Sam Gallagher, what a player 😂 hope he gets a hat trick tonight so that he definitely won't score Weds or for another 6 months

In danger of sounding hysterical again here but the way other results are already going this weekend, we must win today and Wednesday or we've had it IMO. I get all the clichés "long way to go" "anything can happen" but any other team around us would be licking their lips at playing these and Stoke and I'm just fearing the worst. Just arrived in Derby, weather glorious and it's busy already. Once more into the breach and all that 🤞🤞

*4 weeks not months, won't let me edit post.

You need a burner account called ChaddySky so that you don't get all your paid-for "I agree with Sky" posts mixed up with all your paid-for "I agree with official club line" posts on here. I don't think you could get someone from Sky to come up with more tosh to back them up any better. They don't give a toss about match going fans and judging by your empathy bypass in last few days on here you're the same. Most people plan many things in their lives more than four months in advance, if you don't, then good for you.

Going tomorrow and will be watching through my fingers. Hope our fans don't make ourselves look absolute mugs, goading Eustace and Derby fans from the off, if we lose we'll look like morons and be laughing stock of the week online. Feel like as a squad we're such a soft touch, I think we need to be big and strong and try and bully Derby tomorrow. Hope the players can switch off from the atmosphere which I'm sure is gonna be pretty sour. Coyb

I think that's unfair, I think Kargbo looked a threat today and definitely offers something no one else in the squad does with his pace.

I thought that was odd as well, that I haven't heard him say the word "promotion" once yet. Any coach coming in to at least 18-20 of the clubs in this division should be stating that promotion is the ambition, if it isn't, then what is the point? I would have liked to hear him say that if we just fall short of the playoffs this season, that they will work really hard over the summer to come back strong and find another way to do it. I'm sure most of the players are ambitious and would like some time in the Premier League on their CV but that's unlikely to materialise if the entire rest of the club structure is completely lacking in ambition, which we suspect is the case.

Saw Todd Cantwell posted on his Instagram today, after Rovers wishes him happy birthday, that "his best is yet to come". Cryptic and interesting, if he does actually pick his form up under a new manager it could be a huge boost. I listened to Valerien's interview with Bayes on BBC Lancs Sport. Tbf they did ask the questions people in here would want to ask and he did give some reassuring answers to some of them (e.g. not looking to tinker with the tactics too much initially as we're 6th, etc). Worth a listen on BBC Sounds from tonight's episode.

Dean Whitehead confirmed as #2

Obviously no idea who your source is but they've said what a few of us are thinking so it wouldn't surprise me. Players aren't all daft, they also aren't Rovers fans themselves and they are ambitious, regardless of invidiual ability, or the wouldn't have made it this far in the sport. They know probably even more than we do about what a circus it is. I imagine they are training and playing through gritted teeth at times.

Wonder what the conversation has been with Ismael about Dennis and what he will do about him. Are we actually paying forest £20k per week for him until end of season? Huge outlay for us if he only ends up playing a couple of matches.

Well I'm pretty underwhelmed by it all but I will give him my full backing from 12:30 on Saturday regardless. Why don't you come on over Valerien

If we were in any way well run and not a basket case, I would be looking at our fixtures and thinking we have a good run in. I think our run in is the most favourable of those around us. We basically need to win 6 matches of our remaining 12, and maybe pick up a draw somewhere. But I have a feeling we're only going to win 4 or 5 matches and end up "just missing out" on the last day, where in reality we would have needed to win by five goals or something and everyone else has to lose by 5 for us to sneak in, bit like at Millwall the season before last. Looked close on paper but wasn't in reality. Hope I'm wrong

Just put us out of our misery if it's Ismael and announce him. At least then we can start the Moby Dick puns about our annual fight to avoid promotion, lots of wailing etc.

Whoever we end up appointing, I will be asking myself why we have got them and Stoke, Coventry, Derby, West Brom et al did not appoint them, having all changed manager in the last couple of months. Whoever we get will surely have applied for those other jobs as well or been considered, but not picked. All those teams except Albion in a much worse position than us at the time.

I feel very flat about all of it. I was planning to go to five of our remaining six away games to try and back us into the playoffs but I now think that will be a massive waste of time and money, not sure I should bother. Already got my Derby ticket but we know how that's going to go

A penny for the thoughts of the players if we appoint an uninspiring dud like Ismael, Wagner, Karanka. Bringing in a cheap cheerful nobody is a finger up to the squad from the hierarchy, basically throwing the towel in on promotion. Players aren't daft, they'll sniff out the lack of ambition immediately. When you got a supply teacher in for a few weeks at school you'd size them up within five minutes to know whether they're serious + whether you can take the piss and whether they're gonna make you do any work. It'll be the same when one of these has-beens walks through the door and starts diddling with the system, if that's who we end up going with. The players will be downing tools and phoning their agents, esp the ones towards end of contracts. They're not Rovers fans, they're players who want to earn as much as they can and win as much as they can. I couldn't be arsed if I was them either.

David or Ryan? (Will yield similar results 😂)

Fwiw I think Leicester made a massive error in potting Cooper, I don't think they'd be as bad as they are right now. He possibly could have kept them up, but we'll never know and they are really staring down the barrel now

The "we won the league at Ewood" is so small-time it completely sums them up as a club and a fanbase. They technically clinched the 2nd division title at Ewood Park with a very good goal, which was their only shot on target in that match. If you add in the context that they had failed to win the title before then because they had mucked up their previous two fixtures against fodder, it's even less impressive. Let them crow about it, division two title, small-time. Talking about "avenging" that result, who cares? It doesn't even come close to the April Fools Day Massacre, the 5-0 could easily have been 7 or 8. Imagine if we'd had social media sites back then, with all the trolling and goading you see online these days, they would have unplugged the internet in B*rnley for a month. I also find it bizarre that their fans regularly post on our forums. I don't think they should be banned, everyone free to do as they like. But I've never been on any of their social media sites, forums, websites in my life and never would, I can't understand why you would.

Why wouldn't you be begging Steve Cooper to come here? I would. Hasn't he gotten a team into the Championship playoffs 3 times in a row, including a win with Forest from when they were at the bottom? He's also done that fairly recently. He would be far and away the best candidate for the job, if we weren't offering league one salaries

Surely not, if they did that's absolutely laughable, embarrassing, tinpot and completely lacking in any ambition if they travelled down on the day, surely not. 😳

No question. Sanderson defended the initial break very poorly but Pears had an age to come out and narrow the angle. The angle should be second nature to a professional goalie they shouldn't even have to think about it, but he ran out too late and made a bizarre angle which allowed him to roll it past him straight in. It was a tidy finish but 9 times out of 10 in the Championship the goalie stops that.

Mad isn't it? You would think (hope) this is final game before an appointment, it's going to be the first tape the new manager watches back. How do you sell yourself as a "first name on team sheet" to a new manager with a performance like that?

Odd that you're not able to give zero as a score, Pears gets ZERO from me 😂