Bethnal

Don’t confess!!!

“JDT out” shouts are premature for me. Entirely fine to be dissatisfied with recent performances (would take a lot of exceptional performances to overturn the bad feeling after Burnley) and concerned about what it means for us going forward. Having said that, I don’t think many of us would have put us where we are at this stage of the season and a great number of us expected a transitional season as well. I have to assume we spend a bit in January and subsequent windows to get the squad where it would need to be for a genuine promotion assault. I wanted us to do it this year and potentially tie BBD down to a deal but I’ll be supporting Rovers long after BBD retires and with the long-term in mind, we’d take 20 batterings in the Premiership at least. It simply might not be our time. Either way, I always expected a transitional season, a build season and a push from there. I don’t enjoy watching us lose but I’ve some sympathy for everyone involved tonight. Ref made a show of himself with help from the twat in the hat on the sidelines and you can’t legislate for that.

Difficult not to side with him if all of the above is true.

A better team would have finished us off here, so that’s worth bearing in mind, but an improvement in terms of mentality and desire to chase it when you’ve felt an injustice go against you. Gally probably tired here, but not taking up good enough positions consistently. So difficult to defend him as a player. Wharton should’ve been on instead of Garrett. Needed some creativity and Garrett is not creative enough.

They’re saying “violent conduct” on comms and with that it could also be “serious foul play” as the other option within the laws. Practically speaking, it’s unsporting conduct, which is a cautionable offence at worst. It’ll be rescinded but that doesn’t help us at all. Very poor showing and I’m inclined to write this off. We should’ve maybe put a couple away in the first half and not conceded early but the cumulative effects after the red make a loss here easier to forgive.

Poor decision. It’s at worst a yellow, realistically a talking to.

Eee dear

Inclined to agree but we’ve had one clear-cut that we put away. Gally should’ve hit the target and other than that they’ve been well-defended.

Genuinely pleased to see JRC playing well. Fully assumed he was finished. Some really lovely stuff being played around and in their box. Not sure why it seemed so much more difficult against Sunderland but fluency is much higher here.

I’ve cracked open a beer, in the hope that it remains an enjoyable watch. Boro are pushing their luck with this high line. Don’t look familiar enough with it to execute.

It’s just happened again, albeit the ball was too far ahead of Gally.

BIZARRE goal. Get in.

Evening all!

That’s a very poor result. Sunderland had a whole stadium behind them, roaring them on and really didn’t bother us much in the second half. At the death, a fresh captain gives away the ball and the striker has about two weeks to figure out what to with the ball. Woeful. We look worse now than before the World Cup. I still don’t think you sack a manager who’s in the playoff spots and I still have faith in “The Project™” but it’s definitely waning at an alarming rate.

Woeful defending, really amateur level stuff that.

First half was poor, but clearly half time team talk had some effect and we’ve looked better. Not great to have as a pattern, really.

Maybe so, but I think even in the lulls that naturally happen in a game, there has to be a way to have him harness that. It could be a lack of movement ahead of him, I don’t know, but he’s much better when he doesn’t have to think.

Great ball from Buckley and it’s instinct that brings it out. How do you turn a footballer’s brain down to just work on instinct?

Interesting that Sunderland have no press on Buckley when he carries the ball. He reliably then gives it away. Given Mowbray’s only just left us, you have to assume he knew that about him, that it’s a pointed instruction.

That was really poor. The entire defence backs off him and he pinpointed it to their defender. No idea.

Nowt like a Rovers match to really bugger the Christmas spirit, eh?

Uh oh. edit: fully expected a red there. Would expect it against us. Borderline violent conduct.

No, no, no. Not having this. In terms of the job they were asked to do, Grabbi at least was a tactically aware forward and sought out his team mates, fair enough. I cannot countenance, however, Ashley Ward being better with the open goal miss at Bramall Lane from genuinely half a yard to hit the cross bar with a nod-in header. Similarly, Chris Brown not only never scored a goal across two seasons as a number 9, but never even looked like he knew how to score a goal. George Hirst is arguably a number 9 having to play a role that’s very different from that. Not at all suggesting he’s been a worthwhile loan, even but those two at the very least were absolute pony. I won’t be convinced.

You’ve a lot more experience than me, but even I can count Ashley Ward, Corrado Grabbi and Chris Brown as very likely much worse than Hirst. He’s not been up to much at all but all three of those gave me migraines to watch.

I would agree with you up to the point of Travis and Scott Wharton who have only quite recently hit fairly catastrophic patches of form at similar times and for no obvious reason. That’s the bit that makes me wonder and warrants some form of explanation.