smiller14

The first 20-25 minutes of the 2nd half was as impressive as I've seen us in a long time - as good as, if not better than Leicester. I was braced for a Sheffield United onslaught but we absolutely battered them with some old fashioned arte et labore - intricate passing complemented by outbattling them and absolutely running ourselves into the ground. Sorba Thomas epitomised that as well as anyone.

Exactly. I've sadly seen the video (I didn't know it was the video of the incident in question) , and it's apparent that a group of Blackpool fans attacked the pub. Second hand accounts indicate this has happened before - usually after the game when there's a smaller away presence. It has always been an away pub and is designated by the police as such, and I presume any Blackpool fans would know this. I'm shocked there wasn't a police presence at the pub given the amount of Burnley fans who visited. Clearly the man did not deserve what happened and it's absolutely tragic, but I'll be conscious of avoiding labelling or blaming the Burnley fanbase for this incident. It was a stupid fight that *all* parties should have avoided, and shows the dangers of fighting - one punch can kill.

I must admit that whilst he's been poor, I don't buy he's looked disinterested. He's been criticised by many for too often being in the left back position, which was the result of chasing back too much. To me, he's put effort in but just hasn't had the quality to go with it unlike last year - although appreciate people may disagree and I don't catch 90 mins of every game!

Sunderland 1-5 Stoke - surely Sunderland's top 6 race is run Big result at Millwall. Coventry making a late run.

Sunderland thumped at home. As per the above, consistent and predictable. A slight delay this year due to the World Cup.

A superb, spirited performance vs a very strong side. The entire defence superb - Carter is a real unsung hero at the moment. Travis all-action, Buckley assured on the ball, Thomas absolutely relentless and does so much for the team. Szmodics and Dolan deserve another shout out, they link up so well. And then Gally. He sometimes lacks quality but the heart and commitment he showed today was superb and helped the two players behind him to shine. And who can forget Pears? Looks totally assured. Over the moon. We passed it well, we played balls in behind, we went long when we needed to - no longer are we slow and predictable. Very proud of the team and hope everyone has a lovely evening.

Sadly Saturday is another rail strike day, so quite selfishly would fancy a Sunday game.

Mowbray *did* a good job, but he should have gone long before he did. The air of inevitability about our post-Xmas collapse was depressing, and he sounded bloody miserable for a lot of the latter parts of his tenure. JDT has been a weird one. When it's been bad, it's been absolutely god awful. But as I've said before, we'd inexplicably win the week after - no death spirals, just a weird resilience. And suddenly, the penny has dropped. Whether it's dropped for JDT or the players I don't know, but we suddenly an aggressive team out of possession, much more pragmatic on the ball, we pass it a lot quicker and manage to look less predictable. It seemed to coincide with signing Thomas and suddenly making the pitch look bigger, but it continued in his absence on Tuesday. I felt Tuesday's performance was as good as I've seen us play in years, and the fans responded in kind. I've given JDT some stick in the past for some abject displays (although haven't called for his head - didn't agree with that) but you can't fault being 4th in the league, performing well in the cups and well in the hunt with 12 games to go. Something has clicked at the perfect time.

One thing I’ll say - JDTs blue and white army flows much less than Tomasson’s blue and white army. I lost that battle in summer sadly.

It's one of those weird mentality things - we'll sell a good amount (seen 2,500 banded about, one journalist/JDT says 3,000), but if it was initially sold as a 5,000 allocation, it seems to weirdly get people excited about a huge away end and ticket sales seem to follow. I can fully understand why the club didn't snap up the full whack at once, mind, but I do reckon announcing a bigger allocation initially would have got more on the bandwagon. Either way, looking forward to a great night. Hoping we give a good account of ourselves - as other posters have mentioned, resting players for Forest didn't do us much good in the league, so hopefully any changes aren't too wholesale.

I'd probably go FA Cup. Promotion would be huge and so important, but winning the FA Cup is a lifelong dream. I sadly couldn't make the final in 2002 - bar another league win or a European cup win, the FA Cup is the pinnacle.

No worries at all 🙂 I too am dreading the Burnley game, hopefully it's pushed back so there's no prospect of them securing promotion at Ewood.

I was talking about the Leicester game. I am not remotely relaxed about Burnley!

There were plenty of excuses and downplaying of the defeat at Turf Moor in the aftermath as well. At home vs Burnley is madness - we'll likely go in as underdogs, but it's a huge game and we have some pride to regain after the debacle in November. I'm not sure if it's because we've been so downtrodden for the last decade, or whether TM's constant talking us down has convinced some, but some people are happy to accept absolute shite. As a poster alluded to above, JDT does appear to have a bit more ambition about him, which I hope will translate to the fanbase.

There has been a lot of that. Remember the collective shrug of the shoulder from some when we shipped 7 at home to Fulham - 'they're top of the league' etc was trotted out by many.

No chance! When I say 'free hit' in this context, I mean more it's a game we aren't expected to win and we can play with a bit of freedom. Probably the wrong choice of words, but it's the most relaxed I've been about a game in a while. The pressure is on the home side. By no means am I suggesting we should write it off or be happy having our bellies tickled!

Any news on ticket sales for this one? I can't wait - a new ground for me to tick off, half day at work and a free hit in the last 16 of the cup.

Exactly! 1 in every 16-17 games, and he's one of the greatest to lace up his boots. Ultimately though, our centre midfielders haven't been up to scratch. We've too often been overrun, and we've been far too soft in the centre of the park. Buckley is showing some green shoots lately, so hopefully the penny is starting to drop. On the flipside, Wharton has bene much easier on the eyes. He's a rough diamond, but he's got an assertiveness and confidence about him. That performance at Blackpool was one of the best centre midfield performances we've seen in many a year. Funnily enough, he also eclipses the others on goals/assists too, so he's winning in every department.

Assists is a flawed measure when looking at centre midfield performance. As DMTP says above, often they 'assist' the player who is credited with the assist. Tugay probably ranked pretty little in assists for us, but how often did he control a game? The best example I can think of is the goal vs Liverpool on Boxing Day - Tugay made Gerrard look silly, played a wonderful pass to MGP who set up McCarthy. Now, I'm not even remotely insinuating our centre midfields have 'ran games' or even played well, as that hasn't been true. I think they've been poor at times, and Morton has regressed considerably since Christmas. Buckley and Travis seem to be coming to, at least.

I was a few pints heavy, and turned around to my Dingle mate (sorry!) and had a £20 bet we wouldn't make the play offs.

Agreed! We were 6 points off last year - realistically (in the unlikely event the points totals matched last year), we'd need 7 more to take goal difference out of the equation. I am nevertheless positive. I must admit there have been times this year I've been despondent, as some of the bad performances have been bad to the point of having no redeeming features or glimmer of positivity. However, unlike previous years, we've generally bounced back. It's been a strange one - we're either a pub team or incredibly well drilled and organised.

Coventry was a sickener, but in the second half of the season alone: Hull (a) - a tepid, lifeless performance when in a good position in the league Peterborough (a) - nothing needs to be said Reading (a) - another lifeless display vs a poor side Swansea (a) - vs 10 men we had Giles whipping in crosses, however inexplicitly spent most of the game playing Buckley as a false 9 Bristol City (h) - the penalty miss summed it all up The fact we aren't far off last season's points tally (and could level it this weekend) is encouraging. Last year we were currently in the midst of a meltdown that never really subsided, so confident we will better last year's points haul.

The Derby goal was Coyle funnily enough! I don't mind passing from the back, but eventually there has to be a bit of purpose to it (which the goal evidenced). Too often this season it has been slow, predictable and purposeless, allowing the opposition to take advantage.

They aren't half dragging it out. I appreciate it's our appeal that has lengthened the saga (or their unnecessary requests for additional documentation), but that's another week away, meaning he misses 2 more games. If we win, there's all sorts of questions raised - do we pay pro-rata wages/fees, is anything compensated by EFL? I'd assume not but there's no precedent for it either.

I'm absolutely delighted with how things are going. I feared the worst after Christmas when we started slowly, but we just keep grinding out points. A tepid, passive first half performance vs Swansea was improved upon considerably in the 2nd half, and whilst I didn't make last night's game, it sounded encouraging. I still think our lack of striker will cost us, how many times in that second half vs Swansea did good crosses come in only for Gally to make himself look 5 foot 2? Sorba Thomas is a difference maker for me. A touchline-hugging, chalk on your boots winger who isn't afraid to put the ball in rather than slowly cutting in and passing it backwards. How we've longed for that. JDT deserves credit. Through some of the miserable performances this season I've criticised him and felt extremely negative, so only right I give him credit now. It is so often all or nothing with Rovers - when we lose the performances offer no glimmer of encouragement, but we just seem to bounce back and win afterwards. Good to see and a far cry from the famed death spirals we saw under TM. A win on Saturday and I'll start dreaming.