1 minute ago, islander200 said:

Gilmour incoming

Surely a team us not going to let us have a 6th loan knowing we can only have 5 in a squad.

Unless we are sending Tom back to Norwich.

3 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Shadow of his former self so far. That injury cost us more than just a big transfer fee.

What?

Was class when he came on today

5 hours ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

The Everton loan signing just doesn’t get me going at all. Not going up, not going down, developing others youngsters which we won’t get the benefit from. Pointless 

Reality is we are going to struggle to do much better then this at this stage of the season.

Was criminal not to sign another CB last summer.

14 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Signing the likes of Pickering makes good sense PROVIDING he's being signed to play and not sit on the bench for 3 months whilst he 'learns how we play and learns the position from Bell and Douglas'!!!

Just turned 22 with a decent reputation,  over six feet tall and close on 150 first team games to his name, sounds promising.

I think it's clear he's being signed now as Douglas hasn't cut the mustard - in fact, IMO, he's proven to have been another poor and expensive signing.  Sadly, much of our our summer business doesn't, IMO, seem clever when looking at Pears, Ayala, Downing and Trybull - a small fortune in wages and fees (transfer, loan and agents).

Unfortunately, despite being very pleased initially with our summer business you are somewhat correct.

Good:

The Belgium.

Elliott -although only a loan.

Dolan - although having Elliott is actually hindering his development.

Okay:

Downing - not really involved yet few decent cameos, depends on how much we are paying him.

Trybull- certainly wouldn't sign him but a slight upgrade on Evans.

Bad:

Ayala- maybe okay if he was ever fit. Imagine he's on a fair wage. Was always the risk and the risk meant we should have signed a 2nd CH.

Douglas- on paper looked a great signing. He just doesn't look like he's motivated to play for us.

Pears- would be the last player on our team likely to catch Covid.

Unknown: 

The Greek- looked okay but must not be any good if butter fingers is ahead of him.

3 hours ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

Convinced that Gally could be a centre-half.

It would be like the opposite to when we used to play Samba as a striker in the big Sam days. I actually agree with you, Gally is not a great attacker but what often gets him in the team sheet is his defensive Workrate.

35 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

To be fair, we were shite, but I’m happier about the win than I am fuming about how poor we were....

Agreed, we would all prefer if we win and play well. We played much better last 2 games and got 0 points. Today we played rubbish and got 3.

Today felt like the home game against Barnsley last year when Tony nearly walked.

I think a loss today would have been a tipping point. Instead he lives another day, with a string of fixtures I'd mark as being achievable to get points. In which I mean we are mainly playing bottom half teams.

It's almost uncool to congratulate TM but he certainly deserved it today.

He managed that 2nd half very well. I believe his thinking of Buckley at RB was he'd be similar to JRC in that position and out of the 4 we had at the back at the time could offer the long pass out. 

However his instant reaction to tactics following Brentford's final subs decided our game. 

9 hours ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

I'm going to play devils advocate but that graph says very little. If you take more shots your expected goals will naturally be higher. In fact it was interesting to see T. Dolan doesn't take many shots but usually they are expected to score.

I'd rather see a graph of expected goals Vs goals scored.

That said Armstrong is vital to us and he gets himself in places to be able to score

Yea I initially assumed Douglas coming off was tactical and to protect us against a card happy Ref. On Wharton I'm gutted, I assume it's a season ender or is it less? Either way he's waited years and this was his breakthrough. I hope he gets another chance when he's back

Never felt so satisfied to earn a point. Well done!

Get Scotty back on Saturday...

23 hours ago, tomphil said:

I can see a similar game to Saturday with another of the divisions well established hard grafting sides. As always if we get out of the blocks early and get a lead we should likely win comfortably. 

Longer it goes though i can see us having to come from behind so another tough day at the office. We won't ride the luck again like Saturday too often without losing.

2-2

I Kind of see the game being the opposite to Saturday but equally the same.

I picture more the Nottingham Forrest/ Cardiff game. I don't see Milwall coming with the High press but i worry for the counter.  Pressing hard will be key for us.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/graham.1534736/

I see things got no better. While I was gutted to see him leave the timing was right

Part of the problem is we haven't sold a player for a while so we don't realise how inflated the market is.

We naturally compare 7m to the fee we paid Rhodes a 20 goal a season player. Now a top English championship striker can fetch 30m if a pl club comes sniffing.

The key to Brereton is if he ever gets consistent enough one does. There's a large difference in expected fee if a fellow championship team take an interest in your player then PL teams wanting to take the gamble.

Interesting I saw news today Ben is eligible to play for Chilie as his mother was born there. Would be bizarre if he ever made that team. Don't think he'll ever be England material.

https://redgol.cl/amp/seleccionchilena/Ex-delantero-de-la-Sub-20-de-Inglaterra-quiere-jugar-por-Chile-Soy-seleccionable-20201123-0050.html

17 hours ago, Tugay's Right Foot said:

I just wanted to ask, do you have any lingering symptoms or effects? They call it long-covid, just wanted to hear just how common is it. Everything well and good for you?

Personally, I was okay after 10 days. Sometimes it's hard to know what's a symptom of COVID and what's a symptom of becoming 100% home office every day!

Yea it's 10 days, that takes us to Friday 20th. So realistically will miss Luton Game.

All that said main thing I wish him his a quick and Safe recovery. Already had the thing back in March it's a bugger not had a illness as bad for years. So hope he recovers well and no lasting issues!

The whole Armstrong's Wastefulness thing reminds of the Rhodes does nothing but score goals debate.

Ultimately his impact comes from what he does very well not what he doesn't do! We'll miss it the one day in the future when Armstrong leaves.

P.S. Imagine how good a hybrid of Armstrong and Rhodes would be!

He's improving and found his position in this team.

That said I still don't see how he can ever be a 15-20 goals a season striker (if that's what we ultimately want him to be)

My counter to my own argument is that while different types of players I would have said the same about Armstrong after his first season in the Championship with us. In an absolutely perfect world Brereton could do with a season bullying league one defenders and racking up that 15-20 goals like Armstrong learnt to do (I'm not suggesting we actually do loan him out).

The only good thing about Covid is that it gave time for Brereton to bulk out and play without the fear of crowds, I hope by the day we set foot in a stadium again he'll be a different monster to the one we once saw!

From a purely goalkeeping ability point of view, I've still not got that full gauge yet, few decent saves so far, while soft has to be blamed for the pen today after what was a decent stop prior to that.

All that said he's instrumental to the way we play. He allows us to play the pressing game and offers a calmness that i didn't feel from Pears in net the last few games. It's hard to explain why I like him so much and why he makes me feel relaxed. So far been a good signing and should be our number 1 for years to come.

Just now, davulsukur said:

He was terrible?

Yea not sure why anyone would say Pears looked good tonight. Clean sheet despite Pears not because of him. For a rare change will give the back 4 credit, everyone else that was awful.

We seemed shocked at how much Middlesbrough pressed us and couldn't react. My god Gallagher did nothing all night i'd rather stick one of the youth strikers in if Armstrong isn't back next game, is Vale still injured?

By far our worse performance of the season. That said i'd trade our 5 defeats for games like this.

However we'd put ourselves in a position where we needed to win tonight so overall not good enough. We are getting worse not better.

As soon as Ayala is back Lenihan get's benched

JRC should only play RB against bottom half teams otherwise he's benched unless we have a few Wingers injured.

Evans i'll only put him down to being in the team down to injuries, would still rather we had started with Buckley.

Douglas, can only put him down as being promoted twice down to luck. lad needs to get a positional understanding of the game.

Harsh but Brereton looks lost this game, looks a player who can only play well when others are playing well, a confidence player. I'd switch him out, possibly believe it or not for Gallagher early 2nd half.

Very unlikely we rescue anything here. we are too 1 dimensional. 

Our soft underbelly is showing again.

This all feels like when we had Bowyer with Gestede and Rhodes etc. 

Granted different style of play but we are going to look at this team at the end of the season and wonder why we didn't achieve anything. Before the main players all get sold on in the summer.