What struck me after beating WBA was the difference in the 2 managers. Wba have an excellent squad that has cost a lot of money to assemble. Yes they are missing a main focal point striker at the moment, but we had men out at the back. However we managed to prevail, largely because or how much better a manager I think JDT is compared to Bruce. Bruce is stale, old fashioned, makes excuses, says the same soundbites. JDT on the other hand is young, progressive, attention to detail, enthusiastic and is demanding of the players. I truly believe that if the roles had been reversed (ie Bruce managed us and JDT Wba) that they would have battered us today. Wba may still go up, but it will be in spite of Bruce as opposed to because of him.

No chance of that I'm afraid, there are a whole heap of League 1/2 teams at home against prem teams which tv usually prefer. Theyre spoilt for choice with all the lower league teams knocking out championship teams.

God I love JDT. Classic football manager type behaviour. Doesn't matter if the player is out of position, more important is the rest for the first teamer.

Haha! Interesting that you say this game is a license to print money, the bookmakers seem to agree with you.. Rovers were 1.40 a few days ago when you were encouraging us to lump on. We're 1.22 now. H'pool have gone out to 12 from 8 (apologies I live in Nz now and have gone fully decimal with odds!)

Merc I noted in the Swansea thread you said you were opening a nice bottle of red to celebrate.. Did you have anything on that game?

TM used to frustrate the hell out of me in these legue cup games as he would somehow contrive to get the worst of both worlds. He wouldn't play many youngsters, yet would manage to get us knocked out 1ST round every year. Whilst it is not a priority, I'd like us to go 3 or 4 rounds as it is an opportunity for the youngsters to play men's football and give fringe players an opportunity to show what they can do. Agree with most of the XIs that give Edun, Phillips, JRC, dack, Morton, Garret, A Wharton, Dolan, DM and Vale some minutes. Would also like to see Butterworth too.

Be a bit of statement winning here. I know I could google, but when was the last time we won there? I don't think we have at the new ground?

Birmingham 2 up at HT vs Huddersfield. Maybe puts burnley's win in some context. Maybe not too..

Here's the problem with letting players leave on a free. We've now had to turn around and go spend £1m out of our extremely limited budget to basically keep the squad as the status quo from last season, a like for like replacement with similar ability.

Agent Bloody Raya ay? So that's why Mobrary sold him, it was all part of his 4 year master plan..! Sensational stuff!

There was 45k at first leg and 33k at the 2nd leg of that playoff game. In the 3rd tier of English football..

I can hear the Burnley premier league ballon popping all the way from chch Nz with that leeds winner

Is it wrong that I punched the air when that went in? All of a sudden Burnley are 4 points off safety, no longer have games in hand and have city next up.

Another dismal home draw for Bournemouth. First peterborough, now Reading. They've dropped so many points against poor teams it's incredibly frustrating that we haven't capitalized. If we had scored those pens against sheff and bristol we'd be 6 points better off and right up their backsides.

So so frustrating that we are allowing this mismanaged Bournemouth team get away with it. We have gained 2 point on them tonight. Why oh why didn't we sign a striker in Jan? Madness

We got away with it today for sure. A pretty limp dick performance at fulham, but it hasn't cost us a whole heap. And a difficult run of games is over now. We have some winnable fixtures coming up and alot of the teams around us will be playing each other..

Another myth there that the media loves to perpetuate. Spent huge amounts of money

Looks like Chaddys wba prediction is coming true. Fair play on that one, did not pick it myself!! Bruce on the other hand was entirely predictable. 1 point from 5 games. Stealing a living at newcastle and then got all the media sympathy when he was rightly potted

Exactly! And that's the point isn't it? When you consider that the other team around us QPR are also an extremely average side, especially away from home, why shouldn't we be top 6? Why shouldn't we challenging for automatic? Yes we've had a bad spell, but we let's not give up cos there are so many poor teams around!!

There is still a chance of that imo because they are actually playing really poorly. They are scabbing results all over the place. Another late winner, this time against 10 men.

Ffs both qpr and huddersfield with last minute winners again!! We miss a pen and concede q last min winner. So so frustrating

Ffs cov scored. Another last minute goal. How many have they had this season ffs? We haven't had a single one this season

The pne v forest and Cov games being draws wouldn't be bad results for us..

Poor old wba. Suckered in by 'woe is me' conman Steve Bruce. Mind you would love for them to get an equaliser.

Tbh I rather think we're at the state of play that we want fulham to be beating the sides around us not the other way round. Write them off and battle for 2nd