I watch semi professional football here in Northern Ireland a lot more regularly than I'm able to watch Rovers, and I can genuinely say there are more reliable and competent goalkeepers than him working full time jobs around their football. I don't understand what anyone has ever seen in him.

I'd chuck Brentford, Bournemouth, Wolves, Burnley and Fulham into that bracket too - as well as all three relegated clubs from last season currently in the championship (at least two of which seem. Decent punt for promotion, possibly in place of the more 'robust' football of Sheffield United and Luton Town).

You fundamentally misunderstand JDT's brief. He has been given the job to manufacture saleable assets and avoid relegation, not necessarily to win football matches. It is clear he has little say in transfers, responsibility there appears to lie with the director of football who appears to be in a similar position in that the club has directed him to reduce the wage budget as far as possible and maintain a playing staff that can be sold for profit. The "style" is a direct result of this as Premier League clubs want to be paying for technically proficient prospects rather than seasoned championship battlers. Perhaps this is a reaction to the money hemorrhaged on Rothwell, Brereton-Díaz, Lenihan - even Dack. Perhaps it's necessitated by Venkys financial position. Perhaps it's both. But it's clear that the thinking at the club currently is that promotion is too unlikely to bet the farm, and so this is the model for long term sustainability. I'm not convinced it is going to work (and certainly doesn't seem to be working currently) but it seems pretty clear JDT is working with a player development focus rather than a "win at all costs" mentality.

Is there a message board hall of fame? This should be in it.

Silly kit concept season eh? It's been a while since a light blue offering (2014 and 2018 previously), so I suspect we might see that again.

The number of people citing JDT as somehow being at fault for a handball goal and Ryan Hedges not having the nous to simply walk to the corner is insane. He inherited a duff squad, has improved a lot of the young players and even a few of those who were also rans before, and has struggled on making the best of what he has after the club bungled getting the reinforcements we needed in January. Yes, he has made some errors, but that comes with the territory of managers willing to work for this batshit club with minimal budget. I despair that anyone thinking he is part of the problem, reality is this squad would be one of the weakest ever to be promoted from this division.

Impressively useless

Morton's pretty pathetic rolling around aside, can't fault anyone for that today. And to be fair even that's a screamer you can't really legislate for. Hedges so unlucky off the post, Foderingham made a tremendous double save to deny Brereton Díaz, Gallagher an stretch of the leg away. Great game, unfortunately someone has to be on the losing side. This team could find themselves at Wembley this season still.

He has indeed scored goals at this level. 2 goals in 32 championship appearances. Granted he also had a semi productive premier league spell at Fulham but there's no way he could be classed as a definitive like for like replacement for Díaz.

If we kept that £1.5m, would we be able to adequately replace him for that outlay alone ?

Would be hilarious if it was anyone else

Sorry but this is myopic, Anglo-centric foolishness. Just because a league system isn't full of clubs owned by nation states and venture capitalists doesn't immediately make it a pub league. The better teams in the Swedish would likely be competitive in the Championship. You can't have it both ways, either Malmo are minnows or they have an easy path to qualification. As it was, they had to through four rounds, seeing off Rangers and Ludogorets. The current Chelsea manager built his reputation in the Swedish league, which suggests not many of the dugouts are manned by waterfowl.

Deservedly thumped

Admfreeittedly haven't seen todays game but some of the criticism of the manager seems harsh. I'm sure he knows there are things he knows can be improved yet if a few loses turn to draws we are showing automatic promotion form. No one was expecting much at the start of the season with this rather ragged squad.

Frantic but not in an entertaining way this game. Both teams showing absolutely no composure and have the whiff of headless chickens about them. Whoever settles down a bit and tries to dictate tempo wins.

If we can turn a few losses into draws and keep winning the wins, crazy things could happen

Well deserved for Cardiff. No idea what the tactical plan has been. Constantly knocking the ball around inviting pressure at the back with the rest of the team stood as far away as possible making them totally isolated. Naive at best, incompetent at worst.

Far too much passing for passings sake in our own defensive third going on

This manager has been found out as a clear fraud. We need new blood in the dugout.

Northern Ireland have been using it for at least 20 years - as far as I know that was the first instance of it being used in a sporting context in Europe. I believe we stole it off the Boston Red Sox baseball team. As a result of it being co-opted by England a lot of us reckon it's time for something new 😅

The only problem I can see with the new regime is that the 2025 UEFA Champions League final is in Munich, which might make it difficult to get tickets cause it's near Denmark and I assume JDT will have got us a big Danish following by then

Why does it appear as though there is a white panel dividing the blue front and back running down the ribs on the left, but no corresponding blue panel on the right? Makes it look unbalanced

Alan Curbishley who last held a managerial position in 2008 and hasn't been in charge in this division for 22 years? I have serious doubts you can translate that track record to the modern day. The level of physical fitness and conditioning required in the professional game now is vastly different to what it was then.

Tragic stuff

Had been coming, this Sheffield united side are quite thuggish. Nasty little things like shoving off the ball, little kicks and stamps. Cowardly stuff. A shower of shite.