Finally we look to have ditched the cursed Mowbray formation. If Morton or Wharton ends up being a false 9 though, I’m going to cry.

There were loads of comments like this coming from Waggott and the Broughton all summer. I didn’t realise when they were talking about continuing Mowbray’s work this would extend to stubbornly playing the same stupid system he was obsessed with. We need to exorcise the ghost of Mowbray and that should start with binning this stupid forward line set up.

At the time it was stated it would’ve been logical to have wanted Matt Smith in the side ahead of Brereton. For two years he was absolutely dreadful and even the people who were his biggest advocates at that time were basing their views on hope rather than as a result of anything he was doing on the pitch. Everyone is delighted he turned it round. He will no doubt continue his career at a higher placed club than us, rather than dropping down the pyramid which initially looked likely. However, if we lose him on a free we’ll have spent 7 million on a player with no return, without troubling the playoffs - let alone getting promoted. Regardless of the fairytale, and no matter how many YouTube documentaries get made, that would put him firmly in the bad signings bracket.

How was he Joe? Something came up and I missed the match unfortunately. From the brief bits I’ve seen of Markanday he looks creative but inconsistent. I worry how that would translate against first team championship opposition, but I’d certainly have him ahead of Hirst if we must insist on wide strikers. Not sure he’d get ahead of Dolan or Hedges though, and continued use of Gallagher there is a different discussion.

Obviously I know it won’t happen, but I’m sick to death of a number of our players, so I’d go with this: Kaminski Brittain Hyam Wharton Pickering Dolan Wharton Edun Hedges Dack Brereton Pears, Carter, Garrett, Gallagher, Harlock, Mola, Markanday

Yep. But that’s modern football apparently. Give me “dinosaur tactics” any day!

Looked like one tonight!

Some shocking similarities to last season and Tony Mowbray, whether people want to acknowledge them or not. - Ineffective use of a false 9 - Wide strikers who don’t get in the box enough - Players shunted in at right back - Inability to gain points from losing positions - Nonsensical substitutions - Stubbornly sticking with a failing plan - Only one way of playing - Ponderous build up play - Asking players to constantly do things they are naturally bad at

So Hirst actually gets beyond his man, beats him again to kill a bit of time… still nobody can be arsed getting in the box

5-2-3 is shit. It was shit under Mowbray, and it’s shit under Tomasson. Leaves us light in midfield and nothing in the box.

Why has Brereton switched over to the right? He’s literally the only forward we have who suits this formation, and that’s because he’s effective when he’s cutting in off the left.

23 minutes and Brereton had only had 6 touches. 5 of them being in our half. Sums the performance up so far.

Perhaps Nyambe saw the writing on the wall regarding game time when he met with JDT. If the manager made it clear he’d regularly use attacking players at right back, and if we were already in for Brittain, it would make sense he’d feel it was time to move on.

It’s a really difficult case to make when you look at the managers who have got promoted out of the Championship in recent years. The majority have done it in their first season. Very few have taken more than 2 full seasons in charge and those that are the exception tend to have yo-yo’d, or in the case of Wilder, brought the team up from league one. ”Patience” and “slow build” might sound nice and rational, but there’s very little evidence to suggest that it leads to promotion. Mowbray is a prime example - he was never going to take us up.

Family weekend away so I didn’t make the game today. Just caught the highlights and it looks as they they made more of a game of it than the score lines suggests. The second goal was great. More of the same from Szmodics please! We can be good when we want. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to get a playoff spot, if things click and we can find a modicum of consistency there’s every chance.

It’s just occurred to me that Dolan must look an absolute world beater in training playing as a number 9, false or otherwise. Obviously he’s best deployed on the wing, but he’s pretty good at harassing centre backs when they are on the ball and pinching it off them. Judging by what we see on the pitch it’s what he wants our defenders working on. They are all so bad at it Dolan will have a field day every time.

Anthony Williams - young goalkeeper who I genuinely thought was going to be the next big thing but never managed an appearance for us. Saw him perform well many times for the youth and reserve teams, but what really stands out was watching him play for Wales U21s on a visit to see my family there. He made 2 penalty saves against Italy, the taker - a then unheard of Andrea Pirlo! I was convinced he would be challenging for the number one spot by the end of that season (he’d have done better than Fettis!), but he ended up at Hartlepool then Wrexham amongst others.

Totally agree with @roversfan99 on Morton. The only way he should be playing is if he is good enough to make the difference between us finishing top 6 or not… and he isn’t. We would absolutely be better off trying to get Buckley to play himself back into form, or to get Adam Wharton integrated quicker. It would also make more sense playing Jake Garrett who is the same age as him. As mentioned, it’s particularly nonsensical to pick Morton in what is being described as a season of transition. It’s still early days for JDT, but you can tell he’s starting to settle into it now. He’s got his favourites (Hyam, Pickering, Travis, Hedges and Brereton) who will play every game, and he’s clearly not a fan of others. The big concern is he seems absolutely married to this idea of pissing about with it at the back, and this “philosophy” being more important than results. He needs to address this pretty quickly, whether he’ll persist and hope things click or change his approach remains to be seen. The Burnley game will be something of a watershed. He could earn himself a lot of goodwill, but a bad result will fester all throughout the stupid World Cup break. That could be the point at where patience really starts to wear thin amongst the fanbase.

I kind of see the logic. Players at our current level these days are either worth a massive transfer fee or absolutely nothing. The players worth money are the ones that according to the standardised statistical analysis can pass a ball. Nobody cares about good headers of the ball at centre half or strong, quick fullbacks who can tackle, or skilful players with a bit of individuality… it’s all about boring ball retention. Goalscorers aren’t even at a premium anymore judging by the fact nobody would splash out on Brereton and the relatively modest fee City paid for Haaland. Unfortunately all our players are shit at it and rather than creating value it’s only currently highlighting their weaknesses. It’s probably reducing their market value.

I think it’s easy to forget just how good Shearer was that first half season, I’ve never seen anything like it. He and Rovers had our barren spell after the famous Norwich victory and I think he’d have scored another 20 in the second half of the season. There were a couple of other factors. Results weren’t great between Alan Wright getting injured and Le Saux coming in, and Tony Dobson didn’t last long. The other was Patrik Anderson. I’m not sure we utilised him effectively while Cowans was out and maybe he came to England a few years early. But the short answer is yes, we’d have done it.

Travis is becoming an utter disaster when facing towards our goal.

I agree with most of this Chaddy. There were a couple of occasions last night where Brittain got into good crossing positions. Unfortunately a combination of really poor movement and the cross being overhit meant they came to nothing. I’m a little bit confused as to what JDT actually wants from his fullbacks and that goes for whether we are playing 4 or 3/5 at the back. Whenever a fullback gets forward, the winger/wide forward in front of them seems to be there to give an easy out ball. When this happens we generally play it safe rather than cross it. We try and work an opening, but quite often end up going back to the centre backs - this happened plenty of times last season too. It continues to be ponderous, and worryingly we are seeing less overlapping by the fullbacks than we did last year. Dolan or Hedges or whoever is playing false 9 tends to get dragged out to get involved with the short passing too. You’d expect the opposite wide forward to be cutting in and screaming for a cross, particularly Gallagher and Brereton, but they never get in between the posts. I can see your logic with Hirst but I’m not sure he’s the man for the job. Pickering (whose game has picked up markedly from the first few games) tends to come inside a hell of a lot more now, and he’s usually got an early ball over the top for Brereton to chase as an option. Nyambe got a lot of criticism for his supposed reluctance to cross… but who was he supposed to cross to? I was hoping this would be addressed by JDT, particularly considering Brittain is meant to have a really good delivery. This wide striker set up doesn’t lend itself to getting balls in the box at all. I found it interesting that our best passage of play last night involved an actual winger (Dolan) doing actual winger things.

Kaminski - can’t kick but is constantly encouraged to Brittain - not convinced Pickering - best player again Hyam - not his best performance Ayala - some great tackles to cover after his own horrendous mistakes Travis - rubbish, rash and brainless Buckley - dreadful Szmodics - pointless Brereton - looked disinterested Dolan - one good cross, frustrating, at least he moves, should play wide Hedges - not at it today Dack - the one player to get on the end of chances Gallagher - Gallagher Hirst - finished here now I’d have thought Morton - poor man’s Wharton The one time a ref blows for a foul in a timely manner it costs us. We got what we deserved in the end though. The honeymoon period will be over for 99% of fans come November 13th.

Kipre has looked absolutely class for them by the way.

Excellent by Dolan. Shite by Szmodics.