That sort of travelling is far from ideal, especially when you're getting a bit older. Anybody else think that the corner/goal was a planned move ? It looked that way to me.

Claro

" Benno put a shit in " ! Where abouts on the pitch was that ?

Rhodes has done nothing for years. Forget about him.

I know but he managed it. Players like Law would miss more games than they played with todays referees. He wasn't a dirty player but if you took liberties with him you were asking for trouble. It's getting beyond a joke. Nobody pays to see 11 v 10 or 10 v 10. I used to laugh at South American referees in the old days but I watched the recent Flamengo v River Plate final and if a current British referee had have been refereeing that game it would have finished 6 a side. No wonder we don't have any officials worthy of the name these days.

Denis Law used to get sent off around this time so he could have hogmanay back in Scotland.

Like I said I didn't see the game but it sounds like most of the team had a night to forget. Reading other peoples views on here Travis wasn't any better.

That left hand side looks garbage to me. I've seen enough of Bennett at left back to know he isn't one. Fair play to the guy to hold his hand up to play there when we're stuck but it's like a fish riding a bike.

Why would he want to drop Evans ?

The minute the home team gets a player sent off a little bell should go off in your head and a message saying " I better watch my step here because this ref will be looking for a chance to even things up ". should flash into your brain. Especia;;y if you're already in the book. You don't have to be a professional player to know that.

I haven't watched the game, out watching Ed Byrne in Bacup, but some people say Nyambe was pretty good, some say he was garbage. Somebodies got it wrong !

In my paper today - " Jim Smith the former Birmingham, Oxford, QPR, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Derby manager, who has died at the age of 79 ". Being fair to them further on in the article it does mention lots about his early career, first as a player then manager at Boston, Colchester and then Rovers. Strange not to include Rovers in the first paragraph though.

It's alright, he didn't. He just robbed a wage off us.

Osgood was a bit of a handful but he was a good footballer. He would have been better still if he hadn't have had his leg broken as a young player. Subsequently he made sure it never happened again by getting stuck in first. RIP Jim, thanks for the memories.

Was that one of your chat up lines ?

That's why we don't play that way very often.

Which ever system you play there are areas of the pitch you will always need players in.If you overload one area you will be light in another. I remember seeing a speculative question years ago. One team has the conventional line up of 10 outfield players and 1 goalkeeper, the other team has 2 goalkeepers but only 9 outfield players. Which team do you think would win most often ?

I'm afraid that's more like it.

Every move in football in my time has been to make the game more defensive. I suppose to answer your question the team with 5 in midfield will usually overcome the team with 4. When I first started playing it was 2-3-5 which was really a sort of 3-2-2-3 system. Then the Brazilians adapted that to a 4-2-4. Alf Ramsey modified that to 4-3-3. As the years went by you got more and more defensive players and less atacking players. There's a good book to read about this called " Inverting The Pyramid ".

In the 70;s Rovers had the reputation of being a breeding ground for managers. First Division ( Premier League now ) clubs kept enticing away our guys.

I'd need to know the fully extent of the prognosis regarding Cunningham. If I'm being brutally honest I'd look elsewhere. He can't be the only decent left back out there.

The shouts on here to resign him were deafening. So we sign him and he's hardly been near the first team since.

Just watched the extended highlights back again. Downing over playing it played Tosin into trouble early on which nearly led to a Derby goal. Armstrong missed an easier shooting chance than the one he scored from. Good to see Gallagher out muscling a Derby player out on the right to set up Armstrong in front of goal. Was it their kit but some Derby players look like they're carrying a bit of timber. Bielik, who I rate as a top young centre half shouldn't be playing in centre midfield. He looks to have put a stone on since I saw him play last.

I think he must have been aware of the unrest in the support. He'll want to keep the fans on side. How else do you explain the Chapman signing ?

Thanks for that but I don't need Clark Carlisle or anyone else to tell me how bad Coyle was. His record after leaving the Dingle Dome told me all I needed to know. I gave up temporarily after we appointed him. That was after 50 years, that tells you how sure I was that he'd relegate us.