Pears is just an average Championship keeper. Pretty much every keeper in this league has the ability to have a blinder or a shocker on any given day. I imagine that, on the way out of the ground today, most Cardiff fans would happily have swapped Pears for their keeper (who had a shocker for Bakers goal) in much the same way we were raving about Stoke’s keeper on Wednesday. Unfortunately, after a very poor run of performances last season, he has become something of a scapegoat for many and even when he does ok they aren’t willing to give him any credit. I heard two guys on the way out of Ewood on Wednesday blaming him for not saving Stoke’s opener - then they saw it on the tv screen, admitted that it was a fantastic strike that Pears couldn’t have done anything about and then finished with ‘…he’s still shit though’ It seems from reading on here that Hedges falls into the same category - he played ok today, but is still singled out for criticism by some

A cautious manager produces a cautious team - how many times do we choose the simple, risk-free pass, even if it’s backwards or just lumped forward out of the danger area? We play virtually all of our football in front of the opposition, happy to go sideways and backwards over and over again, never willing to take a risk or play a pass that might open a defence up. Couple that with an absolute lack of creativity in the squad (Cantwell is skilful and tidy in possession, but I haven’t seen any real creativity from him yet) and you have to conclude that the only way we’re going to score this season is from opposition mistakes (a la Bristol City) or individual moments of magic (a la Burnley). Unfortunately both of those sources are fairly limited and I fear that we’re in for tough struggle to stay up this season - as others have pointed out we were in a similar position this time last year and we only just squeezed our way out of trouble, and we don’t Sammie to perform miracles this time around.

I could hear him shout ‘keepers’ from my seat in the JW so there’s definitely no way that Trav couldn’t hear him - that particular incident was down to Travis alone. (That’s not excusing all the other stuff though - the way he continually parries even routine shots in front of him gives me palpitations in the stands, god knows what it does for our defenders!!)

49% last night (although WBA had 52% apparently so the sums don’t quite add up), but only 30% on Saturday - and the effect of the two games was showing at the end last night imo

Surely everyone on here would happily take the results over the last two games over the rest of the season - a few 0-0 draws with a smattering of 1-0 wins and going unbeaten at home to the end of the season - we'd be delighted. However, based on the performances and level of entertainment provided, when it comes time to renew the season tickets for next season I certainly wouldn't be rushing to buy one. Yes results are the most important thing - but it doesn't hurt to give the fans something to get excited about every now and again too!!

The best manager I ever played for used to drum into us the importance of looking after the ball because "playing without the ball is much more demanding, both physically and mentally." We seem happy to just let the other team have the ball, sit deep and look to break on the transition - nothing wrong with that per se, but it will be taking a lot out of our players and I think that showed last night in the last 10 minutes when our players looked out on their feet and WBA had us under the cosh a bit. If last night's game had gone on for another 10 minutes I'm fairly certain that we would have ended up conceding - and when the games start to come thick and fast with midweek games every week I think it might end up costing us, unless the manager is willing to rotate the squad a bit more

I’ve just had a look on the online store and, even though I’m logged into my account and I am a ST holder, I can’t see an option to apply a discount - do you know where I can find it, or is there a code to enter or something? (I was thinking of treating myself to one of the retro training tops)

The minutes mention a discount in the club shop for ST holders. As a ST holder this has passed me by somehow - does anyone know what discount we get and how to access it?

I wonder if they would be willing then to take a 15% pay cut - surely less games should equal less wages, no. Plus, if the clubs were spending less on player wages then maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to go chasing those lucrative overseas friendlies quite as often I suspect deep down we all know the answer to that question though

Not quite the question, but Kevin Gallagher’s grandad was a forward for Celtic, Patsy Gallagher. I think his uncle was also a player up in Scotland too

I presume you’re talking about the Coventry game - in which case, surely Buckley would have given you more creativity than Hyam, Carter or McFadzean?? Or keep JRC on and put Ayari alongside him & Tronstadt 🤷‍♂️ Or surely having another striker on in Telalovic couldn’t have hurt for the last 5 or 10 minutes when you desperately need a goal (incidentally I still believe that had he had the same number of minutes as Gallagher this season he would have scored more goals)

I don’t disagree with you on JDT - by the time he left I was of the opinion that it was for the best for both parties (although I couldn’t have imagined thinking that back in November) However, I do disagree with you on Eustace. Yes, there was perhaps a need to be slightly more pragmatic, but it’s more than that - you can see it in our performances under him that it is ingrained in every fibre of his being - he is a do not lose first coach rather than a win at all costs one. That’s why we just knocked it about at the back when Millwall had 10 men behind the ball and settled for a point, it’s why we kept 3 central defenders on against 10 men Coventry, even after they had taken off their 2 strikers, it’s why our best performances have come against teams where we’re not expected to do well and we can set up to defend first and foremost… I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that necessarily (although it doesn’t fit my own footballing philosophy) but it’s better to be clear about what we’re expecting from him and the team next season. All this talk of ‘give him pre-season’ and ideas about him developing our attacking play are, I fear, building up hopes for something that just won’t happen - he’s not going to change his philosophy over night and so next season will be more of the same - defending deep, keeping it tight and maybe occasionally nicking something on a breakaway. That might well keep us in the league, but it certainly won’t take us up, and it definitely won’t be very entertaining to watch 🤷‍♂️

And that illustrates the difference between Eustace’s mindset and the fans’ (and JDT’s) - the primary aim is to not lose, if you happen to win that’s just a bonus. So, whereas for most of us his record is 3 wins in 18 (4 if you’re Chaddy) - which is poor whichever way you slice it - he views it as 5 defeats in 18 - which is reasonably respectable. Basically, we just need to prepare ourselves for a lot more draws and pretty turgid football next year - maybe that way we’ll be less frustrated as we know what to expect

Yes the players aren't great, and the mistake from Pears is almost laughable - there's keepers in Sunday pub leagues who would be embarrassed by that - but I disagree that a different manager wouldn't make a difference. Wednesday's players aren't particularly good either, but the difference between them and us on Sunday was they were well drilled - they had a set way of playing and they each knew their jobs and did them to the best of their ability. In comparison, our lads look like they've been sent out on to the pitch with no instructions whatsoever - players are coming short and looking for the ball to feet and seeing the ball kicked over their heads and then, when they do make runs in behind, the defenders are looking to play into the midfield - we look disjointed, the players aren't in the right positions to help their teammates, because no one seems to know what they are supposed to be doing or where they are supposed to be. It's abject and dire, and it's on the manager who either hasn't given them a game-plan, or hasn't been able to get it over to them

1 win in 13, happy with a point in winnable home games and now capitulating in such a pathetic way in what is a massive game for our season - does anyone still believe that this clown is good enough to be managing our club?

I don’t know if it’s been mentioned already, but did anyone else spot that Martin came out to greet the away fans before the game - followed by someone videoing it for their social media - and he chose the exact moment that MGP was introduced to the crowd to step onto the pitch, no doubt to make it sound like he was getting the rapturous reception that he believes he deserves I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone quite so narcissistic as Russell Martin

Middlesborough managed to miss an open goal from about 4 yards out in the first half and also hit the bar in the last minute - yes we kept a clean sheet, but were tiny margins away from a 2-0 defeat. Not sure I’d class that as nullifying them tbh

The guy has won one game in eleven attempts. And, yes, he’s managed to pick up a few draws along the way, but in truth in the majority of those games we were second best and probably fortunate to come away with a point - Plymouth, Preston, Norwich, Middlesborough and Millwall all probably came away wondering how they didn’t take 3 points from us. So it will take more than one win, no matter how good (and welcome) it was, to convince me that a guy who has shown next to no tactical nous thus far is ‘a decent manager who knows how to play the championship’ - even Henning Berg managed to claim a 4-1 away win during his short tenure!!

We absolutely don’t, but God bless your optimism!

Out of interest, if this is how the rest of the season pans out - us staying up but Eustace not winning a game in his time as a manager - would people see that as job done and be happy to keep him for next season, or would you want him out and start afresh with someone else?

Absolutely this - and I find it so infuriating that he squandered our best chances of getting wins by being so negative. Similarly, I fully believe we could have come away from Birmingham with 3 points had we played to the players strengths and passed the ball in the way that they were used to from the first half of the season, instead of him trying to force some kind of route one shite on a team that just didn’t have the players to do it. On a related note, given that we would pretty much all agree that Mowbray was very lucky to survive his regular runs of 9/10 games without a win, how long do we persevere with Eustace before we accept that we’ve dropped a bollock and cut our losses?

Agreed. How hard is it not to take your shirt off when you score? I don’t ever remember it being a thing when I was growing up - in fact, I would suggest that for the vast majority of football history players have managed just fine without whipping their shirt off after finding the net. If you can’t manage to find another way of celebrating, especially when you know what the punishment is in advance, then you deserve whatever comes your way - which in this case, I think, is missing the chance to play in a cup semi-final at Wembley

Well, thank God that wasn’t a must-win game, eh? Otherwise we’d really be in the shit. But this manager knows better, we don’t need to actually win games, we’ll just try and grind out a few more draws and pray that there’s a couple of teams worse than us. What could possibly go wrong?!? I didn’t see the match today (thank God) and so I might be completely wrong, but reading on here and twitter it seems like we set up all wrong yet again and were second best at home to a fellow struggler. Which, if so, should be the final straw as far as this manager is concerned. He wasted the games against Birmingham and Cardiff by trying to play too direct and, despite 5 years of evidence, believing that Sam Gallagher could turn into Kevin Davies (Bolton edition) overnight. And now he’s wasted the games against Millwall and Plymouth by persisting with 5 at the back and nullifying our own attack. Honestly, I’d fire him tonight and let Damien Johnson have this week, plus the international break, to try and get us firing. I know it won’t happen, but I can dream! At least with McFadz suspended he might finally ditch the 5 at the back next week - although I suspect I’m going to end up disappointed on that score too

Not saying he’s wrong, but, according to the club’s official twitter, Pears missed out with illness rather than injury, so surely it’s too soon to know whether he will be back or not (unless it’s something much more serious than a fever/vomiting bug)

I think it’s all been said already, but teams below us winning means draws won’t do, so to send out a team with such a negative formation at home against a relegation rival and to not even try and win the game is nothing short of criminal. We were playing a team who anyone could have told you before the game would sit deep and be delighted to go away with a point, so to play 3 CBs, plus 3 forwards who just got lost against their defence, and only 2 in midfield, meant we had no runners from deep and nothing to cause them any problems, and we’re relying on our CBs to provide any creativity - which, given the 3 of them struggle to kick a ball in a straight line most of the time, is probably not the greatest game plan in the world The saddest thing of all though is that I just don’t think I care anymore. The fight’s been ripped out of me and all I could think of as I left tonight was ‘thank God I’m away this weekend so I don’t have to sit through another 90 minutes of this’. There was a time when I do everything in my power not to miss a game, now I’m just glad of an excuse not to go.