Why would he? Are we especially understanding?

You act as though people don't get on his back at games whenever he makes a mistake

He's improved a lot this season so people saying there's no room for improvement is baseless. If he's heard about the criticism it's a great shame but football fans can lack understanding so it's no surprise. They often shoot themselves in the foot with things like this.

This game feels so long away given the (welcome) lack of midweek match

I don't know if our players can kick the ball that high. And Pears' distribution isn't his strong point

Indeed. If this was to happen then Lowe would be hounded out of the club for his 7 points from 3 games and would forever be known as "worse than Kean"

Support for him certainly dipped, though. I'm only talking from irl, as I wasn't active on here at the time of his dip but plenty at my work had him down as a donkey who wasn't good enough. They saw him as a waste of a signing. Perhaps my use of the word popular was misjudged and I should have spoken of support for him.

That looks a tough one when you consider PNE have a midweek catch up game too. And you'd imagine they wouldn't be playing the racist biter, too

It's potentially just a status symbol and nothing else. Now, anyway. Perhaps they had bigger ideas for it (for themselves) before we got relegated.

I guarantee there will be a few who want him to fail but it's a ridiculous minority and they are likely keeping it to themselves. I just think a type of person exists that you don't believe does so we won't agree. The fact Gueye has become so popular recently has delighted me and it's a testament to the fans that they've taken to his enthusiasm. That's the case with most fan bases of course and Gueye has his unique charm, especially when it comes to crowd interaction.

That's certainly a reasonable shout

I used to be Braddock back in my trolling days but probably won't be remembered by that name.

I'll just accept enough points to reach the playoff wherever they come and not worry too much about individual games that can all be banana skins

The championship isn't a league that works like this and it's part of what makes it compelling. We could lose this 6-0 and still go up. We can look at specific games as bellwethers, for sure, but in reality that's often simply us making sense of what we have seen and creating a narrative after the fact. There's so much unpredictability that we often discard

And I'm saying it would do for some specific fans. Obviously not you, but if not then I'm not talking about you. It feels like you're taking this as me accusing you. Have you never heard of fans wanting the club to lose to get a manager out? It's a micro version of that because you don't have to hope for a loss, just a bad individual performance. This isn't controversial, though it's not a position I've ever found myself in personally as I'd rather players come good and always hope for that. But people often want their beliefs on people confirmed

Can see a draw here as Swansea look to regroup at home. They are next to bottom in the home form but they are only a couple of wins off 12th so home form is quite close. They've scored more than they've conceded at home which is unusual given they are 23rd. We are due a game where we don't win and away to Swansea is one I can see that happening. I don't fear them but for me it has an championship draw written all over it. 1-1. I'm not yet sure if any new faces will be available but I'm hoping Kargbo will get a start if he's ready. Also Batth would go into the team if fit, obviously. A good performance and remaining in the top 6 would sweeten the mild disappointment of dropped points but then it will be a home game to follow.

No. I think they would have been happy in the moment, for sure. But I do think that now some of them may be thinking they hope that doesn't lead to Forshaw getting the nod for the next game. There's tens of thousands of rovers fans, to say it's rubbish that some fans will want specific players to fail in the short term so the club can move on from them in the long term is naive. That's common amongst sections of many fan bases.

One player I think deserves a mention, despite flattering to deceive, is Cantwell. I think there is a decent chance that some of his biggest impact on our fortunes has been behind the scenes with the confidence they have in trying a few different things and also just going forward from the midfield more generally. Whilst he makes mistakes he does seem to always want the ball and this optimism can be contagious for the other players, especially when he's in amongst them in training so much. I reckon his style will have rubbed off on some of them and that could be where we've seen Dolan develop some of his more positive movement.

I don't think they want rovers to fail. I think they want those players to prove them right and then be dropped. I'm sure they'd accept the players coming good but they don't see it as a possibility, such is their bias, so instead they just want them out the way as soon as possible

I think many on here are desperate to let their anger out at anyone, the club haven't need to manipulate anything. Whether it's Eustace, Forshaw, Dolan, some people are just hoping for failure

He's not slow

I'm happy for Derby to stay up. It wouldn't make me any happier at all if they went down. Enjoyed their recent defeat but they are irrelevant and I've no ill will towards Eustace, but that's just me. Hope he gets some points against our rivals. Certainly wouldn't mention them in the same breath as Burnley.

A key consideration is whether Lowe will have what it takes to deal with the playoffs from a head coach position. The likelihood is it'll take experience. Obviously it's somewhat of a lottery but you can certainly weight it in your favour. On the other hand, a new manager could disrupt things enough to mean play offs don't even become a factor. It's a fine balancing act but I'm sure the choice made won't be some kind of nuanced decision with who we have deciding, unfortunately. I'm personally completely undecided on what I want at the moment. There's names I don't fancy but that's about it.

You know you've wound them up when someone's shouting "I'll fucking stab you" after the Dolan goal. https://youtu.be/BOgHbouV3nY?si=BpjC9azcOkXq03t_

How do people want Burnley to do against our positional rivals? Can you bring yourself to be happy with them winning (when it's not yet at a stage where we mathematically need it to reach the play offs)? Or is it Burnley lose all the way? Draws look a decent compromise when the top two keep winning.