Well Southgate won't, you can put your house on that. If by some chance Mowbray got knocked down by the proverbial red No17 bus and I read that we'd appointed Southgate in his place I wouldn't be doing handstands about it. That says it all for me.

Me too. Nobody ever questioned Speedie's commitment to the cause.

You could be right Stuart, managers date pretty quickly these days. I still think he should have enough about him to keep them up though.

Having Dack putting goals on plates helped somewhat. A comment and reply ^ They got that arse about tit, it was DG who used to set Dack up more as I recall? I suspected it might have been " a season too far " for him when he went to Sunderland. Just like when we signed Whittingham.

Very sad. He seemed a genuinely nice bloke. He was the compere when Buddy Holly toured the UK.

What wouldn't you give for a Speedie and a Sellars today ? A great bit of play from Sellars for the first goal and a lovely little inside ball to set up play for the second. A terrific leap from Speedie to hit the bar with a header at the end. He could give Gallagher and Brererton a 10 inches start and still out jump them !

I wonder wether Rhodes will get a game now Pulis is there. I could be wrong but I think not.

More to the point, what time does it finish ? Regarding wether the Sheff Wed players will suit Pulis - they either will or they won't be playing for the club for long.

That'd be the season they lost 3-0 at home in the old Div 4 to the mighty Rochdale in front of an enormous crowd of - 4,217.

Something tells me you won't be long for this world.

Who were they ? Are we talking boy bands here ? Did they have any hits ?

Hard to believe when you look where Southend are now. That was a real bad day at the office.

I can only speak for myself but race had nothing to do with it. It was the fact that they knew absolutely nothing about football that had me worried right from the off. When they fired Big Sam the alarm bells started ringing loud and long. In the words of Homer Simpson when he puts his credit details into the machine - " Is that a good flashing red light ? ~

I hope that dickhead hoaxer is there with him.

Some good Rovers goals there. If that penalty had have been a bit better Brad would have saved it.

Given the fact he's an experienced international I think he's under achieved in his time at Rovers. Even when we were playing the likes of Rochdale and Oldham etc a few seasons ago he never dominated the opposition midfield. I always had the impression he was playing within himself.

That looked a lively game. You didn't see two players getting carded in the same game very often back then. Two of the most obvious pens you'll ever see.

I think that'd leave us a bit light in the defending stakes in central midfield.

I think signing Downing has closed that door, for this season anyway. That was a pointless signing for me.

A pal of mine was a scout at 'City. He'd only ever watch players when they were playing away. Like you say- it's what they play like when they're up against it. Do they step up or do they go into their shell ? Do they rally the troops or do they start sulking and feeling sorry for themselves ?

You need more than one player who can put a tackle in beyond the back four. If you don't the opposition can easily isolate them and get them an early card. Then you have problems.

If we didn't have Buckley, who I suspect we are hoping will turn out to be a very similar player, I would agree with you. He offers something we haven't got at the moment apart from the odd cameo from Buckley.

Well there's a few out there - Cook ? Pearson ?

That's the first thing that went through my mind - " Who's going to get us the ball " ?

The problem for me is we have a lot of players but no really outstanding first 11. Nyambe might have an indifferent game in the next match and it'll be let's play JRC there. JRC gets a chasing and it's let's get Nyambe back. Douglas has a bad game or two and we'll be hankering for Bell. Ditto with the centre halves. Williams might get back in, have a bad game, and it'll be let's give Wharton another go. Central midfield is the same now Travis is injured. We have Evans, Johnson, Buckley, Trybull , none of those is really established. Rothwell is thought to be integral to our way of playing but give him two poor games and it'll be lets try Elliot out there and give Dolan a go on the right. Teams that get promotion pick themselves every week apart from a couple of positions. If you have an injury you bring in a player to do exactly the same role as the player that is missing.