'll see how he fares. Can't really cast much judgement on him for today. As soon as the pen was given it was game over. Defensively, I don't know what's happened to Carter but he's struggled in recent games. Did well against Boro but since then he's been a bit of a shambles. Hyam also seems to be struggling to capture the form he had last season. It happens, form is temporary after all. Hill in for Carter perhaps for Wednesday night? I can't imagine Scott Wharton getting the nod at the moment. The other change is that we really need to bring in a more defensive minded midfielder. The obvious choice is Tronstad. Was he THAT bad against WBA to warrant being excluded from starting another league game? It's clearly not working in the middle at the moment so surely change it.

The score flatters Leicester, but it does call out the obvious that we are a soft touch in midfield and defence.

Ouch

Disappointing to be losing and I feel we don't really deserve to be, which is the story of our season so far. Performance has overall been good, but when you commit so many players forward and don't have defensive minded midfielders in the middle then you're always going to be left open to the kind of goal Vardy scored. If it ends 1-2 there is absolutely no shame in losing to what is clearly the best team in this division. At least half their team are comfortably premier league players. Not particularly concerned about league position. We're a mid table side who'll win a few and lose a few. Could do with 4 points from Cov and QPR mind.

Looks like it could be a very fluid frontline, which has the potential to surprise Leicester. My concern is more the midfield and defensive situation and how open we will likely be throughout this game. With Pears in goal I am not confident of a result at all.

Luton vs Burnley on Tuesday night is looking like a huge game. Burnley have had a pretty tough run of fixtures to start with, it'll be interesting to see how they do over the next five, playing against more 'beatable' sides.

Can't see anything other than a Leicester win, who seem to be winning most matches without really switching up to a higher gear. I think they'll just be too good for Rovers. I'll go for 1-3 to the away side with Moran scoring for Rovers.

We'll see where Chelsea are by the time the game comes around, but if Rovers were to play them tomorrow I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was an upset.

Assuming this was an attempt at a 'joke'. Anyway... Good to see Rovers get the win last night. The Kevin Keegan style 'we'll score more than you' football continues, which is fine when we're on the side of victory 😁. Chuffed to see Moran and Siggy scoring, shame Telalovic sounded pretty anonymous. Another good Cup performance from Garrett as well. How did Tronstad get on?

I had a similar scenario with the home shirt. In the end I emailed them and then within a couple of hours it had been dispatched.

Looks pretty bleak for the 3 promoted sides so far: Luton: Was clear from the start of the window that they wouldn't be breaking the bank and have assembled a squad good enough to be challenging for promotion back in the Championship next season. Staying up would be an incredible bonus for them. Not the first team to do this and won't be the last. Sheff Utd: Awful summer window really, losing their best player from last season. Only Hamer coming in seems to be a decent buy there. Burnley: Spent plenty but mostly on younger players from abroad. As a plan to stay up it seems a risky one. Do they have a recognised goalscorer? The gap is no doubt getting bigger. As much as I'd love to see Rovers go up, I'd also dread to think what would happen against some of the top teams in the league 😬😅.

We'll probably go and win this one before losing to Leicester on Sunday, such is the way things seem to be going atm. Would be great for Telalovic to get on the scoresheet, and I'm hopeful that Gilsenan and Sigurdsson get some more minutes as well. My predicted team: Wahlstedt JRC Hill Wharton Batty Tronstad Garrett Markanday Dolan Sigurdsson (first 45) / Gilsenan (second 45) Telalovic

Typical of the Championship, Sunderland have just gone 1 down at home to Cardiff in the 87th minute after winning 3 on the spin.

Think Leonards will go down as an OG.

I don't think anyone realistically expected Rovers to win today, but it's the manner in which we're conceding some really poor goals that stings. I think its escalated by the fact that so many people have recognised that Pears is not good enough and this isn't the first game this season that he's been really poor. Something simple has to change there, and that change should be Wahlstedt coming. Then it's about the midfield and how we seem far too open. 2nd half vs Boro, Sunderland in midweek and now today we've been cut through with relative ease. We need a no nonsense midfielder in there to sit in front of the defence. I thought Tronstad would be that player, but he can't get a look in right now. If we want to tighten up I think we have to sacrifice one of Travis, Wharton or Szmodics. Sammie is the first name on the team sheet atm and right so, so who do you drop out of Trav and Adam? Adam has played a lot of football recently without a proper pre-season. He's been poor in the last couple of games, so maybe he needs a breather. I'm hopeful about Sigurdsson. It's a great way to start your time at the club by bagging on your debut. It'll be a huge boost if he can make the wide left forward position his own.

Why oh why do we keep persisting with this goalkeeper. If he doesn't get dropped after this then I don't know what will do it...unless Wahlstedt has a shocker in the cup midweek. Pleasantly surprised to see we pulled it back to 3-3, but it was all too obvious what was going to happen after that. For the character they've shown to fight back, that soft underbelly has caught them out again. Kamikaze football this, and it doesn't end well when you've got a midfield that gets cut through so easily, and a goalkeeper who belongs in League One at best.

Crikey, just looked at the fixtures...it doesn't get any easier does it! The next three league games: Ipswich away Leicester at home Coventry away Can't see more than a point or two from these. After that its QPR away and Cardiff at home, they will both be massively important games in the long term.

After last night I'm very worried. Rovers simply HAVE to start scoring some of those chances because Ipswich have been clinical so far. I'd snap your hand off for a draw at this point, but I can't see anything other than an Ipswich win. Can't see JDT changing the starting 11 much, but I really do think it's time for our 850k goalkeeper. Wahlstedt Brittain Carter Hyam Pickering Travis Wharton Szmodics Hedges Leonard Moran Leonard deserves to keep his place up front because he's now our only fit striker to have scored two league goals this season, which tells its own story! I'd drop Dolan out of the squad entirely. You kind of get the feeling he needs a kick up the arse, especially with the contract situation. See how he fares in the U21s for a week or two. If Siggy is ready then put him on the bench.

Well that result really, really sucks. It's going to be the story of our season isn't it...we've gone from a team last season that wasn't creating loads of chances but being clinical, to a team that creates a ton of them and can't score. I think JDT got it wrong with some of the subs tonight - the obvious one being Dolan for Leonard. Surely you bring Telalovic on in this scenario?? I think Leonard staying on would've been more effective than Dolan up front. Not much else to say. Rovers are playing the best football we've seen in a long time, but losing whilst playing good football is not a good habit. I fear for the weekend at Ipswich, I think it could be a heavy one. Hopefully it'll be more like Watford away this season and less like Sheffield United last season!

Shame Gally is out for that long, and now leaves us with a bit of a head scratcher as to who comes in, not to mention being short up front with Ennis also out. Here's my predicted team: Pears Brittain Carter Hyam Pickering Travis A. Wharton Szmodics Hedges Telalovic Dolan Dolan may have missed a sitter at when weekend and going forward he's been unconvincing, but Moran was much worse against Boro when he came on, he looked like such a soft touch. Dolan did seem to do more work off the ball down the left hand side as well. Hearing that Dack is out with injury is a bit of a relief. Dreaded him coming back and scoring at Ewood before giving sticking 2 fingers up at JDT 😂.

Never have I wanted Rovers to beat Sunderland more than this game 😂. Dack missed the weekend with injury, suspect he'll be at least on the bench for this one. As much as I'd love a win, I think a draw is a more likely outcome with our lack of clinical finishing.

I thought he did ok. New team in a new country, getting used to a much higher standard than what he's used to. If Szmodics had scored the one on one then we'd all be praising him for a brilliant assist to set Sammie up as it was a genuinely great ball. I think he showed some good touches and good instinctive movements when we were in possession. When Rovers didn't have the ball he looked a bit lost, you could see Sammie was trying to guide him and give instructions. Coming on for the last 30 mins or so of what was a pretty chaotic match can't have been easy to get up to the pace of the game. As he's a permanent signing I think we have to really back the kid and give him our support. Physically he looks like he could be a real nuisance for defenders at this level, but time will tell whether he fits with JDT's style of play.