Norwich in good form and a different prospect to the team we outplayed earlier in the season

I'd happily take a draw and another point towards staying in this division

Rovers 1 Norwich 1

That's the old Joe Root, playing a proper Test innings with patience and careful defence. No Bumrah to torment him but hopefully that's the last we shall see of his Bazball type shots in this series. Cricket's a simple game when it's played properly. 

RIP "Bionic" Bradshaw, another one taken too soon

We've had some great goalies over the years

And some great shirts too. This and the 1950s/60s V-necks are my favourites 

18 minutes ago, KentExile said:

2nd Edit, just noticed you were talking about Leonard, not sure where I got the Gally angle from, but the main point in my post stands.  "missing more than he scores" is a metric that does not give the full picture.

The big picture with Leonard is he contributes very little outside the box so if he's not taking his chances and scoring goals there's very little point him being in the team except to fill a shirt because we're so desperate at the moment.

I suppose I still haven't forgiven him for missing a golden chance at the start of the second half when he was through on goal with just the keeper to beat in the league cup tie at Chelsea. I was right behind the goal and everyone around us couldn't believe he missed. 

Just don't rate the lad - sorry

39 minutes ago, TheRovers1994 said:

Harsh on Leanord he’s a good goalscorer chips in with a few just needs further experience so needs a loan, semir is another brereton it’s gonna take him time to get up to scratch 

I don't see how he can be labelled a good goalscorer when he misses more than he scores. Sorry - just don't rate the lad. I've also seen nothing which suggests Telalovic might develop into a Brereton. And he's 24 too, not a youngster. This is probably as good as he'll ever be

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

He certainly has been a breath of fresh air compared to who we have had up top for the rest of the season. He has looked good and has offered a threat we didnt have, 2 good finishes v QPR and Preston even if we discount the Wrexham one which seemingly doesnt fit the agenda. But his whole round game gives us something we dont have otherwise, his power, his height and his pace, plus an excellent knock down for Dolan v Stoke and a brilliant ball for Szmodics at the weekend.

 

Blimey, that's a very rose-tinted view of a very average player who for a man of his size and physique has very little power, isn't particularly quick and cannot outjump players 6 inches of more shorter than him

Don't get me wrong, he has a part to play and we need him at the moment but let's not get carried away

16 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Sadly Chaddy, when Waggott and co know there are more like you, the agony for us all will be prolonged.  The club will, IMO, continue to take the fans for fools and dump on them window after window and season after season.

If you really think anything other than the loose change from the Raya and Wharton monies will be reinvested then it might be time for you to undertake a huge self analytical review.

IMO, the only action that will resonate is a huge boycott by the fans (season tickets, match, attendance, merchandise etc).

I don't like to disagree but a boycott will achieve little IMO other than damage the club in the long term. Fans who stay away get out of the habit of going to football and then they are lost forever - and we don't have the population or fans base in the area to replace them.

Proper protests - and you know what I mean by that - is the only way to get rid of this lot and show they are not wanted, or at least in the short term the useless lump of a CEO. 

6 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Theres no way we're going down... Cardiff themselves are appalling and 14th, we're 16th. There are just so many rubbish teams, as long as we defend competently (and the signs on that are good) we will stay up.

I wish I had your confidence. There's so many sub-standard players in the Rovers team. Looking at the fixtures to the end of the season we're going to have to take a point or 2 off the top teams and I can't see how we're capable of doing that 

Blimey, that was grim. Two desperately poor teams. Can we hang on to survive? It's going to be close

29 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Yeah this sums it up for me really. I agree with Gav that I prefer this team to that one that lost in WI, but they got themselves into a fabulous position where they didn't need to take risks in this last test. Lots of mistakes were made but we simply needed to bat long, partly to score enough runs, but also to give the bowlers a rest. It took a special sort of idiocy to lose that heavily from that position. And don't get me started on that crazy declaration at Edgbaston last year that, in my opinion, cost us the Ashes. Our best batter was still at the crease and we had less than 400 on the board FFS!

So, in summary we need to retain a bit of pragmatism at times, hand-in-hand with the aggressive stuff.

Reading the papers yesterday there was the usual "we don't want boring draws" nonsense disregarding the fact some of the most tense, nervous and exciting Test matches I can remember have been draws - the rearguard Ashes action by Anderson and Panesar in Cardiff one that immediately springs to mind.

Edgbaston was a classic case of where the aggressive, win-in-style and all costs Bazball mentality doesn't make sense and was very costly and yesterday in India led to a record England defeat. Bazball is on a knife-edge IMO - another performance like that and it will be discredited. 

Just now, sverrehh said:

Looking at the tight fixture-list I am worried about the depth of this squad. Trondstad is putting in shift after shift. Do we have a player that can step in if he gets injured?

No. But we did have. He's now at Ipswich

I wonder if the "nice" Sam Gallagher is sitting at home watching Morris of Luton giving an object lesson in how to be a not-so-nice but very effective centre forward

They just shrug it off and say they'd rather lose than fight it out for a draw or even make the score at least reasonable respectable. England may win the next Test or more likely they will not but even if they do it doesn't excuse the shoddy and unacceptable play in this Test.  

India showed how it is possible to be attacking and aggressive yet play sensibly at the same time, reining the shots in at moments of danger and rebuilding after losing wickets. The way England are playing is not Test cricket to my mind. It's Bazball bollocks

India showing how to play attacking cricket but being sensible at the same time, defending when necessary and not giving wickets away and throwing away an advantage. Bazball is great when it works but is high risk and just as likely to fail. Heavy defeat on the cards now

England threw away a strong overnight position and India were without Ashwin too. Poor but par for the course under this regime. Hard to win this from here 

Same here unfortunately

6 minutes ago, Mercer said:

IMO, Broughton has made one stand out signing (SS), three or four average ones (Hyam, Tronstad, Siggy) and the rest have been virtually useless.  Is it any wonder Broughton has gone into hiding after another shambolic window?  If matters are 'out of his control' he should feckin 'man up' and walk and there would be more respect for him. 

I'd put Siggy in the useless bracket. I know he's got a few goals to his name but he hides out on the wing where he offers no attacking threat and absolutely hates the physical stuff. I'll never forget the game at Millwall where he ran around whingeing to the ref about being elbowed for about an hour before Tomasson dragged him off.

And his running style is like a chicken with a banger (ne for the old folks) up his derriere. Makes me laugh

Travis is a limited player in the same way Tronstad is but his fighting qualities were sorely lacking at Birmingham and with the team and squad struggling with form and injuries he'd be a first pick again now if he'd hung around. With Ipswich on fire though why would he want to come back?  

Preston players said it was men v boys in the game at Ewood and I can’t see this being any different given even our “men” aren’t that tough and some of them downright weak physically. Sadly I think it’s a case of how many Preston score and us battling to keep the score line respectable.  Preston 4 Rovers 0

I made a point of watching Gallagher in particular last night. For a man of his size and athleticism he is very weak and does not pose any physical threat. He won a couple of flick-on headers but usually didn't  have the aggression to outmuscle their centre halves. 

He's also not mentally alert, always seemingly a yard off the pace, never quite there in front of the defender to shield the ball or latch on to through balls. He chased a good one in the second half that would have put him through on goal but again just wasn't tough enough to get ahead of the defender 

Basically he's seems a "nice" boy who doesn't relish the tough stuff that forwards have to do. Defenders must love playing against him. If I were Eustace I'd order Hyam and Co to give him a kicking in training., just to get a reaction. 

5 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Parts of that are absolutely true, but I don’t know how you’re arriving at relegation being a certainty, when we’re seven points clear of the drop zone and two of those teams play each other tonight….

Who are we going to beat between now and the end of the season - honestly?

25 minutes ago, philipl said:

Have I missed Harry Leonard getting injured?

He is a natural finisher and header and that last gasp header would probably have been a goal if Harry had been the one with the chance.

Really Philip?

I don’t think he’s any better, another player who is out of his depth in the championship.

We have a whole group of them, I don’t need to name them as everyone knows who they are. 

What was Hedges playing at last night? In the first half hd didn’t do a single thing right and in the second half (I think it was him) he couldn’t even take a throw in properly, throwing the ball out of play! 

Birmingham fans were calling us a s@@@ team towards the end and it was hard to disagree.

Losing to the likes of QPR and Birmingham and lucky not to lose against Rotherham.. all teams at the bottom is relegation form. Tough games ahead too. It’s hard not to see us going down

9 minutes ago, RVRVRS said:

Hoof ball, was painful

Rovers have clearly been told by Eustace to play long balls to Gallagher in the hope of picking up the second ball. The problem with that is Gallagher is weak as a kitten and has no physical presence and is always but always a yard off the pace.

I was hoping we’d kick on after the Stoke game but tonight was as depressing as anything I can remember 

And it’s s near 3 hour drive home