No upside for us in that deal. If they want him they should be told they will have to pay. A lot.

I'm far from convinced this playing it out from the back malarkey creates more goals than it gives away. Even at the World Cup we've seen some of the best sides in the world get themselves into trouble on countless occasions employing the system and conceding quite a few needless goals. For Rovers it's a complete no no. As you say, in olden times it was a cardinal rule that you don't pass the ball square across your own box.

I like JDT and want him to do well but on the other hand the last two performances have been completely unacceptable and this has the potential to go South extremely quickly. I'd like to see some objective reason on the pitch for liking JDT other than the fact he isn't Mowbray. What the hell has happened to Adam Wharton? He hasn't had a look in since penning a long term deal and if yesterday is an example of the level of effort Morton is going to put in for the rest of the season, he might as well fuck off back to Liverpool now.

Someone in the VAR room doesn't like Ecuador. After the goal that was ludicrously ruled out against Qatar they just had another perfectly good goal ruled out imo. The player who diverted the cross n was miles onside, the keeper had already dived the wrong way and the player alleged to be impinging the goalies line of vision never made any movement whatsoever towards the ball. The standard of officiating on and off the field is absolutely abysmal. What about the referee that thought the assault by the Wales keeper wasn't a red? Edit: Deserved equaliser now.

So does the same argument apply to Maguire?

At least the cheating gets are two down now, there was actually more of a case for offside with the second than with the one that was ludicrously ruled out. Ecuador look fairly decent though.

No it wasn't, he was at least a yard onside when the free kick was played into him. Very worrying decision for the integrity of the Tournament going forward. Either the VAR operators don't know the rules or are corrupt.

Not an attractive look when a poster is going round waving imaginary reds in the direction of the moderators. I think the point being made is over the manner of the defeat against our biggest rivals and I think it's a fair stance to take that this is an afternoon for anger over the nature of the performance rather than mere disappointment over the result per se.

Echoing what many others have said but for me the most disappointing thing about today is the fact we never even laid a glove on them. At least have a go - the manager and team just don't seem to have "got" the fact that this is a bit of a special fixture at all. Individually I don't think JDT is picking his best players either. For me the two Wharton's are our best centre half and best midfielder respectively. Dack is also one of our most talented players but off field issues appear to be preventing his selection. Add that to the fact that you're playing Brittain on the wrong side and I think you're making life very difficult for yourself. Still no idea whatsoever how this season is going to end up.

Seven points off 12th.

I know you don't like Dolan but I thought he did ok after he came on. I would have bought Dack on for Gallagher but if you discount him on the basis he is completely out of favour, Dolan should have been the one to come on. Vale I was less impressed with. JDT must see something in training from him every day we're not seeing.

Excellent analysis there, that's exactly how I saw the game.

It's a game of opinions isn't it, I thought we were shocking first half and much better second until the rather strange decision to replace Gallagher with a defender.

Terrible performance but we got the 3 points which was all that mattered really .......especially with the Dingles getting stuffed. Strange decisions on the substitute front, Gallagher was atrocious and rightly hooked but bringing on a defender for an attacker lost us all momentum and we never got it back. Rather fortunate to hold onto the three points in the end. Best performance from Brittain since he's been at the Club. Streaky to say the least but onwards and upwards..... If only we could put a performance in next Sunday!

We need a decent striker and a midfielder that can dictate the play. I've no idea as to names but it's up to those at the Club who are handsomely paid to do so to identify the right type of players more or less within our budget.

Surprised to see the level of criticism on here for the two Wharton's - as has been pointed out by my sparring partner MP, in general when Scott plays we win and when he doesn't we don't. Also although I only caught the second half last night I thought Adam was our most likely looking player so I certainly wouldn't be dropping him either. If anyone I'd be looking at Travis who gave the ball away time after time last night and seems to have completely lost his mojo. I'm not sure either why people are clamouring for the return of Gallagher, he won't bring anything particular to the party, a classic case of a player improving in people's minds during their absence. We need BBD to pull out one final effort before the World Cup break and improve on his showing last night and then do what we failed to do last January and in the summer and sign a decent striker.

Only managed to catch the second half tonight. From that it seemed to me to be an exceptionally complacent performance in that we seemed to be under the impression that we only needed to continue playing at the fairly leisurely pace we wanted to play at and sooner or later we'd get back in the game. It didn't happen in fact in reality we lacked any real intent or intensity and rarely stretched the opposition back line or troubled their keeper. Individally I know Szmodics has chipped in with a few goals but I still think he's rubbish and Hirst - Christ - BUT - what annoys me most about him was we knew we were signing a striker with a record of 0/32 at this level before he came here - so what led anyone to believe it might be any different? If you sign someone with a decent track record then maybe you can make out you've been a bit unlucky that he's failed to perform, but when you sign someone who's previously completely bombed, you only have your selves to blame. Nineteen games in and I still have no idea whatsoever to expect from this team on any given day. If we were handing out points on performances we'd be hovering just above the bottom three, I literally have no idea how we're second in the table having generally played so poorly and having lost something approaching half our games. After each defeat I expect everything to come crashing down to earth with a bump but we've generally responded to a defeat by pulling out an unexpected victory. I hope we continue to do this but fear it wont last much longer unless we start to play a lot better.

Welcome to the Jungle - Guns N Roses.

Delighted with that - one of the better performances of the season and if there were 4 games I wanted to win all season they were the fixtures against Burnley and Sunderand. Decent debut by Garratt, saw more from him in 90 mins than in 8 years from the fraud Evans on the other side tonight. Think we are flattering to deceive a bit but can't complain with the League position, let's hope we are still in contention comr the end of the season. Shows what a good decision it was by the owners to hold firm on BBD, dread to think where we'd be without him. Fuck off Mowbray.

Yes, I'm still waiting to see evidence of this high tempo pressing game supposedly favoured by the manager as well.

Worrying night again - when you boil it down football is a fairly simple game and imo from what I've seen this season we've too many poor players in and around the starting eleven. You might be able to get away with one passenger like Gallagher but when you've got a plethora of players that imo aren't up to it such as Gallagher, Hirst, Szmodics, and Hedges then you aren't going to achieve results on a consistent enough basis. in fact the only surprise is that our win ratio is as high as it is. Unfortunately I dont see that 50% rate continuing unless there is a massive uplift in performance levels in general. Conversely our most talented player, who badly needs game time to recover match sharpness can't get a look in and Morton as far as I can see isn't a patch on our own homegrown talent Adam Wharton and is merely serving to keep him out of the side and hinder his development. For me we need to start Dack and the younger Wharton and the other players should be covering for them if required, not the other way round However we can change tactics /personnel the thing that arguably worries me the most is seeing us tip tap the ball about at the back with zero urgency when we're a goal down. We saw the same thing at home a few weeks ago against Bristol City when 1-3 behind. To me that indicates a lack of passion and desire and maybe indicates the players aren't fully buying into what they are being asked to do by JDT.

Not sure if Gallagher was 100% fit but one thing is for sure - he is 100% shite. I'm not sure how we've managed to stumble upon two strikers as bad as Gallagher and Hirst. If you gave anyone on here c £6m (£5m plus a loan fee) and said "Find me 2 strikers" you'd be seriously hard pressed to do worse than those two

Have to say things are looking a bit worrying. We look absolutely terrible, and are being massively flattered by the unexpectedly good start in the first three games. Recruitment is still generally very poor imo - Hedges /Szmodics/ Hirst absolute rubbish. Morton not as good as A Wharton or even Buckley when he's on form. (WTF has happened to him BTW?) I thought the one positive tonight was the performance of Dack, although not on the pitch long he managed to get in a number of great positions had me managed to pick him out and was really unlucky with the goal that was pulled back. Knows when and where to make the runs and the positions to get into, the rest don't. HAS to start for me.

Jimmy Quinn was 100x the player Hirst is. How can you possibly scout him and come up with him as your main striking target? He's beyond useless, there must be better than him at Conference level.

Smodics "cheap" at £2.5m?