When hes fit again would like wharton to be given a shot in this more conservative setup alongside Tronstad with the licence to get forward a bit. Its a much less pressured approach than how we were playing before.

Yeah agreed. Think we can use the way we set up now as a base to avoid conceding early then if we need more penetration later in the game swap Hill out for one of Brittain or JRC and for all the overloads etc in the final third and go gung-ho. Gives us different options.

Cant agree with this personally, Hill having the physicality and awareness of a centre back on the right has been a big positive for us. Put him central and drop a cb and I think we will look more brittle again with Brittain or JRC wandering around midfield.

Id hesitate to say anything definitive after a game against an absolutely shocking QPR side. Travis and Wharton have both blown hot and cold, and my guess is that Tronstad and JRC will be similar. Good though that, on their day, we look to have four very decent centre mids who we can rotate.

Yeah I was curious if there was something about Telalovic the stats dont tell... but after seeing him he is clearly a development player well behind Gallagher, Ennis and (to a lesser extent) Leonard. Reckon Dolan also in the mix ahead of him to spearhead the attack too. I wouldn't write him off, we do that way too easily, but he's some way off.

Dolans laid the ball off really well along with his goal. With Dolans new muscle man physique maybe number 9 is a better role for him than outwide?

JDT likes slowly introducing players, always been like that. See Whalstad, Hill, Sigurdsson etc Think it probably a result of that JDT clearly wants to express that if you don't play his way you dont play. TBH I think it has generally worked pretty well.

While notionally a similar setup on paper, the way we played against Cov and play today is so different than the few games before. Hill really makes a huge difference at right back, and we have completely stopped throwing everyone into the final third for overloads. We look defensively very decent. Also think Sigurdsson is an upgrade on Diaz, while he offers goals like Ben, he gets in the box and adds allround build up play quality which Diaz did not. Like Ben hes also a big unit who is pretty effective physically. Think Gregg has found the perfect BBD replacement for nothing.

Personally I think one chink of light could be now that we have this more solid looking setup we can vary it with the more attacking one. So we have two gears and a bit of unpredictability. But we really really need someone to step up as a number 9.

Well one of Ennis, Gallagher, Telalovic or Leonard needs to turn into a genuine Championship striker.... I think Ennis most likely. But we will see.

Yeah, Ive put his drop in form down to him being put under too much pressure in the mad ultra aggressive way we were playing. But today with Hill in there we were much more solid, not too much pressure on him but he was really ordinary. Tronstad looked a better bet...

Thought we looked much better defensively with Hill in there. Probably edged the chances. But same story of not being able to finish. Hope Ennis is fit for Saturday.... we really need him to look the part.

Id say a good performance generally, just need a cutting edge... would like to see Ennis.

Think Hill coming in at RB has made a massive difference. Hes like a third CB really in size and presence, and not getting forward too much. Adds a lot of cover.

I am on Now TV - can't see it...

I can't see this either on ifollow or red button? Has anyone got in?

Got a feeling it could be a misorder on the team sheet with Hill at CDM and JRC at RB.

I reckon we are well into "may as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb" territory now. If we were going to adjust our formation / tactics we would have done it for Leicester and we did not. Fully expect gung-ho to continue. We really could do with dropping one of our four forwards Markanday, Szmodics, Sigurdson, Moran (based on form obviously Dilan) and picking one of Garrett or Tronstad to play as a proper third midfielder. Straightforward change, wouldn't disrupt the system too much. We'd still let Garrett or Tronstad get forward to support the overloads in the channels and whatnot, but also expect them to not over commit and get back to help out. Plus as Sammie, Moran, Sigurdson are all scoring I don't see why we need to be so utterly kamikaze. It's not like when we were not scoring at all. But again if we were doing it we would have done it by now. We are through the looking glass I feel. Let's see what happens.

The way we play at the moment we are expecting the GK, Hyam, Carter and Wharton to be very good with minimal mistakes every week as those four are being asked to do defensively against counters what six players would do in a more conservative team. The amount of times Hyam or Carter are left one on one each game is ridiculous. On one hand I can see the argument that we will get better as the season wears on.... but then so will the opponents in terms of figuring out how to play against our system. For me Wharton, Hyam and Carter have proved they are decent players, but you can't play game after game with no support for them. It feels like things further deteriorating is as likely as us turning the corner. Coventry and QPR are really huge games now. Two poor results and will be in crisis mode.

If he leaves at the moment he will in one fell swoop lose millions in compensation and have seriously damaged his reputation weakening his hand to find a new role better or equivalent to here. There's a lot of managers out there and not that many jobs. He isn't going anywhere imo.

What is strange given the above is the way we play at the moment with throwing everyone forward at the slightest opportunity is really raising the chances we concede early. We should be prioritising defence and choosing our moments to commit.

I don't think JDT will be upgrading on Rovers on our current run of form. He needs to start getting results.

Yes... i really thought we would have put another defensive midfielder in today, and also have dropped pears. Both decisions to persevere seem really strange. Keeper change is now forced. Will be interesting if we stick with the tactics. We cant keep conceding at the clip we are and not change.

Apart from the lack of a proper number 9 for me its a very decent championship squad. Think finishing much below where we did last season would be poor. A decent manager should get more out of this team. Think JDT has misjudged things tactically but is struggling to accept it and change the approach.

Agree with this. Generally I can see that we can play good football and create chances. But given we can't finish and concede very easily setting up with the one man midfield thing against the best squad in the division just seems a strange thing to do. At some point something has to give. And as much as QPR or Coventry should be easier games I think both managers would really fancy playing us if we come into the game in the same way. In many ways its not just that we are open, poor and finishing, easy at conceding... but also we are becoming predictable.