For improving the quality of our starting 11, and increasing the financial worth of our squad, getting Rodwell on to a proper contract is arguably just as much of a priority as trying to do a permanent deal for Reed. Jack was great on Saturday and even better in a battling 90 mins at Millwall the week before. The fact he hasn’t played centre back since youth football is baffling, undoubted technical ability aside, his positioning and reading of the game from the back has been bang on. He’s at the stage of his career where this will develop further through playing experience and the signs are that he could forge a really good partnership at the back with Lenihan, something that is a bit of a god send considering Mulgrew’s age & the fact it could possibly save a decent transfer fee this summer. We’re starting to get a small glimpse of why he has commanded two massive transfer fees in the past. We don’t know what Rodwell wants, but if there is a financially viable deal to be done we shouldn’t even be stopping to consider it.

Decent shout that team, not the ideal position or system for Dack as stated above, and definitely not enough defensive cover from him for Bell but its hard to drop him - Tony's call as manager. I think we play at our best with 2 up tops. Arma warrants a run of games playing as a striker and Graham is the ideal partner for him with Nuttall first in waiting. Travis and Reed are also an ideal energetic midfield partnership to make this system work fitness permitting. We need to take the game to them from the first minute. They beat Rotherham 1-0 last week, interestingly Ipswich had 3 shots to Rotherhams 18. Rotherham play with 1 up top and aren't the most creative side. Put them under pressure from the start and our front line should do the business.

Seemed slow and not much of a threat at all on Saturday. Aside from the 2 goals he scored in the FA Cup last week, he's only got 4 goals in over 100 for Millwall with a lot of those games in League One, we could do much much better than him. A poor man's Conway.

Delighted with the 3 points. Rodwell. Lenihan. Travis. Arma. Absolutely immense performances. I don’t mean to open the ‘sell our best player and reinvest in to the squad’ debate but we look so much better playing 4-4-2. With Reed as a permanent addition playing next to Travis, and the addition of a new left back and a natural winger or two, I think we would be a better outfit next season.

Great trip down for the away leg with a really good following from us that day. Our minibus driver nipped out for food in the first half and wasn’t allowed back in to the locked gated away coach area to pick us up so he waited a few streets away. After the game the 16 of us were escorted to the minibus by 9 or 10 policemen whilst the locals literally barked and growled at us - strange place is Bermondsey. Going for a score draw today.

I'd like to go strong by keeping more or less the same side as last Saturday tomorrow . If we're thinking about the league we don't want to lose momentum from the WBA win ahead of two games that we want to win in Millwall and Ipswich. Eitherway we won't be going up or down this season so a decent cup run would be ideal & we have 3000 Rovers travelling who want to see a win.

Likewise. We wouldn't dream of loaning Evans or Smallwood out so doing so with Travis based on recent form and recent line ups would be insane.

Frustratingly, I don’t think our club currently values the January window as much as some of our competition. We don’t need an overhaul but I’m sure teams around us will go out and actively improve their starting 11 in a position or two, allowing them to likely better their league position as well as building an improved platform for starting next season. This makes the ‘let’s save any decent signings til summer as they won’t hit the ground running’ tagline very frustrating as we could be bettering ourselves in the here and now promoting a stronger base window by window. Deals for players currently starting in the Championship might be too difficult however there will be very good opportunities in both cherry picking the better players from the leagues below (see Preston yesterday) or going for players not getting a look in in the Prem. As an example from the top of my head look at Joe Lolley last January - he was making the bench at best for Huddersfield in the Prem, Forest needed a winger and took him for a low fee. He was a starter from then onwards and made a solid impact. This season he's been on fire and is regarded as one of the best players in the league, a great January investment for around 500k. I understand the heavy competition for players and the fact that example isn’t one that you can pluck out every day with ease however it would be nice to see the ambition of signing players within our budget that truly improve the side. I don't think it's unrealistic or simplistic to ask - If we’ve insinuated money is available, why not attempt to spend it now on the players we need in order to not lose momentum and keep on moving forward?

We gave a much better account of ourselves defensively today particularly under pressure towards the end. Still a little shaky in parts but much better. Credit to Mowbray for going 4-4-2 to get us up the pitch at 2-1 also. Again Bell got skinned too many times and lost his man way too many times particularly in the first half, crying out for a left back before any other position this month. Stand out today was Travis. Never stopped and barely put a foot wrong. That was a proper Rovers centre mid peformance. Forget any loan, he should be one of the first names on the team sheet.

Good point well made, but nonetheless we have a lot young players in our Raya's/Nyambe's/Arma's and players such as Bell that are starters in key areas that haven't played at this level before. Not sure half of the players you list there add much in terms of leadership either although they do have games under their belt. Probably better explained as we've made progress in our first season back at this level in which we've made improvements despite not really going through the model last window of signing players who have been there/done that in this league (which I think we should've done given the budget of 10m ish)

It's important to remember we're an inexperienced side with probably 2 players good enough to make a real impact in a promotion quality first 11 (Reed, Dack) so on paper our league position is okay. We're half a season out of league one, and we can probably class ourselves as a mid to lower table championship side not overly worried about relegation which is decent progress. However we have some glaring issues that need improving if Blackburn Rovers are to be anything more than a mid to lower table championship side. Fully agree with other posters - these clearly aren't short term problems & aren’t being picked out from knee jerk reactions. Agree that we absolutely need to form some sort of playing identity to ensure that we have an efficient team approach to every game in which every man knows his role and responsibility. I’m concerned about Rovers defensively more than anything. We're very soft & despite all having some qualities, I don't think any of our back 4 are good enough for this level (Mulgrew is up for debate, Nyambe and Lenihan might be good enough in the future/is Lenihan even a defender?). Key point, we can’t defend to the required levels in this league. We are inept at preventing opposition teams attacking us down the wing to get in to good positions (Nyambe and Bell/Williams are dreadful fullbacks one on one, not helped by the lack of natural wingers who can help them out by instinct) & we're utterly awful at defending the resulting crosses in to the box. We get the basics of defending wrong week in week out which obviously isn’t good enough. I personally think the biggest contributor to this is the inherited squad coupled with recruitment. Simply put if we had the same back 4 as a Middlesbrough type team in the league, man for man, I think we'd be a good 10 points better off, at least. Having a back 4 of that quality would probably be unrealistic this soon back in to our long-term plan but we spent 7 million pound sterling on a 19 year old striker this summer who HASN'T STARTED A SINGLE GAME, the exact opposite of the type of striker that we needed, that striker being probably 5th on the 'Rovers need' list behind defensive players!! With 7 million real quid we could've and should’ve drastically improved that backline to a more than competent level – at least two solid championship fullbacks and the mystery lesser-spotted big nasty centre half. So unless we spend 7 million or more (not a chance) on defenders next month I'll be livid with Mowbray's 18/19 recruitment, at a time when it should've been the best it's been in years given the money we had/have available. Game management is an obvious issue, and we do need to put a lot of work in to improving it with the current crop, but along with improvement in other areas on the pitch, I think this is best remedied by experienced/better players that we don’t yet have. I think Mowbray’s done a good enough job as Rovers manager and I think we’re still on the right path as a club. We need time to build a better squad and I think he deserves the next two windows – although these windows need to be the best yet under him. Defenders that can defend & Wingers that can wing please Tony.

Wrong thread

Deepdale too... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSQf-0S3G1w

Cheers everyone. He didn't like any sort of fuss but he'd be moved by all of this. RIP Dad.

COYB.