Dolan good so far. He’s not the problem here.

Profligate in front of goal. It’s purely that. Give Bloxham and Gilsenan a go.

Sounds like a broken nose or concussion for Hyam

Travis and Hedges off for Garrett and Gilsenan please!

Our corners are more of a threat than an opportunity

Yeah, I will be amazed if Markanday doesn’t leave in January. Well down the pecking order. While he scored a goal against Harrogate I think he was certainly our least effective player, quite a few attacks broke down with him.

That lineup picks itself today. Interesting choices on the bench. Happy to see Gilsenan there as I think he’s a better option than Markanday.

We sabotaged ourselves with a dreadful first half against Rotherham and a moment of madness by Pickering against Hull, but it’s been a good start to the season and with a little more of the discipline we showed against Watford we could’ve been on for a perfect start. A few players will have given the manager something to think about last night and Moran should start. I think @sharpysharps86has got the line up spot on. Garrett is really knocking at the door, but Wharton and Travis remain in on merit. I’m going to be optimistic and predict a win. Not quite sure where the goals come from, perhaps our new superstar striker who will be joining tomorrow (told you I’m being optimistic) continues the debut goal off the bench trend.

Here’s my take… Wahlstedt - had so little to do, but made one smart save. Distribution looks good. Seems a bit of a character and enjoyed the “Leo Leo” chants at the end. Gamble - clearly tasked with keeping it simple, did fine but not knocking on the first team door. Hyam/Carter - both ruthlessly efficient, Hyam beaten just once, Carter great on the ball. Wharton - much more like it. Seemed to relish the leadership role. Rock solid. Pickering - spent most of the game in central areas. Did it well. Trostad - great vision, played some lovely stuff, breaks play up very nicely too. Couple of misplaced passes but no big deal. Doesn’t have the energy of some of other midfield options but clearly a clever player. Buckley - on that showing he certainly has a future with us! Fantastic. Played some incredible balls, busier than normal. They will be having nightmares about our midfield for years. Garrett - phenomenal. Was absolutely all over the park, never gave the ball away. Really excited by his development, he’s come on leaps and bounds. Used the ball incredibly well and won it back often. Looks a proper box to box midfielder, and he took up a lot of very advanced positions at times. Bossed the game right up until the end. Blotted his copybook with one daft lunge that saw him booked. Markanday - a few of our attacks broke down with him early on, overplayed a bit. Goal settled him down. Doesn’t fit the slick quick passing game as well as others though. Gallagher - led the line well, never gave them a moments peace. Better with his back to goal last night. Put a very presentable chance about 3 streets away though. Still think he’s happiest out wide. Moran - wow! Clearly an incredibly talented player and you can see why we were so keen on him. Fantastic touch and feet. I thought he had a first 10 minutes to forget against Watford, but showed his ability once he’d settled. Clearly he wasn’t completely up to speed on how we play, but he’s picked it up in under a week! I’ve no doubt he will start on Saturday, prototype JDT ball player. Gilsenan - there was no doubt in my mind that freekick was hitting the back of the net the second he picked the ball up, you could see the confidence and you could just tell. He wanted the penalty too! Had a bit of a quiet spell before the end but that was down to all the changes and us becoming a bit less structured. Must be getting close to a league debut. Bloxham - rapid. Chased everything down. Lovely goal. By the time he was on the game was a bit different, but he can contribute this season I think. Edmondson - seems to have quite an old head on young shoulders. Very sensible. Nice to see him get a goal and he’ll be among our youngest ever scorers. Like Bloxham it’s incredibly difficult to judge with the game being almost farcical by the time they got on. Overall a brilliant night. It’s obvious we have a playing style under JDT that people will have to be able to deal with. Our midfield was frighteningly good and Harrogate were completely shellshocked after about 15 minutes. We terrorised them. One bugbear - Corners! Scott Wharton went up for every single one. Every single one went short. The second pass always went back to a defender in the half way line. They were rubbish! (I needed a Wharton goal for a bet where I’d have won £500, so surely a single cross wasn’t too much to ask!) Nice to see us breaking positive records nowadays! Things are infinitely better under JDT than Mowbray. Promotion under JDT is inevitable, so we need to pray Venky’s don’t sabotage it.

Yes, Hyam on the bench.

I’d go with that. Potentially some very interesting options on the bench. I’d expect Bloxham to get some minutes. Hilton, Hyam, Davies, Montgomery, Travis, Dolan, Bloxham, Nsangou, Leonard. Presuming there is something occurring with Buckley .

It was definitely had a big occasion feel to it. I’d always said I wasn’t going to the new Wembley til Rovers got there, but my brother evidently got sick of waiting and really wanted to go to AEW. My immediate realisation was it’s not that new any more, and unsurprisingly, being up in the nosebleed seats isn’t great for actually watching wrestling (or football I imagine). It was busy but not anywhere near full, strangely there was barely anyone under 18 in the entire stadium. Crowd had its moments but wasn’t nearly as lively as I expected. Perhaps this was due to the length of the show. The set and production values were fantastic. The music rights and pyro costs will have been into the millions. I’ve been to WWE, TNA and WCW events before, obviously not on this scale, but this was on recent WWE level. I was reliant on the big screens to see what was going on and the camera work was largely ok, missed a few bits but not bad. The in ring highlight was the CM Punk v Samoa Joe match. The Stadium Stampede was dreadful and the crowd were bored throughout it. Saraya winning and celebrating with the family was cool. There were way too many false finishes in every match for my liking with everyone kicking out of everything over and over again which makes it all seem a bit formulaic. I also wish they’d enforce rules. This really hurt the FTR v Bucks match. I’m glad they kept the daftness to a level lower than I expected (Jack Perry and Moxley aside) and I’m glad they resisted the temptation to do anything too ludicrous. However, far too many hardcore matches/spots. Jericho wasn’t as insufferable as I was expecting, Sting was a great bit of nostalgia (especially with the entrance), I don’t get the hype with Ospreay and found Omega’s match boring. The acclaimed were great fun. MJF loses so much of what makes him great as a baby face, but he’s come a long way since I last saw him on these shores and bought him a pint of dark fruits in the Stanley Arms in Preston! Overall it was a great occasion and the in ring action was a mixed bag but leaning towards decent overall. This was special due to a 30 year hiatus, doing another in 12 months is not a smart move.

Around 1,030 I think

Just been to my first Rovers Women’s game and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Definitely be going again.

We need to be a lot better defensively here and the enforced change to the back 4 is not ideal. Gallagher has to start and Ennis must be getting close to one. I’d go… Pears Brittain Carter Hyam JRC Travis Wharton Hedges Szmodics Gallagher Ennis Travis just gets the nod as Tronstad is still getting up to speed, but based on pre-season and Walsall I’d like to see Garrett get a few more chances too. Defensive options on the bench look very limited. I’d have Gilsenan among the subs before Markanday.

Anybody else going to All In?

I genuinely feel like we can feel hard done by coming away with nothing from that game. A day to forget for all the defenders. Pickering losing his head was costly. JRC with his worst performance in a long time, although he was massively hamstrung with us being a man down and not able to do what he is best at. Hyam was very poor, I’m still to be convinced by Brittain, Carter did pretty well until he switched off for a moment. We could’ve done with a Danny Batth type today. Pears nailed on MOTM at 0-0 (haven’t seen a replay yet). Travis showed his strengths and weaknesses in equal measure. Some great moments (usually when facing their goal) and some absolute shockers (usually when facing our goal). Gallagher was excellent today, playing from a wide position, which is where I think we’ll see him going forward. Ennis impressed too. Hopefully they are both fit enough to start next week. Looks like the massive amounts of injury time was a one off gimmick for the first round of matches only. Few refereeing decisions I want to see back that looked badly wrong. No complaints on the big one though, Pickering had to go. A centre back and a full back are an absolute must asap. Maybe even more so than a centre forward.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Gallagher in one of the wide forward roles tomorrow. I’d love to see a JRC and Wharton midfield partnership. Big test with Hull quietly doing good business and off the back of a good win last week, but I think our home advantage makes us favourites. I’m going 2-1

I’d be reluctant to push JRC out wide. For the 75 or so minutes he’s played central midfield he’s been massively influential there. A lot of his best work from fullback comes from when he drifts into a central midfield area and I wouldn’t sacrifice the massive impact he has for the sake of Brittain. Also, Brittain stays a lot wider than JRC when he plays and they’d probably get in each others way if they were occupying the same wing.

I think Dolan comes in for a lot of harsh criticism on here, but he’s pissed me off the last couple of weeks. That stupid attempt at the open goal with the outside of his boot was ridiculous… just needed a simple finish. When he keeps it simple he’s good. The attempts at the outrageous that never come off are getting really tiresome now. I think it needs to be an either/or with him and Markanday, and to me Dolan is still a fair way ahead. Hedges needs a start next week for sure though. JRC attracted quite a bit of Premier League interest with his performances last season, but the general consensus is he isn’t fast enough to play full back in the Premier League. He’s very keen to show what he can do further forward. Again yesterday he grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and completely dictated things. I know they were a man down, but JRC and Wharton could very quickly become the best midfield in the league. It’s interesting that the first option was to move him forward despite Buckley, Tronstad and Garrett all being on the bench. I’m not fully convinced by Brittain, but he is definitely a brilliant attacking outlet when we are dominating possession. Hopefully a decent run in the side will just sharpen him up a bit and help him retain the ball a bit better.

All that shows is that relying completely on stats leads to delusion. They deservedly hammered us that day. We were shite.

That’s completely daft Philip. Our display against them at their place last season was disgraceful and embarrassing. I’m guessing the stats show we had lots of possession, which was 90% centre backs playing one-two’s. We didn’t put a tackle in all afternoon and were completely hopeless in the final third. I’ll be furious if we ever turn in a performance reasonably similar to that one ever again.

Enjoyable evening out that. Some food for thought for the rest of the transfer window too. I’m now firmly of the opinion that a centre back is our number one priority. I’d also like to see a left back come in. Batty struggled, and while I maintain high hopes for him in the future I think it’s a season too early, probably needs keeping round rather than loaning out as the way the first team play seemed difficult for him. Don’t think we need another winger, Gilsenan looks ready to contribute. Very good performance from him. Ennis looks a proper centre forward, good movement, worked hard, got into some good positions, a promising debut and a centre forwards goal. I’m going to rave about Jake Garrett a bit, thought he was excellent and the change from 12 months ago is immense. He was very neat and tidy, very controlled, worked hard, broke forward and got a nice goal. My MOTM. Buckley was largely poor but showed a couple of bits of real quality. Adam Wharton looked well off the pace, showed a few bits of real quality, but some real sloppiness and resorting to diving in. Brittain very hit and miss too. If Hedges had a bit more quality and composure in and around the box he’d be playing for a top half premier league team.

1-0 JRC

1. Who will win this year’s Championship ? Leicester 2. Who will claim runners-up spot ? Southampton 3. Who will finish rock bottom in the Championship ? Plymouth Argyle 4. Where will Rovers finish this season in the league ? 5th* 5. How many league goals will Rovers score this season ? 57 6. Who will win the BRFCS POTY ? A.Wharton *based on hope more than expectation