Manning just won me a fiver. Popped a quid on at half time for someone to be sent off. Wish I'd been more ambitious. Hopefully that's enough for us to open the door now.

There's not much evidence he would have banged that in normally. He has fluffed plenty before.

What a tackle

Prediction - Buckley to get sent off.

Hardly likely to be fit as a flea at this very moment after playing two games at high altitude then flying back. I'm sure he has been assessed on his return and isn't 100% so it makes plenty of sense to bring him on against legs as tired as his later. My worry is that might have been our 'good half' for attacking, plenty of times where Khadra or BBD would have done damage. Hopefully we are creating when they come on.

Think they'd have been in trouble in this game with a fully fit BBD and Khadra.

Some people might, but that's not what I'm guilty of here. Ref has been poor, as usual. I also disagreed with one of the yellows Swansea received. But I guess I'm just not objective.

Yes I am. Clearly not a dive 'ffs'. Not a penalty either, just fell under pressure. Horseshit yellow card.

Absolute farce that he has booked Buckley there, arms all over him then gets clipped. Commentator is terrible. Just said he was booked for fouling the Swansea player. Highly doubt it, ref thinks he dived.

Mad how Buckley can place a 30 yard pass with precision, but with a very vulnerable goal at his mercy he can't place it in the gaps and instead blazes over.

Yes, at least two occasions.

Nine strikers sounds like enough for one to get on the end of it.

Think he was trying to gauge if he could get his head on it. Zeefuik's marking was criminal.

Poor marking. The lad we almost signed scores, obviously. Early too. Certainly undoes that plan some suggested of keeping the clean sheet and trying to nick it later...

Butterworth came off the bench for Fleetwood today, but their goalscorer was another ex-Rover, Anthony Pilkington.

Sorry to hear it Darren. Are you just due to miss the start or the whole thing?

I've never understood this line of reasoning. If you're fit to play 20 minutes, you're fit to play 90? Nah.

Yeh I edited the post to reflect that before yours popped up, so I do agree there. Also agree the team is about to look stronger, though it's a shame we don't have them fully fit for this one because it's probably our easiest game for a bit.

Another issue with that front three is two of them are having their debuts, so haven't established much understanding with each other or the rest of the team yet. However I do support keeping Khadra and BBD on the bench to limit the risk of injury. BBD probably tired too after his excursion, so best coming on against tired legs. Hopefully with the game still in the balance (or better yet, in our favour).

Not a striker in that front 3. Hedges has the closest claim. Could be a tough day to score again. Buckley doesn't really have a goal in him (4 career goals), Giles has 6 career goals...think we are reliant on Hedges today (and the bench of course, with BBD and Khadra), hope he's a good un. It does sound like he has been training well. Of course, if we do keep another clean sheet then yes, anybody popping up with 1 will do the job.

Continuing to keep clean sheets with the frequency we do is bordering on a ludicrous expectation. Our defence are excellent and great credit to them, but they're not impregnable, and part of our run of clean sheets has been luck, as it always must be. Plenty of times where we could have had penalties against or the ball flashed just wide or hit woodwork with the keeper beaten. 9 clean sheets in 11 extrapolated over a full season would be more than 37 clean sheets. Such a thing isn't realistically possible I'm sure. The most clean sheets anyone (well, a single GK) in the EFL has kept in a season since 2006 is 28, which was for Bristol Rovers in the 2006/2007 season in League Two. The most in the Championship in that period was 25, in 2009/10 for Swansea. Point being, you can't really expect that to continue indefinitely. We will ship goals at times, and will have games where we need to score 2 or more to get anything. I think pointing out we need to rediscover our scoring ways to achieve success is a valid one. It isn't necessary in every game, but it will be necessary in the remainder of the season as a whole.

Just had a nosey back at the first page of this topic, and saw this ill-fated assessment from 2015. Looking at the other posts around then, the crop he was talking about included Raya, Lenihan and probably Travis. Oops! On another note, isn't it time this thread got renamed to say U23s instead of U21s? Just for the sake of accuracy.

Aye I'm not suggesting he isn't doing a job, and probably a good one. But by the nature of his role it will take time before we really reap the benefits. He has had nothing to do with the development of Lenihan, Travis, Nyambe, Raya, all the lads that have come through in recent years. He will have had minimal impact, relatively speaking, if any, on the development so far of the likes of Carter, Butterworth, Vale...even for the likes of A. Wharton and Phillips it will have been minimal so far. My point is, he isn't the reason for the upturn in productivity and talent in the last few years, which is what your initial mention of him seemed to be implying (by what you were quoting when you said it). But again, if he's highly regarded I'm more than happy he's in the setup and hopefully we forge even more stars with him over the next few years.

I'll be really, really disappointed if we only get 7 points from the next 7 games. A run like that from our position essentially means you're in freefall.

How long has he been in the building?