And his 5 at the back nonsense.

Half agree. He's not top end Prem at all, or standout, but I'd say he's a steady Prem striker. Poor season last year but he has scored 11 and 9 in the past, which is solid enough for a bottom half side.

Heh yeh would have been nice not to face him. Today maybe, but you don't score 18 joke goals by November (not saying you don't know that, you acknowledged he is a top player in this league). We do have a generous streak, more of one than the Baggies I think...gonna really need to be at the races.

I certainly hope you're right. Why are you so confident about that though? He has 50% more goals than the next guy on the list (who thankfully is our guy). He's consistently been a goal machine at this level. Big, strong as an ox. Puts the frighteners on me frankly! Thankfully Lenihan is strong too, but I think it will take more than that to keep him quiet.

It's probably on account of the fact that he has looked far better than Poveda and like he actually has something about him. He is capable of terrifying defences. Is he looking the finished article? No, but him being Mowbray'd didn't help. Poveda has been consistently bollocks since his first 20 minutes or so which were decent. Mildly improved in the last couple games perhaps, but still tosh. Despite that, he gets more game time than Khadra, which is bound to be dispiriting as we have seen umpteen times with Mowbray's bizarre selection choices. Players look exciting, they get benched until they stop doing that. They lose morale, play less expansively, then the fans start saying they're poor, which justifies Mowbray's decision to bench them. I'm not saying he does that to justify benching someone, which would be bizarre of course, but he is terrible at sensing which players are on form and continuing to play them. It's no coincidence that Poveda is improving with (unwarranted) game time and Khadra is regressing by unfairly getting less time than he has deserved. Players are human and need confidence, regardless how much they're paid or whatever.

Just seen that monster Mitrovic has 18 goals already. He's going to fistfuck us on Wednesday.

I'd keep Khadra too. Clarkson and Poveda can bounce, based on what we've seen so far.

Neither were named on the bench. Poveda or JRC were the only attacking options. Would have rather seen JRC. Poveda hasn't been anywhere near good enough so far.

True, if you're going to sit back and shore up, as the plan clearly was, 4-3-3 is hardly the formation for it. Might as well take an attacker off for a defensive mid if that's the 'strategy'.

Not sure, I think it was before the Reading game (might have been after though) that the stat said our points tally was I think a point less than last season's. 2 wins in a row might be enough to have switched us to best start since going down though, maybe.

I dunno, but I certainly have a punt when we are 2 up.

Pathetic that we had to scrape that one again. I wouldn't mind if it was now and again, but when we have had an excellent first half and are 2-0 up, you can bank on us being shite and letting the opposition back in for the second half.

Occam's Razor...Mowbray being his usual incompetent, blind self is a sufficient explanation for me.

Then books Travis a minute later. Christ, nearly got the equaliser then, we are so fucking predictable!!

He did get an assist on his debut if I remember right. But mostly yeh, he's been doggers.

Free kick into the box, bounced off someone's shoulder I think, Davies hooked it in from pretty close. There were a lot of bodies packed in on the line when it came into the box.

Fuck sake, I was just about to say I feel safe now and bam, we do a Rovers.

Oh look. Poveda again. Yay.

That was only last season. But no judgement - following Mowbray's Rovers, time does tend to slow to a crawl.

We have to stop doing this. We look like we will get away with it today, but as you say we've been caught out repeatedly with it before. A better team than Derby, or even Derby on a better day, would have at least a goal back by now, leaving our bums squeaky.

Well that was up there with the most mystifying refereeing decisions I've ever seen. Gally gets fouled, Derby get the free kick. Hope Lenihan is alright there. Ref encouraged that by making weak calls all game on fouls.

Commentator just said they expect Derby to be much tougher opposition this half. Personally I expect us to make Derby be much tougher opposition this half.

Looked like a yellow for our lad moments before it, but they didn't get a free kick. I suspect the ref bottled the red because he wasn't sure he had called the other one right.

DId they honestly just call that a half chance?!? Terrible miss from Gally. At a bit of a stretch but come on, sitter that!

Confirmation there that the ball crossed the line. Seemed clear enough to me at the time, tbh.