Could scarcely believe how much application was on display in the middle, barely a foot wrong against - apparently - “world class” players. Absolutely buzzing, I’ll barely sleep tonight. I’ll be honest, post-January, post-JDT and some of the struggles recently, I’d really been struggling to find the desire to watch the rest of the season. I’m an idiot, so I always will do, but I am fully looking forward to it after that performance. There’s desire in that squad, which we’d probably all wondered about recently.

Haven’t felt as positive after a defeat in a long while. Newcastle did basically very little for a team assembled and financed to their level. We occupied them, they had little by way of an answer. They were lucky to be in it by 90 mins. Smashing, though, great performances across the park. Players deserve an extended rest to recover and we have to us this as a galvanising moment for this season.

Fully aware. He’s now chuckling away. Hope he enjoyed his day out at the only place he ever really achieved anything!

Alan Shearer sulking. Quite enjoying that, weirdly enougj

Where is Pickering?

Taking this lot to penalties, from where we are in our season is as good as a victory. It’s basically chance and negligible fluctuations in talent and composure at that stage. Extremely proud of this performance, cannot say it enough.

You should get one more in Extra Time.

Chrisene for Pickering. Have to.

This is a fucking scam, this ref wants a slap. We’ve been sensational in the second half. Really expected us to fold for entirely understandable reasons, but we’ve stepped up, entirely. Thoroughly better than Newcastle in all departments. Eddie Howe pulling this kind of performance out of the squad he has against our town team, 16th in the Championship on a torrid run. Fraud, tin pot. Extremely proud of the graft we’re putting in, but half an hour is a long while to hold on for, with one eye on the fixture list.

They’re going to cheat us out of this fucking game.

Yep, Moran has fashioned the two most promising chances for us.

Callum Brittain trying to show himself off to the cameras and - predictably - merely showing himself up.

Newcastle used the mini break to regroup, unfortunately for us.

It’s a cruel thing watching us do well in the first 15

Got myself properly psyched up on the walk to the train home. ”first 15 minutes, we could do a bit of damage and get them off their game” Their lineup against our lineup is a serious mismatch.

It’s basically insane to suggest selling your only real goal threat, but I found myself thinking the same thing, for the same reason at half time.

Big shift from him. Can’t really blame him for his technical shortcomings anymore, that’s baked into his match ratings, but he was everywhere and competing for everything. The effort in the second half was encouraging but we didn’t look like doing much from open play, so the goal coming from a set piece was the exact thing we needed and it did come. I said earlier, this will be a poor watch for the end of the season and Tuesday especially - with this shape - we might get steamrollered. Newcastle can break a team down, we will struggle to create anything in open play. Look, clearly we need to stay outside of the relegation dogfight and the way that happens is by picking up points. Today is another point, but if we are still struggling to create by the time we get to the final weeks, we might be looking at a very low return for our efforts. Something profound needs to be happening at training to improve the work in the final third. Corner kicks return a goal at a 2-4% average. We can’t win 25 corners a match… can we?

Ref is having a nightmare. Rabbit in the headlights stuff. This has been a lot better. Lack of cutting edge in the final third aside, we’ve looked a lot more up for it and put the graft in, which is all that most Rovers fans ask for, me included. Moran a passenger, would rather have seen Garrett in this atmosphere, but it’s not particularly clear-cut between them.

Much better attitude this half. Still hindered by the shape/setup.

Good corner routine leads to a good goal. The kind we’re going to need a lot of this season.

I’m not going to comment on Eustace’s record at this time, because it doesn’t help the state of the forum. Suffice it to say, that if there aren’t at least two victories on his (direct) record by 5pm on 9th March, there’s every chance there never will be.

Lot of players playing football for football’s sake. Holding onto the ball too long, looking negatively, not reading the game, aimless flicks into more danger than they initially found themselves in (Brittain), aimless punts up to the front three. Hedges off early is a blow but Pickering is solid enough and likely improves our chances of not conceding from our left wing, at least. Disappointing. The rest of this season is going to be a poor watch, any semblance of attacking identity is gone, the defending looks like last-gasp stuff at all times. With regards today: I don’t see us turning this around, based on the first half. Eustace and his backroom staff need to find something in that dressing room to change that.

First bit of positive play and Gally is unlucky with the header. Players look like they’re doing basically no ball work in training, somehow.

Didn’t get me up off my seat, interestingly.