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.

We have the Chanpionship’s top scorer and we’re basically bypassing him entirely.

Good free kick, not much anyone can do about those. We’re just not doing much at all to impact the scoreline from the other angle.

Well, that lineup gives me half an idea what to expect. Players have to be much more competent on the ball, today. The same lack of forward ambition as at Cardiff won’t be acceptable.

Was trying to snag a ticket to Palace to watch Adam Wharton put a display on against your lot. Will have an eye on it, it’d be a good time for him to get his first Premier League goal!

The King’s Arms 1st XI, instead of The Dog & Duck’s 3rd team.

From memory (and I’m not a stenographer) you were of the opinion that the manager would take us nowhere but down, in essence and the frequency increased with each game at the end. Again, that is only my memory of it, in a general sense. I would definitely agree that you weren’t a fan and add that you made that clear, strongly and often. I could almost understand your logic on Eustace, it’s just that we currently look like we don’t really know what we’re doing at all, as though none of them can really play football, basically. We’ve somehow come out second half looking even worse than the first. Eustace surely had some influence at half time, unless we’ve got a trove of JDTs half time team talks that were showing the players on a big screen? We look like shit and we’ve looked like that basically the entire time of the last three matches, save for 30 mins against Preston.

BigBar, you and I generally see things about football similarly, but you can’t be blaming a manager you were slating to high heaven while he was here, when he’s been sacked. When does it stop being his fault?

Players look like dogs chasing a car that finally catch up with it. Now they’ve got their way, they’ve no idea what to actually do. Embarrassing. Genuinely embarrassing. Imagine pitching up however-many-miles to Cardiff on a Tuesday night and the people you turn up to support - with them having whinged about boos a couple of weeks ago - serve up that.

Record levels of goal kicks en route, if so.

My gut says that we’re trying to play a conservative version of what we did under JDT, but it’s not being coached as well as that and the players just don’t fancy it at all. I’ve seen worse halves from us, but I haven’t seen many and none that I remember where the absolute basics of football were this bad.

Okay. We look like a fucking pub team here. This is really bad.