When Garrett has a poor game, he is simply ineffective. When Moran has a poor game he is a 90 minutes liability or 45 minutes as we saw at Swansea. Millwall under Harris are physically intimidating and will target Moran. At least Garrett will send them home with bruised shins and egos.

Huge test for John Eustace's powers of management. Ordinarily we would expect a routine win but these are not ordinary times. Eustace has to earn his pay tomorrow night big time. And good luck!

If the dingles win every game from now in, they will get to 40 points. The only question left is whether we will make it double M65 misery...

It is an absolute must not lose. Thankfully not quite yet at must win although getting one win and two draws at least from the next three games is utterly essential. No our squad is not "shit". We would be fine with JRC, Hedges, Tronstad, Garrett, Barnes, Fleck and Leonard back in contention on Tuesday. But they aren't and we have a bit of a headache not least after the non-performances of Moran and Gallagher amongst others yesterday plus the return of the Pears flap... I would be looking at O'Riordan affording McFadzean a rest and either Ayari or Markanday in place of Dolan. We don't have an alternative to Gallagher who must be due the random bit of a good performance sometime soon. But above all, we need either Tronstad or Garrett back alongside Buckley. If they are not, Chrisene pushed into central midfield?

We have already played Rotherham twice- two 2-2 draws. The 3 point Rotherham bonus went to each of Bristol City, Swansea, Plymouth, Millwall and Huddersfield.

For the hell of it, I have taken the last 5 games form, extrapolated and added a bonus 3 points for each team with a Rotherham game yet to play. Here is 10th downwards (and it is down) Swansea 63pts Cardiff 61 Birmingham 60 Bristol City 59 Sheffield Wednesday 59 QPR 58 Huddersfield 55 Millwall 54 Sunderland 53 Plymouth 51 Watford 50 Middlesbrough 50 Stoke 50 Down on goal difference Rovers 45 Rotherham 19

Much as Dolan has improved, Markanday makes better decisions and I would start him in preference to Dolan.

Worth pointing out the injury situation which is suddenly as bad again as it was before Christmas. So very difficult to judge Eustace especially when there were spectacularly abysmal individual performances today no coach cancelled prepare for

Moran cost us that game. Little else to say.

My gut feel- and that is all it is. Everton and Forest will both get 6 points deductions before 4 April. Chelsea probably 12 points and City will finally be decided next season with a relegation enforced in 25/26 after appeal. It will give Luton a fighting chance to stay up but they won't. Dingles and Sheffield United would still go down if they give every other club in the League a 10 points deduction.

After the Lord Mayor's Show? Will John Eustace be proven a genius giving his two complete midfields 60 minutes each against Newcastle affirming and inspiring them or will all the players be totally drained physically or emotionally? This is not quite a must not lose but it is an opportunity to move sharpish towards the 50 points total. We don't want to be regretting a rubbish loss when the following results come in: Millwall v Watford Rotherham v Sheffield Wednesday Stoke v Middlesbrough Brum and Plymouth are entertaining Southampton and Ipswich while QPR go to Leicester- stranger things have happened than those three strugglers winning.. So fingers crossed for a second South Wales clean sheet. A more inspired performance than Cardiff would be a greatly appreciated bonus. Swansea are a bit of a nothing team but they can be dangerous and produce the goods as we know all too well from their visit to Ewood in October. Timely revenge required.

Watching it on TV, there were plenty of empty seats in the Walkersteel and Jack Walker stands.

The SPL is rubbish but so is much of the Championship. If Vale is turned into a goal scoring machine in Scotland's top league then it is not impossible he cannot bring that prowess south next season.

Newcastle have all the luck of the draw they deserved after last night.

I did put them in brackets but extrapolating current form they will finish on 52 points sandwiched between QPR and Wednesday.

We made him look ordinary. Ditto Guimares and Gordon for most of the 120 minutes.

After last night, he is serious competition with Dolan.

Have to say he was seriously good last night. His shot of course set up the goal but that dribble past at least 5 Newcastle players was one of my highlights of the night. Fingers crossed he takes this form forward now.

My worry is two of the 3 in the bottom grouping all season are on fire now. This could be a 50 points to avoid the drop season. Certainly Plymouth (and maybe Boro) downwards are in a dog eat dog scrap and we have four dogs in our next four games.

Szmodics in with a chance of being FA Cup leading scorer this season.. Then Haaland smacked 5 past TK

Played really well in the Gally role last night.

Good luck JDT So his CV reads Double Swedish Champions, Rovers, Sweden. Quite a smorgasbord with the relish in the middle. I wonder when Wahlstad wins his next cap? Unlike Norway and Denmark, the Swedes are lacking any truly outstanding players coming through at the moment unless I have missed something. A seriously tough assignment to get them to the competitive levels Sweden have been at in the past.

I wrote in the Newcastle thread that last night was Eustace's big chance to emerge from the very substantial JDT shadow. He did that and more despite the penalties outcome. Newcastle were second best for most of the 120 minutes and how the triple subs seemlessly fitted in was just stunning. Newcastle had just wound it up with Almiron, Barnes and Miley coming on and our response was Markanday, Ayala and Garrett. If anything we improved and mostly nullified their increased threat.

So many players produced performances I had no idea were in them but hats off particularly to Moran, Markanday, Pears and Sigurdsson. Now Eustace has the hardest job of all to distill last night and go again at Swansea.