Tyrone Shoelaces

Who, watching that today, would give you more than a handful of magic beans for Gallagher ?

Midfield was where it was won and lost today, as it is in most games.

The white flag was well and truly run up to the top of the mast when the second goal went in. There isn’t a real leader at the club, never mind in the team.

Well I’ve held back until now to calm down but here goes. Abysmal, shocking, dreadful, pathetic, gutless - roll out the adjectives. The first half was pretty poor but the second half was totally unacceptable, abject. It was a performance so bad that plenty of managers have been sacked for similar performances. In my time following Rovers ( since 1961 ) and given the quality of the opposition, I honestly can’t recall a worse second half. Rotherham completely put us to sleep. Since the Venkies rolled up If I had a pound for every game were we’ve been out enthused I’d be rich. And we were completely out enthused from the first whistle to the last today. Out enthused by a lad from Rochdale ! He’s not on bloody Dortmunds wish list ! Only one team had some skin in that game and it wasn’t the wasters representing my club. In rugby league if you drop a bollock you get subbed off right away. I’d have subbed Pickering off after 45 seconds. How else is he going to learn ? What the fuck was that “ pass “ all about ? Brain dead. I sometimes gives scores for players. This week it’s easy - everybody gets a 3 apart from Dack for his first half performance and Markanday for his second half efforts. They get a 5. Hyam - if you can’t get a really good contact on the ball - leave it . I learnt that when I was 15 at school. Kaminski - get nearer to your near post if it’s an in swinger and don’t have a dwarf on the post. Gallager - learn to trap the bloody ball. That was a backpass. Clubs must love playing against us. We just play in front of teams all the time - easy peasy. If we’re going to carry on playing walking football, give Dougie a ring he can still walk and shock horror - he could actually beat a man at walking pace. I lost count today of our midfield players dropping back to pick up the ball facing our goals and having their pockets picked. Every pass is to feet and not into space.

We only lost 1-0 at the death and Bennett missed a chance my mum could have scored ( she’s 92 ).

I was at the Oldham game, this was much worse.

Yep, we got hammered all right.

Are you related to him by any chance ? He laid their first goal on a plate for them. After 30 seconds !

They played like they’d been smoking grass.

Piss poor from Hyam ! What about Pickering who woke up thinking he was Bobby Moore and elected to pass the whole width of the field with his wrong foot l Has he got a brain ?

Don’t like the look of that team. Let’s hope it’s not men versus boys again.

You mean like Bournemouth did last season ?

What was so wrong with the old system ?

Send the club your account number and bank sort code if you’re that keen on a gamble. I can’t imagine anything more likely to torpedo what bit of team spirit we may have at the moment.

Lenihan was a bit injury prone for a centre half.

Free Trade Hall, Manchester. A pal of mine was there.

There’s two way of going about it. Buy a player like Gyorkes who looks capable of playing at a higher level now. Or buy a player like Obafemi who may get you promoted. If you do go up buy Gyorkes and sell Obafemi. If Gyorkes is still available of course. A bit like what we did with Marcus Bent.

I’ve never been overly impressed with Obafemi to be honest. No better than what you’ve already got in my opinion.

See if you can find “ Got To Hurry “. It’s an early Yardbirds “ B” side. That was when I realised Eric Clapton was a bit different.

I liked Van Hecke, he was a real blood and thunder defender. However he wouldn’t be the first name on my list if I was looking for someone to regularly pass the ball out of defence.

If we keep buying left backs I suppose we’ll end up with a good one at some point.

One of the strangest transfers I can remember. I’m not knocking his football ability but he isn’t the quickest and Utd like a fast counter. I would have thought the likes of Rashford would be quicker running backwards !

Jeff Beck. Top guitarist.

They’ve got it nice and quiet at the moment. If by some miracle we were to get promoted the full glare of the Premier League spotlight would on them again.

They could have had BBD for that permanently I reckon. He’d do more.