because of boxing day

Loved the way Ohashi knocked the second one in from 1 yard to qualify for his goalscorer's bonus. There's no dosh for an OG!!

Yet another example of the loyal supporter being treated as a cash cow customer whereas there used to be a relationship with the Club in which those supporters were recognised as invested in the Club, not just the matchday shirts.

Joseph Tyjon and Sergeant up front could be a potent goal mix. Each has different skills and physiques that could be a good blend on the night.

First awareness of Jayden Sergeant for me was a strong varied wing play performance in these extended highlights of an impressive under 18s win v Liverpool. No pressure but reminds me of some of the no 11 skills of Duffer.

That's harsh on Hedges. In fairness Hedges was not in the mix for the 2 goal header challenges in the Derby match. Miller and McLoughlin were outmanouvered by Morris for the first and Alebiosu was wrong side and not strong enough for the second.

Miller played the full 90 mins of both Australia matches during the international break with the second match apparently only kicking of in New York at 1.30am UK time on Wednesday. Jet lag and general need to recover indicates to me that an evening kick off tomorrow would be too soon for him to play any part let alone be a first choice. Pratt and Litherland I assume may be called up to the matchday squad/team. It would be beyond any sense at all if Gueye was to be drafted in as a makeshift CB......wouldn't it??

On Hedges. He’s far from a world beater but I don’t share the very negative slant adopted by some posters. I share the view of each of our last 4 regarded pro manager/coaches Mowbray JDT Eustace and Ismail who undoubtedly trust/ed him to do the team player job that he never appears to shirk.

The blue and white shirts on match day are My Team but BRFC is not my Club under this ownership.

At the moment he looks like a Buckley Mk2 needing a little too much time on the ball before progressing play but I agree that there is a player in there if he adapts to a quicker game pace in the regular congested midfield battleground. Not sure that our midfield would be sufficiently robust for the typical Championship midfield battles with both Tavares and Cantwell in the starting eleven.

Rain and wind makes it like a regular home game at the Bet365 for Stoke.

Lifted my spirits pre match just now. Asked Alexa to play Supertramp “It’s Raining Again.”

"Oh ye of little faith," Merce. Maybe baby steps but i saw groundsman yesterday pm using a machine that appeared to be punching deepish holes in the playing surface every metre or so presumably intending/hoping to avoid the pools that formed during the deluge in the Ipswich game.

Yuri did well to pick himself up and carry on after Hirst's extremely late tackle early on last Sat. Ribeiro gets through a huge number of yards per match and his numbers could indicate he needs a rest to avoid injury risk.

Shout out for the Ticket Office staff guy this morning who very quickly grasped my difficulty and emailed me a copy of the original season ticket link which easily loaded into my Apple Wallet to resolve my issue caused by erroneously deleting the complete digital pass.

They’ve put a warning (for numpties like me) this pm on the X Rovers page against deleting the digital ticket from Apple Wallet. Woops. Looked like I was just deleting the expired Norwich ticket! Of course they’ve closed the ticket office at 4pm to frustrate the necessary remedial action advice!! My retained ST card from last season should get me in.