Still might. Pears has been steady again, like the look of Thomas already and Trav has been busy. Dack doing Dack stuff and Dolan showing why he’s far better than Vale up top. I also wouldn’t swap either of of current CBs for that Porteous lad, never mind Hyam or Ayala. No loss there at all.

I'd suggest that this is the most likely situation.

It can also go the other way, too. Too many new players too soon often disrupts a side.

He isn’t the first choice RB - Brittain is and, when fit, will start. However JRC will be a useful squad player from now on and has the added bonus of being able to fill a few positions - a manager’s dream to have on the bench. Will JRC like that? Probably not, but he was on of his way out of the club just a few short weeks ago.

If the leaked information is to be believed (albeit we’re likely taking Waggott’s word via Nixon here…), we submitted our paperwork on time. But the EFL’s daft question of ‘ok, £10m if you get promoted. But what about if you get relegated?’ is the crux of the issue. Rovers’ stance was, well, we obviously wouldn’t sign him as we’ve not been promoted. I genuinely think we have half a chance with this one, as (if that was indeed the case), the delay was caused by the EFL asking a stupid and unnecessary question. Forest and O’Brien are also not blameless in this instance, allowing him to leave on deadline day and the player only deciding to join Rovers in the afternoon.

Nah, the league is far too tight and there are too many games left, at this stage. Add our general inconsistency into that and I suspect the season will be live until the last few games.

In theory, the fact that it’s not been rejected immediately is a good sign.

Yeah, Vale did not have a good game against Wigan. He was mostly anonymous, easily muscled off the ball and got some basic passes/moves wrong. He did produce one good piece of play, taking a hard pass on the chest, controlling and laying off nicely for the advancing Rovers player down the right. But I don't think it'd be accurate at all to suggest he played well - you'd like to think that he'd be the first person to admit that himself.

Should be a home banker. But we’ve seen many times this season that we’ve pulled a performance or result out of nowhere and I’m hoping for the same again on Saturday. I’ll go Watford 1 v 2 Rovers. Hoping to see Leonard get a chance, a packed midfield and some pace on the break (eg Dolan).

Not necessarily. If we had a John Williams character running the club (which would require Venky’s to hire him and entrust him with the relevant authority), it wouldn’t matter who the owners were. The UK SLT team are unfit for purpose and we shouldn’t overlook the importance of this.

Agree with this, even an initial season, with the financial benefits it brings, would be a big help to us long term. Also, JDT is managing expectations; that is as clear as day, Behind the scenes, promotion will of course be the aim this season and the ‘play poorly / win game’ instances this season show that he’s more interested in results than performances. He’s a winner; settling isn’t in his DNA. Hence his anger at the recruitment fuck ups.

Tell you something, we could have done a lot worse than take the two Wrexham forwards: Mullin and the big lad at number 9.

One thing JDT deserves credit for is dropping players when they’ve needed dropping and building their confidence in the U21s. He’s also recalled or played out of favour players when they’ve proven they deserve another shot. Seeing Leonard do that tonight surely puts him in contention for the first team, especially considering what we’ve been seeing from Vale recently.

Totally agree with the point made a page or two back, on the team being scared to lose. Scared to take a risk, scared to make a run or take a shot. This is where your big personalities and experienced players come in; sadly we have neither. I will give Trav credit for last night, he tried make things happen and did make some good runs/passes - and obviously Sorba was promising. But we need something different if we’re not going to let the season (and the top 6) drift away from us.

Decision on O’Brien expected no earlier than Thursday, when the EFL board meet, according to Sky last night. …which makes the assumption that we’ve submitted the appeal paperwork on time.

Tbf, the JRC chance in the first half was decent and Trav had a goal bound shot blocked. There were a couple in the second, from Thomas’ crosses down the right. But agreed that it was a boring game irrespective.

I read last night that Jones has been training with us recently, but no idea if there’s anything in that. Even if United released him from his contract, we wouldn’t be able to sign him until the summer. That said, I’d take him (injury record and all), on a heavily permanent-related incentivised contract.

I thought Trav is worth a shout, too. He was shite earlier in the season, right dropped, but looked hungry again today. Actually central to a lot of chances as well.

Just not good enough. The set pieces were so bad tonight, it made me wonder if we were actually trying to score. That McLean is an absolute scumbag, isn’t he?

We’ll have another couple of chances before the end; let’s hope we can take one.

Come on, that’s not fair. On Penguin. Thought Trav looked decent in the first half, couple of good tackles and forward runs. But even Stevie Wonder could see that Vale needs replacing; it’s like playing with 10. Should be a couple of goals up, so there’s 3 points waiting for us here if we can take one of these chances.

JDT sees them in training and knows what each of them is capable of better than any of us, to be fair. That said, Vale needs a big performance today and really needs a league goal.

It is the risky bit, but he’s had 2 SoT in each of 7 of the last 10 home games (surprisingly).

I wouldn’t encourage or advocate gambling, but I thought that this was worth a fiver for tonight’s match.

I think (hope) that this will be the plan moving forward, now that we have Sorba. Lets see what tonight brings…