I was very close to suggesting that, Rankin Costello in front of Brittain. It was just that I wanted to keep Moran and Szmodics and bring in Sigurdsson. Ennis will not be deemed fit enough to start and Szmodics is never a striker whilst Telalovic is obviously not the answer so maybe we could go with Sigurdsson as the striker who looks quite strong and then Moran left, Rankin Costello right and Szmodics in behind.

Wahlstedt Brittain Hill Hyam Pickering Tronstad Rankin Costello Moran Szmodics Sigurdsson Ennis Assuming Wharton is out, otherwise put him in for Rankin Costello. Could do with more balance, Hill isnt a right back and did well although looked slightly awkward out of position. Get an hour out of Ennis. A 5th loss in a row would be a huge blow and at a normal club raise a tiny bit of pressure on the manager. Must win.

Seems a strange time to say that we dont get results without Rankin Costello when he started yesterday and we lost. And he has played many of the last 20 or 21 games of which we have won 5. He is a good player although the problem at the moment is where to play him. Brittain should play right back where he isnt forced to come inside. Maybe worth a shot wide right.

Definitely considering that they are so low in the table. To not sack him, that makes sense. But a long new deal already doesnt.

Because of how crazy Chansiri is, people naturally have sided with Moore but we dont know what his wage demands are. I am not convinced that hes a good manager and he may have been asking for silly money, who knows. One thing I am sure of is that Paul Ince would be a truly awful appointment. He has the best agent and/or lives well off his name as a footballer if he ever gets another job. Even Neil Warnock would struggle to keep that set of players up, especially now.

A source of blame again missed...

His stock wont be too high at the moment with us languishing. Main factor is obviously out of his hands but he isnt helping himself either.

Some stuff about people supposedly overreacting. We are 20th in the league with an average of a point a game, and have lost 4 in a row. What do people expect? You can give examples of teams who have pushed on from poor form, but there will be equally examples of teams who havent suddenly won game after game.

Not good enough, 4 losses on the trot, and a scrap incoming which im not convinced we have the bollocks for, certainly without the experience. Disallowed goal was the correct decision. We didnt create that much for all of the pretty passing. And terrible by Sigurdsson to not square it.

What a bizarre team. Must be 4 or 5 out of position.

The Glazers are obviously the main issue, but the manager is given loads of money and they have not progressed under Ten Hag. Thats before you start questioning his morals.

Could we end tomorrow in the bottom 3?

I feel like we will be "due to batter someone" for a while. We will struggle to batter anyone with our lack of goalscorers and constantly leaking goals.

Or less of a wild theory. He has been working towards how he (or Broughton, a problem with having this structure is it can mean a manager is expected to play a certain style) wants to play and is reluctant/too stubborn to change that idea in any way even if it works better in theory than in practice.

Why did the club expect a thousand or two less than against Walsall when we were playing a side 2 divisions higher and 2 rounds further on? Even allowing for the fact of being oblivious to the people who would refuse to go if they closed the Blackburn End.

People will naturally moan when their team is getting beat repeatedly, sliding down the table and conceding as many as anyone. None of the missing players are first team defenders, and I am not convinced its even a "big crop." Ennis is out but seemingly this will be the norm. Aside from that its been the injury prone Gallagher and Hedges.

Its not bad luck.

Was Waggott even here when Coyle was?

Travis is really good at winning the ball back high up. Problem is at the moment that we already have so many more players high too.

Hes definitely a perfect employee for Venkys. Thats why he likely will be kept on as long as he wants. And when he goes, he will probably be replaced by someone similar.

We have become more and more attacking as the season has gone on, our only clean sheet ws at Watford with totally different tactics. Rankin Costello isnt too dissimilar to Brittain in defensive capability. He had a shocker at right back v Hull where he was responsible for the 1st goal.

I think both of the centre backs look really poor but my point is that both were very good last year when they were being adequately protected and I feel like any of the 4 would struggle in the current tactics.

But we clearly didnt play our best football, or moreso our most effective football, as this season has continued to demonstrate. The football is even "prettier" on the eye but its not effective. Kaminski was first choice in pre season and there was an expectation that if he was here, he would have started. But either way, we are weaker without him. He played more than Pears last season. Even if Pears did then play every game this season, we are still weaker. Ayala started half the games last season to be fair and was not injured for all of the ones he didnt.

Hyam has been poor this season, both be and Carter have been crap. Now obviously players can and will have changes in form, but to me thats no coincedence considering how we are playing as a team. Both are being left far too exposed, they dont have the protection we had last season. One of Hyams main weaknesses is that he is slow, you leave him to defend one on one and he will naturally be vulnerable. He also doesnt strike me at all like a leader so maybe with the expectation of being one with who left in the summer (perhaps especially Ayala) and the young group we have left is not ideal.

It does, and I have no doubt that he should certainly not be in the position he is in. But relevant to the conversation and the current problems. Club wise, the owners continue to run us into the ground and have left us massively lacking. And obviously relevant to yesterday, we continue to slide down the table playing naively gung ho football leaving us with the worst goals against column in the division. It just seems a particularly trivial and strange thing to focus on. And relevant specifically to him, the ticket side of things and attendances have been piss poor throughout his tenure, he shows no signs of learning lessons, prices have gone up this season, he closed a stand for the Cardiff game, another bundle has been released at £40 for 2 games which he has already been told and surely should have already realised dont work, supporter engagement to get more people attending is non existent, surely if you want to focus specifically on him, the pedantics regarding whether the bus is being leased or bought is still well down the list of concerns.