I’d go… Kaminski Carter Hyam Ayala Pickering Dolan Buckley A. Wharton Hedges Dack (c) Brereton Pears, S. Wharton, Edun, Harlock, Gallagher, JRC, Markanday Kaminski off for Pears the first time he fails to kick a ball over the half way line. However, I expect a back 3 with chasms throughout and random players as “wing backs” who will often be our most advanced players, our centre backs to have several thousand touches between them, and Pukki to score a hat trick with assists from our defenders.

Let’s not forget this is pretty much the same group of players that managed to completely collapse from February onwards last season. In fact we have now downgraded our on pitch leadership. Mowbray stuck with a failing plan, JDT looks to be even more stubborn. If we don’t have wholesale changes to the squad (we won’t), or we ditch the system and get back to basics (we won’t) I think we will plummet down the table at an even more rapid rate than we did last year. We are literally giving teams goals. We are approaching double figures of absolutely ridiculous, unforgivable, embarrassing goals to concede. The sort of goals that would’ve made a Danny Baker video special or been ripped apart by Baddiel and Skinner in years gone by. There is nothing to suggest we are working on addressing this. Tomasson didn’t seem to think that was a problem yesterday, it was all about the attacking players movement. Thank god we are currently third. The points we’ve amassed so far will come in very handy. We won’t get near another 36 points out of our remaining games.

Definitely no coincidence. It’s been deliberately contrived for years. Since the mania of “Tika-taka” everyone has become obsessed with it being “the right way to play”. Every UEFA coaching licence is based around it. I worked with a number of coaches doing their A and B qualifications a few years ago where they needed to put on sessions. Every single one of them was a variation on the same thing and started with the keeper passing it 6 yards. It’s the reason Sean Dyche is currently unemployed. It’s the reason certain players are massively over/under valued in terms of transfer fees. The rules of the game are being changed to accommodate this style of play. Tomasson and loads of other managers are passing on very little of what they did during their playing careers. Anyone who played the game at any level from Sunday league to Champions league would’ve been hauled over the coals for making one pass across their back line and putting their team mates under pressure, up until about 2005 - but now they are instructed to do it. It’s book learning. All it will lead to is the teams with the best (most suited to this style) players winning leagues and qualifying for European competitions. Rovers should be bucking the trend rather than embracing it, cos clearly we are incapable of doing it competently. I reckon that Tony Pulis Stoke side of 10-15 years ago that were the antithesis of this new obsession would easily get a top 4 finish in the premier league this season.

Jared Harlock should be integrated into the first team too. Can pick a pass, has some bottle about him, captains the U23s. He’s 20 now so more than old enough. I’d have him in over Travis any day.

Personally I don’t see anything good about it. I think everyone playing that way is killing the game and making it incredibly boring. Purely from a Rovers point of view it is costing us more goals than it creates. I don’t think he will ever ditch the idea of wanting to play this way and will persist with it to the teams detriment. Luckily we got more points on the board than I expected before he has truly put his stamp on the team.

I think it’s gone beyond stubbornness and into arrogance at this point. I think it’ll get a lot worse before it gets any better too.

Don’t disagree, but Hyam’s honeymoon period is over now. Started like a house on fire but perhaps there is a reason we got him quite cheaply and he’s never managed a Scotland cap. Shite today.

The more Tomasson puts his stamp on this team, the worse it gets. He is arrogantly sticking to this stupid “philosophy” that anyone who isn’t just trying to play the superfan or football expert can see is completely detrimental to us. PNE looked as though they’d spent the last couple of weeks getting fit and ready. We were miles off. A fortnight in the sun presumably practicing unopposed passing drills.

Snowing quite heavily at the moment. Should be on but I’m getting Millwall deja vu.

Sapped of any real enthusiasm thanks to the World Cup break and (more importantly) the Dingle debacle. I wouldn’t be very surprised if it gets called off as nobody had bothered turning the undersoil heating on.

We are terrible at it. Most of the time when we try to play it out from the back we don’t actually get “out”. If we are lucky Kaminski alleviates the panic by kicking it out for a throw in, when we aren’t lucky we concede possession to the opposition in a dangerous position and sometimes they score.

9-10

Goal music… Jesus. People moaning about it on a messageboard seems the entirely appropriate response. Messaging the CEO to ask him why they are suddenly playing it (there is obviously no real good reason by the way) is ridiculous. If someone feels that strongly about it the fans forum is 100% the place to raise it.

I’ve had a bit of a break since the World Cup has been on, but some of the stuff on here is frightening. And just as I’m typing this Chaddy has responded to Mike. @chaddyrovers do you really think it’s in any way useful for every single fan who has an issue or grievance to book themselves a meeting with Waggott? It’s definitely extremely unhelpful when individuals go in there and tell him there is no issue with our current ticket pricing (or anything else) - when we are seeing record low crowds there is obviously a big problem. Not that @Mike Eneeds me to speak for him, but the Rovers Trust regularly meet with Waggott and discuss things, same applies to the fans forum. We are in constant discussion regarding pricing, ticket offerings, growing support, marketing the club, and much more. I’d personally be very happy to discuss our ideas with anyone on here, and would love all your input on what we are working on. I’ll also ensure any specific points are included and raised in one of our scheduled meetings with Waggott. Our aim is to ensure all supporters have meaningful input into the running of the club. A unified voice representing a large number of fans is what we want to provide.

Perfect! Thanks for this. I’m after a goalkeeper shirt for my nephew who is little. Turns 6 in the new year so hopefully the 7-8 will be ok

Thanks Mark. I was worried I might have to get a bigger size than I normally would so hopefully it won’t drown him!

I’ve got a couple of questions, wondered if anyone could possibly help me out… Does anyone know what the smallest size available in the goalkeeper shirts is? Or even if there are still kids ones available for sale in the club shop? And for anyone who has bought a shirt for a child, how do they size up? Cheers!

What’s wrong with judging him on his performances to date? They have been dreadful so far, and if he continues to get chances in the side he needs to do much better. This whole idea of judging players and managers at the end of the season/after x transfer windows/in x years time is the sort of nonsense thinking that allowed Mowbray to cling on to his job way longer than he deserved to.

Or for us to use our limited resources really wisely… LOL!

Just one point, there were no parachute payments back then. Can’t disagree with any of the rest of your post though. We should expect you to enjoy your current superiority over us, we dished it out for long enough. For me there is definitely respect (maybe grudging) for how Burnley bucked the trend and many would argue defied the odds for a number of years, staying in the premier league and even getting into Europe. It is galling to me that all the things that we were prior to Venky’s - pretty much self sufficient, “punching above our weight”, upheld as the model of a well run club - were what you became. I have no respect for Venky’s. They are wholly responsible for an almost unthinkable reversal of fortunes in such a short amount of time.

I’m usually pretty indifferent to the England team, and I don’t usually watch much football on TV these days - the World Cup is usually an exception though. Bollocks to that this time round. I always get annoyed by people who don’t give a toss about football for 3 years and 11 months suddenly catching “world cup fever”, then there’s the minor annoyance of it disrupting our domestic season. I could live with both of those things, but the slavery, homophobia, attitudes to women, and general mass human rights violations that go in on that particular hell hole means I won’t be bothering. I’m also sick of football at the moment thanks to Sunday, but I might get down to a Clitheroe game over the next couple of weeks.

Good point. We didn’t even play to his on Sunday.

Starts with Kaminski. He is terrible with the ball at his feet. Brittain looks completely all over the place on the left. All our centre backs are capable defenders but none are great ball players - hardly surprising in Ayala’s case especially… the suggestion of a centre back passing a goal kick to a keeper would’ve been laughed at when his career was starting. The only player whose strength we play to is Brereton’s. Literally every other player is asked to prioritise things they are crap at.

The clattering was a definite booking, but the first push? No way. Barnes lightly touched Kaminski’s chest which caused him to fall to the ground holding his face. Biggest issue with the ref was missing two blatant corners. And just have a read back, there are definitely people making out we lost because of the referee rather than our own ineptitude.

For years I laughed at some Burnley fans I know who claimed we only beat them 5-0 because of the ref. They are the ones laughing now though, and our fans making similar claims about the ref are embarrassing. No ref in any game anywhere would have issued a red card for the push after the goal. And disallowing the goal would only ever happen in the Chaddyverse. Only one penalty decision is being talked about, Brereton might have given one away too. Our players rolling around and pretending to be hurt doesn’t do any good. Ref might have thought a booking was in order if someone stood up to Barnes instead.