For me I think its more the case that TM still sees it as bringing in one or two players to help the ones already here rather than trying to bring in players who will go straight into the team and improve the starting eleven. A major overhaul is needed if we're going to challenge for promotion in tbe forseeable future not a bit of window dressing and tinkering with the depth of the squad. Hanley on loan, Wharton recall, a main striker and Chapman would get us through unscathed to the end of the season. Then hopefully the major reconstruction which should have started in the summer can commence.

Ok thanks. Hope the daft predictions don't come back to bite us!

I wasn't sure if it was a serious post or one taking the rip out of nicko.

Where have you seen that? £15m would be a ridiculously low fee.

No. He's just way past his best. I don't get it when people go bananas when he collapses somewhere near the half way line and earns a free kick. You'd think he'd beaten five men and bent a thirty yarder into the top corner. You've got to do a lot more than hold it up occasionslly for me.

I thought he looked lively and put their defenders under quite a lot of pressure when he came on. The incident with the keeper wasn't his fault, he made a bit of a meal of it but he didn't do anything wrong, probably wasn't quite a red but should have been a yellow for the keeper I thought. Certainly not the other way round.

Yes and everyone around me was of the same opinion.

By god we needed those three points which take the pressure off a bit. However at the risk of sounding negative I fear it may be only papering over the cracks as the underlying problems still remain. After Dack set up a one on one for Graham inside the first 4 minutes which he was too slow to capitalise on I thought we'd play until this time next week until we got a freak goal with Mulgrew scoring direct from a corner After that we played a lot better for a period and Armstrong came up with a bit of brilliant play to set Dack away and he showed great quality to take out the defender by cutting back inside the.defender and arrow the ball into the top left hand corner. After that we contrived to make hard work of it by conceding a needless penalty, we had the usual bizarre TM substitution replacing Dack with Conway and we ended up having to be reliant on a brilliant save from Raya to seal the points despite finishing the match against ten men. Main positive: Travis. As at Sheffield he was excellent and fully deserved his MOM award. Too many negatives for me though to think the win is anything other than "a blip" rather than the start of a sustained run of form. - Bennett - not a RB and had a shocker today - Lenihan - looks poor at the moment - Mulgrew - prone to letting the opposition get free headers on our goal - Bell - nowhere near as bad as Williams but still not that convincing - Evans - degenerating into the bastard love child of Jason Lowe and Keith Andrews, marking space and doing a lot of pointing whilst the game completely passes him by - Not getting the best of the tenacious Reed out wide. - Graham - completely past it for me and hardly touched the ball in the second half

Yawn. Back to the stale old tactics. Timid Tony strikes again. Bloody Evans back in, no way Palmer should have lost his place on merit, at least Travis is playing but that is probably only on account of Smallwood's suspension.

We should be all over that if true. While we're at it get Scott Wharton back as well and let's have two actual centre halves playing in those positions as opposed to converted midfielders.

BB did all right imo yesterday. Nothing earth shattering but the midfield and attack looked a far more cohesive unit in the first half yesterday than when we're lumping long balls up to a past it Danny Graham. If for example it was the first game of the season there was certainly nothing to suggest he should be immediately dropped again. But I'm sure he will be.

Don't have a tape measure to hand but Reed at West Brom maybe?

Have we ever gone 0/12 over Christmas before as we are threatning to do? I can't recall it although that period can't have been particularly good under Lambert.

I never get this obsession with if a young player looks the part, "Send him out on loan, we don't want him playing for us, oh no." No way he should be going out on loan for me but he probably will. He's miles better than the old favourites like Evans, Smallwood, Bennett, Conway etc etc

Yes, I think Palmer is potentially a really good player given a free sort of role across the pitch just behind the striker. I fully expect him to go to another Championship Club and excel Shame TM hasn't been brave enough to allow him and Dack to link up more often and form an understanding. My worry we will lose Dack in January and the guy who was a ready made replacement, at least in the short term whilst we consider our options, will already have gone back. if that happens, if you thought we were bad now.............

I felt Smallwood was a little unfortunate, in real time it was a 50-50 challenge, the ball was there to be won, his body wasn't off the ground, I'm not sure he was overly reckless and he was only a split second away from getting to the ball first. 20 years ago that may not have even warranted a yellow. That said, in today's climate I don't think there'd be any mileage whatsoever in appealing it, and more to the point as others have said at 11 v 10 there's absolutely no need to go diving in and give the referee a decision to make. I think TM's comments are merely an attempt to deflect a bit of attention away from himself and the players after another embarrassing collapse. I don't agree with TM either that at 11 v 10 there was only one winner. For some inexplicable reason our intensity levels dropped off completely as soon as they went down to ten. The same thing happened at Boro, we started fannying about and passing the ball sideways and backwards almost as if we were the ones trying to hold out for a point when in both cases we should have been going for the jugular. Very strange.

Based on what I've seen of us under TM in the 2 seasons or so he's been here I wouldn't be desperately upset were he to be replaced. However, my opinion of him hasn't changed one way or the other based on today, I thought he made an uncharacteristicly brave team selection today and for much of the match it looked like it was working a treat. The only thing I would criticise him for would be two very poor substitutions. I only hope he holds his nerve and continues down the route he dabbled with of trying to play with a bit more invention.

One thing that looked apparent today was that if Reed is out best central midfielder by some margin then Travis is the second best by some margin. How he hasn't featured before now is beyond me and he'll probably get dropped for the next game as well.

Yep, our young players need to plait sawdust every single game or they get dropped like Nuttall who scored 4 in 5 last season then who as soon as he didn't score was dropped never to be seen again.

Didn't threaten but I thought they all linked up well first half. If it was the first game of the season and not game 25 everyone would have been saying he did ok.

Weird game. First half I thought was 1000% better than the stale old shite we've been watching since the QPR game. Smallwood was having a great game, Travis and Reed were providing the urgency we usually lack in midfield and Rothwell and Palmer were inventive on either flank. Without unduly threatning Brereton looked a very mobile outlet and at half time I was very happy. Second half the worst thing that could have happened was them going down to ten. We seemed to lose all our urgency and started to knock the ball out aimlessly sideways and backwards as is our wont. Still no major need to panic at that stage though. However I thought the manager got the subs completely wrong. If he was bringing Brereton off, Graham needed to come on and taking Palmer off was really harsh as he'd had a good game I thought. Armstrong came on and started on the right wing then floated about a bit and barely touched the ball. With Dack dropping deep the changes left us a goal down and no-one up front. I'd like to see the sending off again. Smallwood may have gone in slightly studs up but it was a split second thing and the referee who'd been getting the bird off the crowd couldnt seem to wait to pull a red out and even it up. After Smallwood was dismissed we completely fell apart. Goal 2 resulted from Rothwell taking an outrageous dive in their area to try and win a penalty and less than ten seconds later the ball was in the back of our net. The lack of resilience is frightning. Not sure where we go from here. Fear TM will revert to the same old same old which hasnt been working whereas in the first half it looked as though we were on the right lines. Dack looked exceptionally pally with the opposition players at the whistle. Somewhat worrying.

Spot on.

Having dropped Evans, please please perform today Rovers. Lol. Particularly hope Palmer, Travis and Brereton have blinders.

I thought Dack had his best game for a long time at Leeds. Palmer needs to be in his favoured position of number 10 behind the striker. (BB) If we line up with BB on the wing and Palmer up front I'll scream.

Well done TM for shaking it up a bit. Not sure about Dack on the bench but other than that looking forward to it slightly more now.