Bethnal

Highly rate Remy drinking a lucozade sport while sat on the bench.

Funny half. Sam Szmodics is clearly the talisman for this season. Trav is maintaining a good level of performance and I hope he continues to do so for a long time. Adam Wharton looks better today than he has done in the past couple of/few games. They’ve not looked entirely woeful, as they’re intentionally sitting off us, but they’re pinning all their hope on their number 9 (who does look a good player) and set pieces. Not exactly the forward-thinking genius that they make him out to be, is Carrick. They have to come up with something at half time, which means we should be properly prepared for a reaction and to exploit any vulnerabilities that arise. That set piece coach can’t come soon enough. Players are marking the wrong counterparts currently. We’ve been warned in that half, so it needs to be fixed for the second half.

Ball was slow to him from Gallagher, pressure around, he had to get a shot away. Quicker and he probably does better.

I’m a Rovers optimist, but if you don’t finish open goals, one-on-ones and penalties (we’ve missed all three this season) then you won’t go far.

Difficult not to look at that Dolan miss as the same kind of miss that Hedges was against Plymouth. An ominous sign.

Jesus Christ

Seems odd, really. Vitesse are a good side and he played a good number of games over the last three seasons. Maybe it’s some adjustment time to get up to speed with the style of play.

Tronstad injured or just unfancied? Two strikers on the bench.

I thought there was a small dig at Gareth Seddon in there. Said the words “if a player has the right representation” in the BBC Lancs interview, when talking about leaving to walk into a starting XI. Clearly explaining that we know where we are as a club and if a big, big Premiership or European club comes in, we understand that the pull would be big, but that there’s a greater chance of maintaining “career momentum,” as he put it, at Rovers. I think with the way he talked about the Phillips situation, combined with this (as well as the rumour of Gareth Seddon being Tyrhys Dolan’s new agent) is a dig at the Phillips deal, if not the timing of it. My kind of shade throwing.

Pre-empting any questions from the EFL about solvency? Interesting that the parent company in the statement is VHPL, not VLL, who are the parent company at Companies House. VLL’s listed owners are Venkatesh and Balaji. Strikes me that a lot of this is to do with motive. There is a motive for the investigation and it’s not the kind of thing you want someone to have a motive about, if it’s happening to you. This is a proud family, we’re led to believe. I think a lot of wealthy people are prideful. Vainglorious at times. It’s true that once you’re wealthy enough, the rules don’t apply like they used to and we can all think of many examples of that. But there’s always a bigger fish and if you piss that bigger fish off, new rules seem to apply to you. It’s very likely that pride puts you in such a position. In the truest sense of the word, it’s the Raos’ pride that has got in the way of this football club and its fanbase over the past 12 years or so. It would be especially poetic, should an act of pride (buying the England international footballer from the telly’s mansion using company funds) manage to rid us of them.

If it is, it looks quite brazen. Just under five months of incorporation, then voluntarily struck off. I suppose with Rovers, the case would be “we’ve been ploughing money into this thing to make it work, as it’s such an esteemed footballing institution. We’re just very bad at running it.”

On a personal level, I hope they’re left penniless. Practically, I hope we’re not left up the creek. This is - by the looks - about £6m of seized property, give or take. What does that even mean? Someone getting a big fine? Jail time? Being asked to give back £6m because the Indian government isn’t happy with how you spent it really shouldn’t be a big deal, if you’re funding a football operation to the tune of £20m/season. Because their actions usually defy logic, it’s always difficult to figure them out, but the question I’ve often had around Venky’s is: “maybe they’re not as rich as they/we think they are?”

This is embarrassing to watch. Embarrassing.

Game over. Pears very poor today. Drop him for the Sweden international.

Tired bodies out there. Brittain and Travis are going to give a goal away at this rate, we need a solution.

Running at his man. A point to prove?

Officially “One of Those Days.”

You can see the work that’s been done over the past year to improve the quality of interplay, we’re very technical. But I’d have them on a week of finishing drills.

Plymouth are awful, they’ve been so lucky here. They can’t get in our box and we’re letting them off the hook time and again.

Hedges miss was a blow for us, mentally. We began forcing it too much. There’s a lot of good pressing and build-up, but the extent to which we’ve applied this isn’t sustainable and we have looked more vulnerable as the game has gone on. Some poor decision-making from the senior players (Gally and Hedges). Adam Wharton might be struggling with the load and the fact that teams are targeting him. Big lessons to learn for his career, but understandable that he’s challenged by this. JRC is the better RB outlet, but Brittain better than Pickering. Moran has a good brain and an excellent touch. Clearly a young player, learning his trade but has a lot of intelligence and spark.

Their tails are up here, we need to be very organised for the rest of this half and reset at half time.

Plymouth are shit, we need to punish them quickly here. No room to let them think they’re in with a shout.

That is staggering but who amongst us can say they didn’t think “shit, he might still miss this?”

Trav has been really solid today. Worked so hard and been effective.

Scotty Wharton. I pray you have a good game.