Very frustrating afternoon and another occasion on which we throw away a 2 goal lead which isn't good enough. Think that Mowbray got his tactics wrong today, 3 at the back didn't work and Van Hecke didn't impress me. Lenihan also had to play left centre back in a 3 when he is usually right in a 2 and you could tell that he was uncomfortable. We invited pressure for too long in the second half, the first goal was coming for a while and when it did, a second was inevitable. Edun was very hit and miss too, nearly put them through in the first minute and lost the ball quite a few times trying to take risks, although he did also do some positive bits of play. Nyambe was fine as was Ayala, but for all the talk of being more defensively solid this year, 2 clean sheets is piss poor and simply not good enough in giving us solid foundations, Kaminski was also shaky and his distribution is poor. Rothwell deserved man of the match, lets see if he can follow it up with some consistency. Buckley was stupid for picking up a needless yellow and could have been sent off, and Travis I am unconvinced suits that role as the deepest of the 3. Dolan was fairly ineffective, and Gallagher had a strange day, the ball just does not stick with him, poor touch (which led to a Coventry goal) and constantly offside, he is not clever at all. That being said, great goal and assist so he did his job. The subs were questionable, Davenport again was poor and it should have been Johnson to bring us some experience, and I think a needless and huge risk was taken regarding rushing Brereton back into action. Poveda seems to be again getting stick, I thought in his first 3 games, 2 of which he started, he was piss poor. That being said, I actually thought today he was good, he did more than Dolan I would suggest and showed signs of spark. Numerous times when he got the ball or even prior to that, people around me were already critical, and having read on here since and also on twitter, I suspect that unfortunately his card is marked and that people have made up their minds. Now to clarify, that is not a criticism of a "lack of support" towards him, people suggesting the same about Brereton when he joined drives me mad, it is people sharing an opinion to their friends or online that Poveda is oblivious too, so no problem, but I thought he did well today.

If Burns is going to such a level, even acknowledging the inability due to the rules of a loan within the football league, it perhaps puts into perspective how far off he is deemed to first team Championship football.

I thought Carter was actually better at right back (he looked out of position but coped very well) earlier in the season than he was at centre back in the last 2 games. The chaos around him wont have helped but he himself was poor.

He was poor in the last 2 games, and anyway if we base on that logic, Van Hecke, Wharton, Johnson, Rankin Costello and Dack will never play this season as there will always be someone who has played more.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2021/october/14/boss-crosses-fingers-/ Ayala has missed a few days of training too. You know with him that a missed game is always around the corner, lets hope he is ok for Saturday. If not, give Van Hecke a start. Magloire was obviously out of his depth and as such there was understandably issues with cohesion in the defence in the last 2 games, but Carter himself was poor whilst acknowledging these difficulties.

On the bench for training?

If he is back in the UK on Saturday morning then he surely should be ok for Tuesday.

Worrying team news ahead of the weekend, Gallagher hasn't trained and is a big doubt, and Pickering and Dolan both have had tonsillitis. Lenihan and Nyambe are back, so the main issue will be scoring goals.

That highlighted sentence suggests that you are trying to provoke somewhat, the issue wasn't unreasonably high standards, he looked out of place when he did feature, my personal expectations that season were just for him to contribute with a few goals and assists and look a threat, which he didn't. Nobody expected hat tricks. I have no recollection of him winning that award that you mention, indeed he started the season at a mid table Forest side unable to make the 18 man squad. Ultimately, if a player costing such a sum wasn't close to being in the first 11, then as was the case, the question was should we have spent that money when we had much more pressing matters. Graham was player of the season and Dack was scoring goals with regularity so he certainly shouldn't have started ahead of them. We played a 4-2-3-1 which didn't suit him as much to play wide as the 4-3-3 does, Armstrong had just come off a very successful half season and we tended to play a "defensive winger" on the other side.

Has Rangers' European form shown Gerrard up? In the last 2 full seasons, they qualified from a group ahead of Feyenoord and Young Boys after winning some tricky qualifiers, before knocking out Braga before succumbing to Bayer Leverkusen in the last 16. In the season after, again they got to the last 16, knocking out Galatasaray last season, before topping a group unbeaten and ahead of Benfica.

Whether that was an obligation or merely an option to buy is unknown, and the potential to buy itself is merely speculation. And irrelevant because he didnt sign. And a very small matter amidst the overall point of a lack of plan throughout the last 10/11 years.

But equally you have to show enough to warrant more game time, and that you deserve regular starts. He certainly failed to do that.

The point I was making was that the way we have operated in the last 10 years has not been the most efficient way of working and have lacked a plan. Embargoes are not a necessity, they are a symptom of a poorly run club. It should be sell players, reinvest a chunk, keep the rest, continue consistently. Not splurge loads on big earners, then spend loads paying them up, then spending on cheaper players, holding on to every single one until we hit embargo, couple of years of struggle and no reinvestment, then occasional splurges on big assets, hold on until the last year, then finally sell one, then reinvest nothing again. Venkys out. Maja was a loan and I dont care about could haves and should haves. Is he here, no.

Splitting hairs. Point was that the overall Venkys tenure has been consistently lacking, this summer was at least the second in which an asset or assets were sold with zilch reinvested in a replacement. No consistency. Venkys out.

I don't have a problem with signing players with the primary intention of selling them on. The problem comes back to the owners, it needs to be consistently done, effectively done and repeatedly done. You sell one, you rein Have we really sold anyone using this process bar Armstrong? It is so inconsistent, regularly spending totally hits the buffers with no reinvestment, like when Armstrong went, and like when Cairney, Gestede etc were sold, often incompetence takes us into embargos too. It is never thought out properly. Those players were also sold cheap due to being under pressure to sell. You then start signing frees and loans and the whole process goes back 5 steps.

My lack of "belief" expressed on an internet messageboard makes no difference. Its just an opinion which I have based on a lack of goals in senior football. If everytime a goal threat was removed from a team, the team continued to score at the same rate, a goalscorer wouldnt be worth anything. I hope someone steps up top but I think its a genuine concern.

Not an issue of belief on my part, I think my concerns are very valid, objectively the attackers available have scored minimal goals between them. Armstrong stepped up but whilst the extent to his goalscoring was remarkable, he had scored plenty of goals in his career already including 20 in 1 season. Brereton is even more remarkable although he did score 7 last season. That won't happen anytime, I hope that someone will step up to the mark but I am not being unreasonable or baselessly pessimistic with my comments I don't think and I bet that many share my views.

I dont think we do have many goal threats remaining personally. Butterworth, Khadra, Poveda, Burns, no senior goals between them. Dolan has is it 5 League goals in his career. The likes of Rothwell, Buckley and Travis dont really chip in either. Maybe Gallagher who himself is very limited will be fit which would be helpful.

Urgh, negative, negative, negative, bla bla bla. I think its a fair, constructive point to suggest that the attackers that we have left with barely any goals between them is a worry in regards to where our goals are going to come from. Obviously I would take any win, a defence with more options and no Magloire gives us a better chance at one end, such a depleted and inexperienced front line reduces our chances at the other. Not negative, I think thats balanced. You implied that the loanees will come good with time, yet even with our 2 main goal threats out, Poveda would be unlikely to even come off the bench? When will he be of use? I never specifically said that I would drop Buckley, it was more aimed at the point that I hope that Mowbray doesnt try and be clever with Buckley as a false 9 or similar. And if that happened indefinitely with attackers then they wouldnt be worth so much. I think its a fair question with Brereton and Gallagher out.

Johnson might be important just because the team is so small without him, but it would have to be at the expense of one of the midfield 3, most likely Buckley.

Lampard seemingly in the run in for the job then purely based on his name and his playing career rather than his managerial history. Surely they can find someone perhaps across Europe with a far better CV/reputation than him. I find it hard to warm towards Newcastle at all and to be honest would find it hilarious if at all fell apart. The media and seemingly their fans seem to be entitled and see consistent Premier League finishes and 100m spent in the last few seasons as hardships and have treat Steve Bruce horribly in terms of personal insults when to me the job he has done is very similar at Premier League level to Rafa Benitez who for some reason they loved. If the money indeed is imminently coming, lets hope that it is spent poorly, that they chase the storybook manager ie Lampard and big name past it players and go down this season!

Wow, and this isn't a pop at your team selection specifically, but that is a dismal team in terms of goal threat, it must be as toothless as any team across the league, where are the goals there? You defended the loanees earlier and claimed that they will come good, surely they have to start if Gallagher misses out with Brereton also unavailable? If not, then when will they play? Also, Rankin Costello apparently is better from a wide position, surely he comes into the reckoning? Perhaps a front 3 of Dolan, Khadra and Rankin Costello? I know he crossed for the goal but Buckley is not a winger.

His starting lineup was quite attacking to be fair. Grealish, Sterling, Kane, Foden and Mount all starting.

Very poor all round including Southgate who was poor both with the balance of the starting 11 and also the very strange subs and tactical tweaks.

The big question for me around Grealish both at club and International level is whether he can adapt to being a smaller fish in a bigger pond. At Villa everything was built around him and geared around everyone working hard and feeding him at every available opportunity, and he is a maverick with real ability, both to draw fouls and to come up with magic. At City and for England, he fits in technically but can he be a player who is equally responsible for working, for pressing, to not be in a team where he is the primary source of flair, early days but a big question mark.