Andy

See the difference with Cantwell when we play at a proper tempo and the players around him are passing and moving? Dolan is so wasteful, ACD not much better. Ribeiro looks like he's been there for years. Get Dennis and Karbgo on for Dolan and ACD and we win this one quite comfortably.

And with most of the teams below us to play, at home. Failed to win a single home game. I got pelters at the time, as we seemingly should have been grateful for him 'keeping us up'. Bollocks. He almost took us down.

Strange how opinions can vary on things like Big Sam, isn't it? One of my favourite eras - I loved seeing us grind out wins and be hard to beat. Big fan of Sam, I think he's massively underrated.

We need to keep that galvanised spirit going into the weekend - as ever, things like form and momentum mean everything in this league. I'd be tempted to go with the likes of Dennis and Kargbo from the start and try to get some early goals. But I suspect we'll go with the more cautious approach of Dolan and Hedges as starters, to give us that wide defensive cover for the fullbacks - which worked really well at WBA. Then the more attacking boys will come on in the second half / final third to try and win it for us. Personally, I'd be brave and go for it from the start - first goal usually tells.

Warnock or Allardyce to the end of the season. Get them organised, get them motivated and see where it takes us. We need an experienced hand, both short and long term. It worries me that this isn't abundantly clear to the idiots currently running our club.

I've been saying this for some time - JE's record last season was horrible and almost took us down. We had been in the top 6 and in the top half for the majority of that season and, whilst we were on a dire run of form, we were never in a relegation battle prior.. JE failed to win a single home game despite us playing most of the teams below us at Ewood and, owing to some Sammie Szmodics heroics, we pulled out a couple of shock away wins at Leeds and Leicester to just about stay up. But we very, very nearly went down and his negative approach/performance would have been a big part of that. This season has been an overall big success and he takes credit for that. But last season was pretty horrific - and if I was a Derby fan, I'd be very worried.

You'd imagine that he watched Derby struggle to muster a single goal at home in a big relegation 6-pointer last night, then saw our result tonight. And had that feeling in your gut when you know you've fucked up a big decision.

Done the player ratings and saw that Ribeiro, Dolan and Buckley were all way below (circa 6 ratings). If you can't see that all 3 had very good games tonight, you either didn't watch the game or you have an agenda.

So many big performances tonight, Trav, Hyam, Dolan, obviously Big Mak. Pears hasn't put a foot wrong, Buckley has been good. Best team performance in a while.

He's been getting progressively better with each game recently, as you'd expect (with a run of games).

What the hell has happened to Gueye? He looks a completely different player.

David Lowe's blue & white army...👀

Yeah, understood - though I'm sure he's gone on record in recent years (his own podcast, I think) in saying that he'd return to us. Though whether the people who make the decisions on Venky's behalf would come to the same thought...

I said earlier in the thread - Big Sam, along with Warnock or Dyche would be the best case scenario for us. Not sure Warnock fancies it anymore and Dyche would command wages we'd likely not pay. So Big Sam would be my choice. Listen to the opinion of any player who's worked with him; they love him and would walk through fire for him. Also massively underrated as a tactician, gets the best out of his players and has them playing as a team.

'I have literally no idea, but if JE leaves, I'm sure I can rustle up some bullshit to keep anyone gullible enough to pay for my Patreon'.

Michalski is highly rated and came through the Academy - I'd genuinely be fine blooding him in games like this. If he shows that he has the ability, it's an easy decision to replace both first choice calamity 'keepers that we currently have.

Hyam's goal was well onside, shocking decision. Surprised to see a few 'Forshaw is shite' comments - today he's been decent, so far. I'm a Cantwell fan, but he has to take responsibility for that first goal; loses the ball softly in a bad area. GK needs to do better, of course. Takes some doing to look a worse choice than Pears, but Toth is managing that quite well at the moment. Pleasantly surprised with Kargbo, seems to be what we wanted ACD to be.

I saw somebody mention Big Sam earlier; this would be a best case scenario for me. Showed an interest last time around and was even prepared to take the Bolton job when that came up, so he's itching to jump back in. I couldn't give the slightest shit about how attractive our play is, it's all about results. I'd be confident of the top 6 if Big Sam came back.

Derby County. Derby. County. Not a bigger team with a greater history or fuller trophy cabinet; not one higher in the league/divisions than us. You'd like to think it'll make people sit up and realise how bad things are here, but in reality, nobody outside of East Lancashire gives the slightest shit. And even within East Lancashire, seemingly half of the supporter base are essentially those lemmings from that 90's PC game, all blindly queuing up to fall off a cliff face without questioning what's around them. The world will keep turning, we'll appoint a whopper and we can look forward to League 1 in 18 months.

I've said this before, but JE's agent is putting some effort in - and has been for a number of months now. Linked with every single vacancy in the Championship, details such as quoted compensation fee being leaked. And they won't be doing this without being given the instruction by JE. Seemingly very clear that he's looking to jump at the first opportunity. The players aren't stupid either, they'll know this - and I'd suggest that it's no coincidence that results have taken a turn as a result (also see Dahl Tomasson, J).

I've heard the conspiracy theories on this, but I'm not too sure. Who had heard the brand 'Venky's' before they bought Rovers? Literally nobody outside of India. Now, they're a household name, certainly in the UK (albeit for all the wrong reasons, but 'any publicity is good publicity' and all that).

That's definitely preferable to Hedges and probably holds up against Dolan, Cantwell, Weimann, ACD. Keeping him fit is the main issue. But hopefully a move can be sorted out, so he's not sat around picking up a wage for doing the square root of bugger all.

100% agree with this and I'm trying not to focus on it too much recently, or it'll sound like I've got an agenda against Pears. I don't; he's just nowhere near good enough and actively costs us games. It blows my mind a little bit how it's not blatantly obvious to everyone.

Kargbo looked decent in his cameo. I thought Buckley was pretty decent tonight, too. Maybe I have low expectations for him and I'm pleasantly surprised by an average performance. Thought both goals were avoidable, which seems to be the recurring theme for us.

Ignore the Bamford thing - he was on about Dennis (being a good signing, if he stays fit), I presumed he was on about Bamford, being a Leeds fan. Sorry!