Not the first time Pears has had a purple patch. I wouldn't drop him whilst he's in form and we're getting results, but the moment it starts to slip, make the change. History shows it isn't going to just be a blip.

A confidence player who can be useful in either Prem or Championship in purple patches, but won't ever be consistent in either division. Think he barely got an assist or a goal in his last 5 months here, and it was similar the season prior where he had one good half of the season and one useless half (from memory injury did play a factor there, though, so perhaps a bit of mitigation). I don't really think he's PL quality. Maybe for clubs that are destined for the drop but those clubs aren't PL quality either, hence being relegated. He's Championship quality when confident, but pretty much useless when he isn't.

The most bizarre post I saw was on a Preston forum where a poster (seemingly seriously) suggested that Beck had gotten another Rovers player to bite him to make it look like Osmajic had attacked him. This was after the Twitter video blatantly showing the incident had been posted. In fairness most of the other posters were laughing at him, but yeah, there's some major levels of delusion out there.

I'd guess there's a good chance he'll go in January, and if not then almost certainly next summer, so you can understand prioritising other players - especially when Siggy has proven to only ever really be useful in 10-15 minute bursts per game.

Unfortunately when you loan young players, part of the deal is that they'll be learning about the men's game whilst playing for you. Regardless of talent level, there is plenty to learn, especially when it comes to behaving smartly on the field. Some players never really learn, but it's rare in the modern game that they get very far. Think Beck will learn from his sending off and hopefully be more in control in future. Not much to learn from the biting incident other than some players are dickheads and the officials are rarely of any help.

He did well with them last year, but an awful start to this season. Figured the end was near for Bulut after he came out and criticised the fans. That rarely ends well for the manager.

Knew as soon as they went down to 10 that was our chances of winning down the drain. Can't remember the last time we took advantage of being an extra man up. Same old from the officials mind. Preston reverted to the dark arts and the ref was hoodwinked throughout the second half. With that said, almost all teams in the division will do this when they go a man down and the quality of official will be below average at best, so we need to find a way to win in these situations. Whilst Beck probably deserved a red for kicking out, Preston obviously should have been down to 9. Hopefully retrospective action taken. Don't think him going off in the game would have made a difference as we can't take advantage of being a man up anyway. Disappointing performance. Pears the only player who deserves credit. Still, despite our worst performance of the season, mostly against 10 men + referee, we didn't lose and got a point, so... forget about it and move on, I guess.

So, Google Notebook LM now has the ability for you to upload a PDF ot TXT file and have AI generate a 6-10 min conversation in a podcast style discussing the contents. I'm not floored by too much in the AI sphere anymore, but this is absolutely amazing. It sounds totally natural and real. https://notebooklm.google.com/ Really scary - and this is just publicly released stuff. One can only imagine what exists behind closed doors at google, OpenAI, etc.

Plymouth fans won't care about that, and nor should they. Their love is for their club, not Schumacher's reputation or bank balance. As a neutral you can understand him taking a chance, but Stoke seems like a poisoned chalice these days. Something very wrong at that club.

I'm sure Plymouth fans aren't feeling too much sympathy for old Schuey. Could see him back there if Rooney doesn't work out, mind.

Probably the most pleasing aspect of yesterday's result is our first clean sheet of the season. It will hopefully give a boost of confidence to the defence.

In regards to JDT, as a rookie manager I felt he did an outstanding job in the first 6-7 months. First season finish was still excellent for a manager with his experience and working in this environment, but there were many signs that things behind the scenes were going wrong. Bad ownership combined with bad recruitment hobbled the end of JDT's first season, to the point where he wanted out by the summer. He offered his resignation, and at that point it should have been the end of Tomasson's time here. Anything after that is solely on Venky's for not allowing him to leave when he had made it clear he didn't want to be here anymore. We started his second season bizarrely well all things considered, but when it again started going badly wrong around November time, JDT was unable to arrest the decline. His departure at that point was inevitable. He refused to change his style and evidently lost key parts of the dressing room. Man management is something I think JDT still needs to work on. In the modern game you simply have to keep the players onside and he wasn't able to do that. In regards to how rigid he was with our playing style, I'm not sure whether this was because he couldn't change or because he felt betrayed by the owners and thus was continuing the originally promised 'project' out of spite, even when we clearly no longer had the squad to achieve that initial ambition. Only JDT would be able to answer that, but it was clear we needed to change how we were playing, but between November 2023 to the end of Jan 2024 we never really did, and we saw the same thing happen time and time again as we racked up an embarrassing goals against column with diminishing returns up front. I hold no ill-will towards JDT and under different circumstances I think he could have been a great manager for us. Under the current structure, however, it was never meant to be. I think Eustace is more pragmatic, a better man manager and a bit more shrewd in his relationship with the club compared to JDT. He seems to be a better all around fit. However, time will tell whether this is yet another false dawn. We had good starts under JDT in both seasons as well, only to catastrophically fall away once things started going against us. It'll be interesting to see whether Eustace will be able to evade the regular slumps we've experienced going all the way back to Mowbray's tenure, or whether ultimately the rot at the top of the club means such declines are just part of the fabric of Venky's version of our club.

He came into a bad situation last season with the team in free fall. Got the results necessary to just about get us over the line. Not the greatest first impression, but first objective achieved nonetheless. So far this season we look far more like what I was hoping for from a Eustace team. Working hard, mixing up play, rotating players based on performance and merit. It's early days but the signs are good. Cheers to Big Club for their ridiculous decision to get rid of him and replace with Rooney.

Competition for places is never a bad thing. We've had a long stretch where many of our first eleven have been default selections, due to our bench being so weak. We're finally in a position where a number of players have challengers for their spots, and that can only motivate everyone to perform better - and it'll weed out any who can't handle the pressure of competition and shouldn't be starters anyway.

Ohashi's first goal was a superb finish, but lots of credit to Dolan for a fantastic assist, Second goal was all Yuki. Picks it up in a fairly unthreatening position, charges into the box, befuddles the defender and then curls a picture-perfect shot into the corner of the net. Brilliant stuff.

Yuki taking his chance with Gueye suspended. You love to see it.

We look very solid. Bristol City so far totally nullified. Can't deny that Eustace is doing a fantastic job so far this season, and Park/Rudy seem to have really come through under difficult circumstances as well. Eventually Venky's will pull some rabbit out of the hat to wreck our momentum, as they always do, but if we had decent owners I'd be very optimistic under the current setup.

One imagines he goes out on loan to a couple of PL clubs over the next few seasons to get him regular game time and see how his progression goes. Worst case scenario, based on the current market, he doesn't improve as hoped and gets sold - most likely for more than the club brought him in for. Best case scenario he fulfills his potential and becomes a regular fixture for the club he originally signed for. Barring a catastrophic injury, which is a risk for all players, or a sudden attitude problem, I'd say buying a talent like Wharton for £18m is very low risk. If the Man Utd version of Casemiro and McTominay can be regulars at a supposedly big PL club, Wharton definitely can be.

Bizarre that a bigger club didn't take a punt on Wharton at the price he was being sold for. English, young, cut-price, tons of upside and the price we were willing to sell at was a drop in the ocean to these clubs. Especially for a player who was ready to be a part of a first-team squad, even if only on the bench initially.

Why top 4 when 3-6 ultimately compete for the same prize at the end anyway? If Parker finishes 6th and goes up in the playoffs then it's the same as finishing 4th and doing the same. You're either aiming for autos or playoffs, in terms of ambition - and if it's the latter then it's a case of playoffs and promotion being minimum target or just playoffs.

Just a reminder that personal attacks against individuals or perceived groups on the forum aren't welcome. You can make a point without resorting to insults.

It wasn't a fair result, as we were disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal. Everyone except Burnley fans acknowledges this. With competent officials it's a completely different game. And for the record, in terms of "fair result" it can be balanced to either side. Maybe if we go 2-1 up the Burnley players fire up and pull it back to 3-2. Maybe they collapse and it ends 3 or 4-1 to Rovers. We'll never know, but it should have been 2-1 before half time, so 1-1 is not a fair result.

We really need the same for Brittain as well. Maybe in January.

Honestly I'm fine with that. For too long players in our team have been able to coast on just being "okay". A little competition for places is a good thing and might even give Pickering incentive to improve.

Incredible result against 13 men. We win that with competent officials. Well done to Eustace and the lads on a display that puts to rest the embarrassing memories of our last two matches against this lot. Ref and that linesman should never officiate at this level again. Disgraceful.