I like the lad a lot but he was really poor last night. Not on his own in that respect obviously.

Mm, Thomas. Wouldn’t that have been his first touch of the ball ?

Don’t get your hopes up.

His lack of experience got shown up last night. Having said that you want him playing in their penalty area not ours. I think we better put that 5 year contract back in the drawer for now.

He’d got a bit of excuse for the Hyam one, Crowded goalmouth and all that. A blind man on a galloping horse would have spotted the handball. Gally on a pen ! Jesus, I hope I never have to see that.

Just a bit. What an encouragement to go over the hill - not.

We’d have to score from the pen first. Who would you have down as the taker ?

Maybe we should have sent that team to Stoke. Could they have done any worse ?

I tell it like I see it. Who was it said “ put all the players in a big sack and hit it with a big stick. You won’t be punishing the innocent “ ?

Last night was a shocker. We played like we’d been made to walk to Stoke. There was no athleticism on show anywhere on the pitch. I don’t think we won a 50/50 ball all night until the game was over. Collectively, and I include the manager in this, we were clueless. I said it last night but after 20 minutes you could see they were playing through us in midfield and there was a huge gap between Travis and Buckley at the front of the back four and Dolan, Szmodics and Thomas further up field. Stoke played in this gap all night. We should have taken one of those three off, probably Szmodics, and brought on Morton or Hedges to re-inforce the midfield. Instead of which it was more of the same until the game was well and truly lost. The inability of the team and manager to be able to retrieve the game from losing positions is deeply worrying. I was going to point out that both the really good recent wins, Leicester and Sheff U, came after we’d scored first but I didn’t want to appear negative. They also could have both been classed as no pressure “ free hits “ . Last night wasn’t and we folded under pressure. There doesn’t seem anyone on the pitch or on the bench that can gather the players together and sort out what’s going wrong in real time. As I say deeply concerning. Pears 5 Looked nervous after his misjudgement of the early cross ball. Obviously he was also rattled by having to play with the ball at his feet too much. Personally I don’t blame him for that. Outfield players in a better position were bottling it and giving him the ball to solve the problems. JRC 5 Not at the races, fluffed an early decent shooting chance. Got exposed in too many 2 v 1 situations. Carter 5 Looked rattled all night. He needs to cut out the habit of hanging out a foot and playing it straight to the opposition. Hyam 5 Another one who had a night to forget. Not his usual self at all. Pickering 4 Got caught playing too centrally for the goals. Ended up marking nobody. Hardly crossed the half way line until late on. Thomas 3 Not in the game at all. Left JRC to deal with two opponents most of the night. Buckley 4 The game passed him by. I don’t like him playing deep. He either plays further forward in the Szmodics role or he doesn’t play at all. Travis 5 Did his best but got lost in the chaos. Possibly our MOM. Dolan 3 Awful defensively. What he was doing for the second goal especially only he knows. He was shoulder to shoulder with the scorer. I did notice their guy bumped him just as the ball was on it’s way and got away with it. Szmodics 3 Looked a Peterborough level player last night. Exemplified by that good crossing opportunity he had that he put more or less straight into touch. Gallagher 4 I thought he worked hard but my oh my his touch is dreadful. His sense of anticipation is worse, the ball has actually got to arrive before he realises it’s on it’s way. Nicely judged shoulder header at the end. Got lots of flicks ons but they don’t go anywhere. Brittain looked bright when he came, what a great cross for the BBD header. Hedges was ok and and Garrett made a slight difference in midfield, at least he’ll put a foot in. BBD at least looked like he wanted to be out there and scored a nice header. All four came on way too late. The game was gone. We played in front of them all night - came away with nothing. Got around the side twice - two goals. I rest my case. All in all a really depressing performance, play like that against Sheff U and the dingles and we’ll get well and truly dicked. I don’t usually mention the ref, but he was crap missed two clear pens. One in a melee of players but the other was a clear a handball as you’ll see all season. I’m sure he “ missed “ ours because he knew he’d fucked up on theirs. He was looking right at the play. Gave us nothing all night apart from missing the pen they should have had. Gally gets shoulder charged over - play on. BBD shoulder charges one of their players over - free kick in a dangerous spot. His eyes must have been painted on.

We play Reading at Ewood.

He looked like a guy who hadn’t been in that position for a while - edgy. Pears blasted it back to Pickering as if to say “;For fucks sake, you’re an outfield player, do something with the ball “. What does my head in is when one of the players has an off day they all come out in sympathy.

10/10

You could see how it was panning out after 20 minutes. We were over run in midfield. Dolan, Thomas, Szmodics were being bypassed and they weren’t in the game in an attacking sense. Time to change things then for me. We have five subs for Gods sake. Certainly changes should have been made a half time.

Did you see him in the tunnel before the game ?

He ballsed up at half time not making changes. It was obvious the starting line up wasn’t working. Totally outthought by their guy tonight.

We never tested the keeper then we put two past him when we eventually did. He looked really nervous all night.

Yeah but you scored seconds afterwards.

Where do I start ? After 10 minutes I knew it was going to be a long night. Slow, ponderous, sloppy passing. Nobody putting a foot in. Did we win a 50/50 ball ? Did we win a tackle ? How many headed contests did we lose ? Never mind the xG, these are the stats that win you games. Walking football versus running football - only ever one winner in that contest. Totally inexplicable that we came out after half time with the same team. JDT must have rocks in his head. I’d have taken either of Dolan or Thomas off and brought on a midfield player to even things up in midfield. They were playing through us all night 2 v 3. In fairness you could have taken any single player off tonight and not one of them could have complained. They were 2 v1 on their left hand side all the first half. Where was Thomas to help out the full back. Then you have Pickering thinking he’s playing centre half and not left back. Szmodics hardly had a touch. We were set up all wrong. OK anybody can make a mistake but bloody hell change things when it’s so obvious we’re mismatched in the central areas. More tomorrow when I’ve calmed down a bit.

That’s what happens when your centre forward ends up playing right back.

United probably thought they had a good chance at Liverpool at the weekend. Go anywhere with the wrong attitude and you’ll come unstuck. This is going to be a really tough game, anybody who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Games are only easy when you’ve made them easy.

He was the weak link in that team. We needed a new left winger and a new centre half. We got Matty Holmes.

Jimmy Gilmer And The Fireballs - Sugar Shack. I used to have a copy of this honestly.

Wilcox - how not to talk a penalty. As good as a back pass.

We played Leicester off the park last week at their place. We should have been able to declare at half time. As I said early - who wants to be out there the most tonight will count for a lot. One team I played for played on a plateau. On days like this it was murder. If it was windy goal kicks barely got out of the penalty box. I can still hear the ref banging on the dressing room door - “ Come on lads, we kick off in 5 !”