arbitro

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11681/12170460/joachim-andersen-fulham-defender-available-for-boxing-day-southampton-visit-after-ban-overturned The Fulham captain, Anderson has had his appeal upheld and will not be banned. I defy anybody to tell me that this isn't a clearer sending off than Lenihans at Brentford when our appeal failed. I said at the time it's crucial that the evidence supplied is really important and I understand Fulham put up a compelling case. I don't know what our evidence entailed but appealing is really a random process. Incidentally Anderson had been booked earlier as Lenihan had but a retrospective yellow card cannot be applied.

Merry Christmas to every Rovers supporter. Have a peaceful and enjoyable time. Is a nine point haul too much to ask Santa for?

I saw it Den and it was probably the most in depth crime series I have seen. It was an awful time as fear was rampant in the north. The catalogue of errors from senior policeman clearly lead to more fear and deaths. The temerity of the one who, because of his incompetence retired early, bought a villa in Spain and then sold his story to a tacky tabloid.

Is that a Tony Mowbray selfie? 😁😁😁😁

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12170236/2020-21-sky-bet-efl-season-january-fixture-schedule-on-sky-sports Rovers not included in the next tranche of live games announced by Sky. I guess we just aren't box office enough.

Mowbray must be Oliver Twist* when selecting his tactics * Cockney rhyming slang.

And we all literally had hard times with Dickens in goal........

My first memory of him was playing for Bolton. I only saw him in a Rovers shirt when he came back in the late 70's.

And the paltry number of attempts came from 69% possession.

Would you rather see Allardyce's brand of football in the middle Premier League or Mowbray's style in the middle of the Championship?

In truth I found much of our 69% possession boring today. The number of passes in the final third that were sideways and backwards was frankly pointless. Stoke had the measure of this and sat with banks of five and four and shuffled across as we moved sideways. We had a free kick in our defensive third late on and I was saying get the centre halves up and let Kaminski launch it. One of the defenders took it short and several passes later it was back in our final third. I want winning football and if playing percentages get that then I'll take it over the pointless mundane passing we saw lots of today.

Ah I get it now - it's John Byrom. It's only a few years ago I had a brew with him at the Breezeblock but he looked different that day 😁😁😁

Third time lucky Jack. From your clue is it John Bray?

I honestly don't recognise the fellow making the sale but I know Duggie. From reading subsequent posts I think it is Pickering but I didn't know up until that. I assumed Whelan because having read his book I think he says he started in business with a market stall.

Is that Dave Whelan on his first business venture?

Ayala took a knock towards the end of Wednesday's game. And we have another two and a half years of this in/out player. I don't get playing Johnson at centre half when Carter is on the bench. Whilst Carter is inexperienced at least we would have a square peg at centre half. Even putting Nyambe there would be better in my view although that would leave us short right back.

Centre half is becoming a real conundrum for Mowbray and in reality we an injury away from a disaster. Today we are likely to have Carter as back up but apart from a brief appearance as substitute he has hardly played this season. Surely when it is practical players like him should play under 23 football if only for match fitness should he be needed to play for the first team.

After several years of poor performances at Stoke we have won our last two games there but that counts for nothing today. On paper the two teams look evenly matched so it could come down to whoever the ball runs kindest for or whichever manager is the boldest. I would take a point now.

The two most recent droppings of Nyambe have been because his confidence was low (Millwall last season) and Wycombe this season when Mowbray left him out 'because his numbers were too high'. His logic was that Nyambe could get injured because he was working too hard. Contrast that to allowing Williams to play after leaving the decision to the player.

What are the bigger issues? He is the manager, figure head, the face of the club to the outside world. At times last night he looked like he was on death row, completely non inspirational.

Referring to the top six quote I meant when everybody is fit. I think a good manager could squeeze enough out of the squad to get us into the top six.

A win is a win however it's achieved and I would certainly take another twenty scabby, ugly wins between now and May. Digging a bit deeper there wasn't one player who played well in my view, the tempo was weak, passing poor and movement pretty non existent. It's games like this were Mowbray really annoys me with his awful body language and gesticulations. From what I saw he was sat down with his shoulders hunched pretty much offering nothing most of the time. His negativity was apparent so the players must feel that. A good manager can really earn his corn in these games by encouraging, cajoling and offering advice to the players. I saw a post earlier where somebody wrote that we have a top six team. Hard to disagree really but we have to countenance that with the fact we have a mid table manager. And that is a big problem.

Artificially adding colour takes something away from the photo for me. Do you know which ground it was played at?

Performance based coach? That's a completely new one and plummets a new depth even for him. What about a results based coach.

Previous articles have stated that all of Johnson's work is done at Brockhall and his match day input is negligible.