joey_big_nose

Playing badly and winning is the sign of a good team. Playing well and losing a sign of a bad one.

What about swapping Hedges for Leonard? Think of the few options we have that seems the best.

About as good a first half as you could ask for except for not scoring and then conceding a gilt edged chance... Totally dominant. Hope we can keep it going second half and manage to convert... But could just as easily go down to a sloppy goal. Gah.

On paper it looks good but we've really struggled to make it work this season. When we've switched to a back three we lost the midfield.

That is the funniest/saddest set of goals of the month I have ever seen...!

We've broadly been competitive in the midfield until the subs but now getting totally overrun

Hope Leonard has something about him over the next few games. Need to try something different going forward and dont see any other options.

Fair enough, but there are other examples of players who took a while. He still looks considerably better than Brereton was when he first arrived also. We all live in hope. But Eustace should certainly have a proven striker top of his January list.

He was abysmal against Watford and has been poor since August. Still think I saw enough in August to think he will be a good signing if he refinds that form. Id say we are really way too early to come to definitive judgements. Just go and have a look at what people were saying about Szmodics in October 2022...

Yeah agree with this. Switching to a 532 could help to get some support up there, would like to see it given a shot as others have said.

Leonard getting a crack but probably from the bench is possible I think. After a fantastic August both Ohashi and Gueye have looked well off it.

I loved a bit of JDT ball, first season anyway... But yes Eustace is doing a very good job when you consider 95% would have had the brief as keep us up at the start of the season... We're sixth with nearly a quarter of the games played....

Good point. Main positive was the box defending when we were deep which was really well drilled. They couldn't get anything through us when we were set. Negatives are we looked generally pretty toothless (though no better or worse than WBA) going forward and we were lucky to not concede two goals from long punts up field through defensive lapses.

Surely time for Gueye now?

Anyones game this...

The one highlight!

I think id give Gueye a go for his pace as much as anything

We're breaking the press really well... But don't really have the cutting edge to make the most of it. WBA are so high we are desperate for some real pace.

Um... tough one to predict. We won on the weekend but it was hardly convincing. No single player you would say has to start. As in all championship games it really comes down to who scores the first goal. If you get the first one you win something like 60% of them, draw 25% and lose 15%. Roughly that anyway. But that means do you prioritize not conceding or do you go about getting the first one? I expect Eustace will go for the former and it will be very very cagey. But I am not completely sure... one of the good things about Eustace is that he does seem a bit unpredictable. ALso I think midweek games the away side really seems to struggle. But had a little hunt around the internet to find some evidence for this and couldn't so maybe it's just Rovers struggle mid week? Just hoping we get a random amazing performance. You never know...

Loving the half time music... Seems a but unusual?

Yeah it looks a real late 80s Arsenal approach... Just hold onto the 1-0. Long time since I can remember us going so defensive against a similarly resourced team at home.

Yeah weve obviously gone very counter attacking. We had a back six for a while there... Not convinced we've really got the pace for that approach...

Really poor game quality wise. Both sides struggling to do anything. Lots of simple passes given away. Not one for a neutral...just as well Im not one!

Ever since he got sent off Gueye's looked really poor... real shame as he looked fantastic up until that Burnley game. Hope he will come back into it today and show the promise from when he first turned out in August. Like the team. A bit surprised we have gone from having no attacking full backs to two... And picking JRC ahead of Brittain is interesting...

I think most successful teams (including England under Southgate) have had longer term managers. Not many have got much out of short term coaches. Obviously not an iron rule, but it makes sense that it takes a long time with the infrequency of matches to build out an effective style of play. France, Spain, Argentina, Germany all have had their success with longer term managers. But if he's the best option I am not against it.