He needs the ball played in front of him, as does Hirst.

Can’t see a lot of chances being made for us and we’ve always got a mistake in the team.

That’s doesn’t look like a winning team to me. I just hope I’m wrong. C’mon Rovers.

I was expecting him to do what he did for the first goal with that chance at the end. Dummy a left foot shot, switch the ball onto his right foot and open his body up for a shot back across goal. Instead he went goal at a narrow angle and gave the keeper a chance.

Was Mike Newall the owner of the record for the quickest hat trick before Salah tonight ?

I used to go to games with a mate of mine who was a City scout years ago. He made a point of watching strikers in away games. “ That tells you what they are made of “ he used to say. I can’t see anybody chucking big money at Brererton going off his away performances.

In the running for the WBA job apparently.

Exactly my argument. We played a guy with a great left foot out on the right wing. Because it’s what Pep does ! Consequently he kept having to stop and get the ball onto his good foot and the moment was usually gone. Another issue in that case is that the direction of flight of the ball with a left footer out on the right is normally in to the goalkeeper. With a good right foot crosser of the ball he can make the flight of the ball go towards the keeper initially but have it swing away later on.

I remember reading a coaching book about 50 years ago. It was by an English guy who’d coached teams abroad extensively. He’d taken the Swedish national team to the World Cup final in 1958. “ George Rayner “ seem to ring a bell. He said the first thing to do when taking over a team was to evaluate the players individual skill sets and then devise a way of playing that got the best out of each player within the unit. It seems obvious to me. How else are you going to be successful ?

He might have an idea but at this level it’s the wrong idea. I was nervous when we appointed him, not many top class strikers turn out to be good coaches because they don’t understand players at a lower level.

That’s because they’re all playing on their “ wrong “ wing and want to come inside on their “ stronger “ foot all the time. Modern football - City do it so we expect our dollopers to be able do it.

You move backwards to go backwards in football.

I couldn’t understand how he was starting and Gally on the bench. Was Gally not 100% fit ?

This league is there for the taking for any decent team with intelligent management.

I can’t see anybody paying much of a fee for him to be honest. Not now.

Yeah, he doesn’t usually last this long into the season.

You’ve got to wonder wether the players are unhappy with the system and have no faith in it.

When I was playing that was an absolute no-no. Under no circumstances would you do that on pain of being subbed.

Correct, what I was getting at. No matter who we get in it’s still the classroom when the teacher is called away.

How many managers have we had since Sam ? How many players have we had since Sam. Why is it we have never managed to instil a fighting spirit at the club in all that time ? When we got promoted it was because we could out play teams because even then we never out fought anybody !

There’s a lot of bullshit in the modern game. Complicating what is essentially a simple game.

Add that to the very, very, very long list of game we’ve lost after going behind. Our desire and will to win has to be questioned.

We look a bit light up front there.

I hope they move it to 1.00am on Sunday morning. I’m sick of it already. If ever a programme has “ jumped the shark “ it’s strictly. Just don’t tell Mrs Shoelaces I said so !

It went wrong before he took Charlton off. Charlton was supposed to be man marking Beckenbauer and he let him run through from centre midfield to score the German opening goal. Charlton was subbed right after that, he was knackered.