J*B

Very bloody uncomfortable, that.

Random market research: can anyone that wants to help please DM me a list of Rovers transfer sources they look out for during the transfer window? I’m thinking Peter O’Rourke, Elliott Jackson, Rich Sharpe, Alan Nixon… is there anyone else people look out for (and/or believe)?

Here’s hoping, that would be a Christmas miracle.

Ground out a gritty 1-0 win on a dreadful pitch to stop a losing run. It wasn’t classy but it did the job.

Don’t bank on it.

EDUN?! I’d hoped we’d never see him again, that’s a huge disappointment.

Yep, playing counter football.

Not on this pitch. We need players that can win long balls and press.

Playing silly buggers with the old playing it out from the back here.

3-4-1-2 Wharton, Ayala, Hyam Pickering, Morton, Garrett, Hedges Dack Gallagher BBD

Well well well..!

The plan looks explicitly clear to me… we retain possession and move the ball around, targeting long balls and 1v1s with their right back Ng. Dack is doubling up on our left wing to try and bring their right centre back out of position. Hedges has clearly been told to bring their left back (who looks good - O’Dowd?) inside to create space for JRC on the right wing.

I can’t see it. We’ve threatened far more, if we lose this then it’s a huge fuck up.

Or like Wharton can do.

We’re much better than them. Just need to push ten yards up the pitch and control the ball better.

We’ll win tomorrow assuming we can keep 10 on the pitch, they’re rubbish.

4-6 away, it’s quite a bad one.

I think sympatheticclaret and Longers are some of the sites best posters, to be fair. Longers has been here longer than me!

Buckley appeal rejected.

I thought we played really, really well in the first half last night. We could have easily gone in at half time 3-0 up. I could see identity and a clear approach to the match and thought Dack, Hedges, Buckley, JRC and Pickering where standout players. However Boro let us play like that. I’ve never questioned that we are capable of that. It’s when we play a team pressing us and putting challenges in we have a breakdown. We don’t like it when we can’t play how we like.

That’s not what the pundits on Sky said.

Who would you replace to bring Travis on? We needed a goal, may as well go for broke. Hedges was marking Giles out the game. Dack is capable of a goal. Gallagher does so much for this team unnoticed - and I’m not sure how taking a striker off for a midfielder would have gone done. BBD is the big goal threat.

Their fans are, in that case, bonkers. Dyche is the man for that job.

A club like Burnley (and Rovers) will always struggle to survive in the modern Premier League. Even if you get every single decision right, ultimately, someone will poach your best players, manager, DOF and you can’t get every decision right forever. You’ll go up this year, may well win the league, but as you say next year will be a battle. As a spectacle I’m very much of the opinion that watching your team winning in the Championship is more fun than watching your team struggle to compete in the Premier League. The sooner the European League comes the better.

I don’t think there ref had any choice, I’m not sure if you saw the Sky Sports News pundits explaining it but it’s clear as day. If you throw a ball at a player recklessly (recklessly is defined pretty much as accidentally) then it’s a yellow card. If you throw a ball at a player with excessive force (ie at someone’s head, on purpose) then it’s a red card. Nobody at Rovers has made any mention of appealing the decision… because it’s the right one. As a rule it’s a stupid one, it obviously didn’t hurt the player, it was meaningless, but they’re the rules. The person responsible for your (our) ruined evening at Rovers and waste of money is John Buckley, who gave the referee a decision to make. He was elbowed prior, which everyone missed but was a yellow card and reacted by throwing the ball at the opposition. It’s petulance and childish and from where I was sitting cost us the game.