Pears was very good today. It was a well-deserved win…..in truth, I wasn’t really expecting much! Cantwell is classy but spoiled a few promising attacks today by poor decision making. Travis, who I criticize regularly, has been good for a while now. This version of Travis is just what we need……good passes and not the relentless momentum killing backpasses of old. Not so sure about Batth, slow and indecisive and Hedges does nothing. We wouldn’t have seen that performance if Dolan was around either! Weimann in the right place at the right time…..twice! Nice to see a forward doing his job! Gueye looked poor again. Ohashi was better today too but no end product. Silly penalty JRC. Wasn’t it good to see Baker pop the ball in like that? Mid-fielders having a go…..who’d a thought? OH! And we played it out from the back more effectively than usual. The players I didn’t mention by name did fine too.

One of Eustace’s priorities seems to be keeping everyone involved via his use of subs. As well as adding fresh quality and variety at the appropriate time, more players are getting the chance to impress. I like it.

Yes, I wonder who’s responsible…..Gestede? It’s transformed the team and given us all something to dream about. Let’s hope that Cantwell can do that every week, a bit of guile has been sorely missed. I went down to Brunton Park to watch him last Tuesday….he was ok but it was basically Carlisle’s youth team! Duberry was sharp though.

Absolutely…..the reluctance to shoot drives me crazy! The effort from Cantwell caused mayhem too.

That was my favourite.

Long-time Rovers fans will recognise this as nothing new! A failure to deliver when the chips are down and expectations are high (usually after a heart-stirring prior performance.) I had to turn this off when it got to extra time though….it was so soul destroying. Hyam, Wharton and Pears contributed to set up the first farcical goal. Sammie made a bad error for the second (a bit like BBD had a tendency to do). And the third! I’ve always cringed when defenders pass back directly towards goal……hey - everybody mis-kicks sometimes ….but this was a classic, we’ll be talking about it for decades! It looked like Pears was pausing to collect his mis-kick on the bounce but he had sliced it so well, the ball was spinning like a top and completely fooled him. Gallagher is awful. I know he has “good” games where his gallumping presence unsettles mediocre defenders but this can never make up for his lack of ball control or his inability to get into goal scoring positions. When we are moving forward with menacing momentum….pass to Sam to kill it immediately. And Dolan! Poor decision making, being too fancy…did you see him pirouette the ball into touch? There were others I could vent about……….I’ve just seen the BRFCS ratings and no one rated well . What a shambles!

It’s true but they are the only teams in the bottom 15 to win today. It’s crazy down there! Oh! And only 4 of these bottom 15 have gained more points than us over the last 6 games! We moved up to 16th today.

Courtesy of LT: Lineker added: "They deserve credit do Blackburn. It was an inspirational performance at times against higher opposition. "Blackburn and John Eustace deserve a lot of credit. They did their team proud."

Now, that would be good!

A great cup-tie. We’ve had a few of them in the last couple of seasons but, sadly, we’ve not continued the form into the league. Let’s hope this time it’s different. Every player was a credit to the shirt. I remember Markanday playing a blinder in one of those ties but he’s never repeated it until tonight. It was only last season that we scored 10 penalties (IIRC) on the trot v West Ham. A lot of defenders took penalties then. Unless the planned takers were all subbed off, I think Hyam would have been identified as one of them pre-match. Wigan was a long time ago; I think Pears has paid his penance and deserves praise for recent performances. He was brilliant tonight……give him a break. There was a fair bit of squad rotation during the game and the performance didn’t falter…amazing. Let’s hope that Eustace has found a way to make the team tick. I am nervous that this is just a one-off though. Nevertheless I’m looking forward to the weekend! Well done to the fans, it sounded brilliant. I wish I could have been there!

Hill must be one of the most impressive loans we’ve ever had. He was my man of the match, I was particularly impressed with his dominance in the air today. Wahlstedt looks poor. His punches are often weak and when he comes out to claim the high ball it’s only 50:50. He’s a decent shot stopper and quick to gather or clear dangerous long punts too. He may come good; he arrived with a reputation but he seems low on confidence. What few people seem to mention though, is how much panic he seems to have re-introduced to our “pass it round at the back” play. He’s passing to guys in tight situations….and with players like Scottie at the back, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. To finish on a positive note…..I enjoyed the backs to the wall performance around our box after the sending off. It was nail-biting even though we had a good lead!

Two excellent goals and should have been more…..Norwich look poor. JRC has been excellent except for the dumb booking and I really like Hill. Adam has been largely disappointing but Wahlstedt is a bleeding liability. It’s no coincidence that the panic has returned to our “play it out from the back” tactics since he arrived. He puts other players in danger nearly every time. I’m a Dolan critic but he’s had some nice moves so far. Pity we aren’t 5 up!

Well, well……get players in the box and you score…….who’d a thought?

For me it was the expectation after some very encouraging performances. I was really looking forward to the game and the initial promise was exciting but the final delivery was just unacceptable!

I’m a big believer in ‘the wisdom of crowds’ and the BRFCS match ratings for yesterday’s game are conclusive. Travis is currently on 3/10. His inability to control the ball at pace or to lay it off effectively was demonstrated clearly when he lost possession three times in the first 15 minutes ……. each time we were building impressive attacking team moves.