The lad is playing like he doesn't want to be here. Lack of skill is acceptable, lack of effort isn't.

Dead right and that ship sailed a long time ago at Rovers.

I don't know wether we would or not. I don't think we'd be trampled in the rush to sign either of them to be honest. Dack was a snip, Armstrong I'm not so sure. As I said at the time, the new Matt Derbyshire only not as good.

How do you know what Armstrong would go for now ? The juries out for me. I had my doubts about him thriving at this level and so far he hasn't.

I doubt that very much. Rodwell will be lucky to get another club on a free if he flops at Rovers. None of the others have exactly set the World on fire at this level. I'd say on a good day we'd get our money back with the rest.

The officials in our game have made a rod for their own backs. Sometimes I wonder if they've ever played the game. At the moment it seems that every coming together, no matter how insignificant, in the penalty area is either a free kick to the defence or a penalty to the attacking team.

I would have thought the Chicken Chokers would be loathe to part with significant funds given our most recent transfer dealings. How many of our recent signings would we be able to make a profit on ? I make it 1, Bradley Dack.

Premier League clubs are interested in him according to my paper.

I don't think Gallagher is the answer. Reed is obviously the sort of player we need to be signing.

I remember playing left back on a very wet and windy day. I'd be about 15 then. The oppositions goal keeper gave the ball an almighty hoof out of his hands from the edge of the penalty area . The ball was heading right for me so I had to head it on the full. I honestly saw stars when I made contact with that wet " casey. " I never liked making that sort of header after. When we had " crossing and heading " drills I was always doing the crossing ! A very good pal of mine was a brilliant header of the ball. He could play centre half or centre forward. The sort of player that was equally good in either role. He was good enough to play pro but he hadn't got the aggression and desire to take the opportunities. I bumped into his wife the other day- he's got Parkinsons pretty bad now. I wonder if all that heading in old days has had bearing on that.

Yep, even Big Brad was sometimes guilty of being beaten by headers from inside the 6 yd box.

Yes you're right Stuart you either need to be quick or physical. Players who are both of those things unfortunately are out of our price range at the moment. I didn't play up front a lot but I was fairly quick and I could run all day. What I did learn from my limited time as a striker was you live or die by the service you get. You can make bad passes into good passes some of the time but you can't beat being on the end of intelligent delivery of the ball from your midfield team mates.

That's a great result, Johnno's working miracles there. I'd like to see him more involved with the first team to be honest.

I know just what you mean, I wasn't the greatest header of the ball because I just didn't like heading.

I remember going to watch Rochdale v Man Utd in a pre season friendly years ago. Utd sent their reserves but that team included a young Beckham, Butt, Scholes, Neville etc. Gillespie was playing on the right wing and he was unbelievably good. He was rapid, tricky and he had plenty of end product. He was head and shoulders above the rest of their young players that afternoon. I thought " Bloody hell, they've got another George Best here ".

I think I pointed out after watching his " Greatest Hits " video that he didn't head the ball at all in any of the clips. For a tall striker that strikes me as pretty odd.

We had Andy Burgin in the old 3rd division who was better than either of Bell or Williams.

I was delighted to get the draw with a decent performance but our Achilles Heel came back to bite us. Every Manager that plays against us will be saying " Keep going right to the end against these, they're very vulnerable at the death". It's up to us to find a way of playing out close games. Anybody know how many goals we've scored in the last 10 minutes this season ? It can't be many. On a more depressing note we've a long FA Cup history of getting great away draws and then folding dismally in the home replay. My first big disappointment came this way. We'd got a good draw 2-2 away at Fulham in the 6th round and we'd been drawn against the Dingles in the quarter finals. In the home replay we never turned up and lost miserably 1-0 in front of a 34,000 plus gate. Coming more up to date we got another good draw against Newcastle away in the Shearer era only to fold at home. Let's hope we can overcome the HooDoo, I can't see the Geordies putting out their best team.

You can't not like the bloke, he's what football should be about not 20 year olds in Ferrari's.

Yeah I like that about Travis, he gets under the oppositions skin.

Nothing new there, he was always a wrestler.

£500k would make more sense.

My pals liked him but I don't think they rate him at that level. Rochdale have been struggling for a left back just like us.

I wasn't particularly impressed with their signings but I thought Cook would have them just above us. That was before we spent £10 million on strikers.

Payne was the MOM when Rochdale lost 0-4 at Home to Bradford. Totally ran the show apparently.