Yeah weve had the better of the midfield play but given away a lot of decent opportunities to Brum. There is something about JDT, so many opportunities we give away would have been buried in previous regimes but we seem to get away with them with Tommason. Every good manager is a lucky manager.

Ah that makes sense! Also could be waiting to see if a prem team comes in over the summer if we don't go up. Seems a bit risky though as I am sure the Villarreal management wont be too pleased and they could withdraw the offer.

Yeah this is all getting a bit weird. I suspect theres an angle to it we dont have visibility of.

Why, we did really well over the period BBD was out?

Yeah Dolan is far away at his best on the left. Play him there and rest BBD and we haven't lost that much imo.

I'm hoping we will se a Travis like recovery of form at some point between now and the end of the season. We know he's a very good player,

Yes, we have a really good all round, young squad and manager with cover in nearly all positions, and continued development and improvement to come. If you put a top striker up front and maybe a bit more experience in midfield then we would be right up for automatic promotion. We've got a team and squad to be positive about.

Garrett signing is good. Great in the tackle, and not got a bad left foot, but also games seem to pass him by a bit. With our absolutely insane schedule in April coming up I dare say both he and Adam Wharton will get a lot of game time.

I think the point in RU is intent has nothing to do with it now. If you meet the criteria you get sent off. Its up to the tackler to make sure he does not meet any criteria no matter how unintentional. If the criteria is too harsh then the criteria need changing. They've taken red cards out of the referees hands with the protocol to try and make it predictable and drive down head injuries.

Id loved to have made it but thought we played really well and weve got a massive fight for playoffs on our hands. If wed played poorly and been thrashed Id have been gutted, but to play like that, come out feeling weve acquitted ourselves really well, going into the last 9 games it feels like plenty more to play for.

He also made the Szmodics goal I believe.

Well that and also how good we were before the subs too.

Not that worried we are out of the cup. Thought we played really really well. Decent box striker and we would have won. Only real point of concern is the subs, obviously let us down. Looked all over the place. But generally we are on a hugely upward trajectory.

Thought the goals were both pretty similar. Just unintended bad fortune but thats life. Decent game. Enjoyed it. Wouldnt change much about how we're playing.

Glad Burnley got thrashed as its Burnley, but Man City annihilating teams with a bench worth 8x the entire opposition squad is incredibly incredibly dull. Really hope they don't win the cup. And Arsenal win the league. Just everything that is depressing about modern football.

Strategically had "mothersday takeaway" on Friday night and bought some flowers and feedback is watching the game tomorrow is now on! Love it when a plan comes together.

Yeah I believed it as it was pretty inexplicable why Morton wasn't dropped after a run of poor performances. But then we did drop him and kept him dropped. So probably there isn't a clause or if there is its small enough for us to pay the fine. These clauses do exist though, and I think are pretty common, so it's not outlandish to think Morton has one. Prem clubs (or any clubs) do not want to loan players to sit on the bench a league below. The clauses manage that.

Feels to me like we will do well to get a result out of this one. Sheffield Utd are a good side, will have looked back at how we beat them, and set themselves well up. They've got the pace and athleticism to hurt us on the break out wide. Would love a win, we've got a good chance, but just feel that Sheffield Utd will adapt and make it very difficult for us.

I guess the frustration is that he's not that different or better than what we have so people ask why do we have him. But equally when someone gets an injury like Buckley has to be able to bring in as similar a player as you are ever going to find is very useful. My suspicion is given a run of games Buckley, Morton and Adam Wharton will all perform at similar "good but not brilliant" levels.

It was his third for Rovers... previously scored against Watford and Middlesbrough.

To be honest its pretty plain to see now we couldn't play the way we are with Dack in the team. Szmodics coming back completely changed how the team works for the better. Dacks a great player but the athletic demands of the system are huge and I cant really see where Dack fits in were he to become available again. Looks more and more to me that we've probably seen the last game Dack has had in blue and white whether we go up or not.

Yeah he's definitely improved in the air. But a big part of it is two or three players are getting beyond him regularly at the point he flicks on so there are multiple targets, as opposed to him being totally isolated (or on the right wing) with no one to pick up the ball ahead of him. I was never a big Mowbray hater personally, but it is very noticeable since start of Feb how many players we are committing forward. Way more than Mowbray ever did, way more than any manager we have had in years. And when you commit players forward it creates more options. I mean JRC is like Cafu, spends most of his time on the edge of the opposition box.

Id say last few games are probably the most attacking we've played since the Shearer days. Time after time yesterday we had two CBs on half way, one of the mids sitting just in front and everyone else in the final third. Szmodics, BBD and Pickering would play veru wide left and get in behind, while on the right JRC, Thomas and Travis (!) would do the same. The three either side ganging up on the full back was absolutely devastating. On top of that we would always get two to three bodies into the box for the cross. Its absolutely night and day compared to pre world cup where we would be lucky to get a cross in at all, and if we did there would be no one in the box. We were greatly helped by the gov'nor obviously having done little homework. They hardly pressed and we took full advantage. Fantastic performance only spoilt by some poor finishing. Still do think well prepared sides with pace and athleticism will cause us lots of problems (as Stoke did). We are very very wide open. But it is refreshing to have a manager who seems to be all about attack.

Yeah definitely upgraded to "excellent signing" So that gives Gregg the egg two of them

To be fair think he set us up perfectly today. The tactics down the wings we brillaint, both sides constantly combining to get in behind the defence. Must be the most crosses we've done in a game in years? We got owned at Stoke, but today were excellent in everything except our finishing and some sloppy defending. Gallagher was superb. And Szmodics, really love him as a player. He's got a bit of everything - a huge part of our recent run is how he can get in the channels (unlike Dack who drops off a bit centrally) and stretch defences. Him and Brereton and then Dolan just get in behind time after time.